T-Mobile Faces Text Messaging Lawsuit
January 31, 2008 | by Nick Mokey
Users forced to pay for incoming text messages they don't want are suing T-Mobile over their inability to disable text service.
T-Mobile came under fire on Wednesday from a mob of angry users who are fed up with being charged for receiving text messages they don’t want. Consumers recently filed a class action lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in Seattle, claiming that T-Mobile is breaking the law by offering no option to opt out of text service, yet continuing to charge for received messages that users cannot control. According to RCR Wireless News, the plaintiffs in the suit allege that T-Mobile’s texting policy violates federal telecom law and Washington state’s consumer protection-unfair business practices act. “T-Mobile, the party with the superior bargaining power, has carried out a wrongful business scheme regarding text messaging to deliberately cheat a large number of consumers out of individually small sums of money,” the plaintiffs claim. T-Mobile representatives declined to comment on the situation when approached by RCR. Other major U.S. cell providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, all allow users to disable text messaging on their service plans, prevented them from being charged for unwanted text messages.
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Nathan on Feb 8th, 2008 at 3:15 AM:
I work for T-Mobile, and as bad as I hate to see the company I work for go through a lawsuit, I must side with the consumer on this one. I work in customer care and deal with this on a daily basis. Through customer care, we actually do not have a way to remove the text feature, that is the way your voicemail notification comes through. Through all of the systems that are available with customer care, WE DO NOT HAVE THE OPTION TO REMOVE. I, however, wished we did. It would make the lives of those receiving the messages much easier, and not to mention the parents who have teens that do not want them texting, also it would save me the headache everyday of telling people, sorry I cannot remove that.
Leo on Mar 14th, 2008 at 11:27 AM:
T-Mobile ripped me off. Had the promotion deal of unlimited txting for family $20. Then when my dad wanted out of contract and then I had to sign up for a contract. They said they would keep it on there but when signing back up they denied me. They took away the promotion deal. $15/phone for unlimited txting. Couldn't get a family plan due to credit, so then single phone charged phone more just to have tmobile-to-tmobile free calling. Came out to be $70 for single line with everything i wanted. When just got out of a contract ended that was $120 for 3 phones. unlimited txt, 2000 mins, mobile-to-mobile.
So I decided not to get back with T-mobile. Ripping me off.
Went to Cricket, but over priced cells and bad service reception with late text messages. They keep giving me the same excuse that their network is having trouble which will be soon fixed.
Got problems with every cell phone network.
Josh on May 1st, 2008 at 2:06 PM:
First off, Leo, read what you just wrote. It doesn't make much sense at all. And yeah, if you have to terminate a line and change the contract, you're going to miss out on those promo deals, that's how it is with every cell provider. Second of all, I know it's kind of b.s. not being able to block all incoming text messages, but that's because T-Mobile uses the text message system for over-the-air updates and other changes. Also, it's practically impossible to call anybody with 1 bar of signal, but a text message will always go through, so they prefer to keep it active in case of emergencies. It's in the fine print when you sign the contract, and these customers are just trying to get money out of another corporation. These are the same kind of people that sued McDonald's for the coffee being too hot. It's retarded, honestly. How hard is it to tell your friends NOT to text you?
Vince on May 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 AM:
"How hard is it to tell your friends NOT to text you?"
Very hard, as most of the unwanted messages I receive on my T-mobile phone are spam and do not come from my friends. Do you want an example? Here's the only message (thank God!) I received this month:
"Is this Patty?"
I have no idea who it came from and I am not Patty. I was charged 15 cents to receive this message plus an additional $1.35 for Taxes and Surcharges, which, mind you, was not the usual tax that you pay on the entire bill, but an additional tax/surcharge that was applied for receiving ONE TEXT MESSAGE. So, I have to pay $1.50 because some idiot wanted to know if I was Patty. Why do I have to pay? Why can't I just stop this nonsense??
Do you think it's fair for a provider to force its subscribers to pay for unwanted messages? How would you feel if the Post Office forced you to pay when you receive unwanted junk mail? Same thing.
I got fed up and called Mr. Gignac, who is the attorney working on the class action lawsuit. I told him that I wanted to opt in. Too bad T-mobile has to learn the hard way.
Erica on Jun 3rd, 2008 at 1:28 PM:
I am so disappointed with T-Mobile. Over the past year my minutes have been continually incorrect. I had never really noticed it, but after I got up to a 1000 minutes a month, and I don't talk on the phone that much. I upgraded my plan and found that my MyFaves weren't registering. I called a representative and asked her not to upgrade me until after she had calculated my minutes. Of course she upgraded me anyway although I hadn't gone over. This went on for almost a year. Then in May I got my bill for $437.21, and was like "What the h-e double hockey sticks!" I found out that I was being billed for two months instead of one my minutes were off. I called and reported it and have all the calls logged. I asked if I could still use the phone, and was told that since this was an error on T-mobiles part then I would incur the overages because they was no way to tell until the minutes were fixed. Now they want me to pay $437 for all of their mistakes.
How can I sue T-Mobile??
Please review your minutes carefully and make sure you are not being cheated because MyFaves sometimes don't register, and neither do the Mobile-to-Mobile sometimes.
T-mobile is a garbage company and they are out to rip people off. The customer service is horrible and they don't care at all about the customers who are spending hundreds and maybe thousands a year for their service.
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Darrin on Feb 5th, 2008 at 4:56 PM:
I own a t mobile wing phone they should have a feature to shut it off when u dont want any texts on the phone itself !