AT&T agrees to refunds over 'free' content

AT&T Mobility has agreed to refund thousands of Florida consumers more than $10 million following accusations the operator billed subscribers for mobile content services advertised as free. Per terms of the settlement, AT&T agreed to police its agreements with third-party advertisers to make certain consumers understand precisely what they will be charged for services like texting and ringtones, instituting new safeguards to make third-party pricing clearer and billing more transparent. AT&T will also pay the state $2.5 million and contribute $500,000 toward consumer education on safe Internet use.

"[Consumers] will download this thinking it's free, because the advertising that's on the Internet often says it's free," said Florida attorney general Bill McCollum in an interview with The Tampa Tribune. "In many ways, it's fraudulent because it advertises this as free when it's not." McCollum said his office is now pursuing similar settlements with operators Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile and Alltel Wireless: "We have not entered negotiations with them yet, but we will," he said. "We will be asking them to do exactly what is being done by AT&T Mobility."

AT&T will begin mailing refund notices to subscribers during the next few weeks--the total refund will range anywhere from $10 million to $45 million, depending on the volume of customers claiming they were wrongly billed. "This is not content that was offered or sold by AT&T," company spokesman Marty Richter told The Tampa Tribune. "The agreement is voluntary. We've been in compliance with most of the stuff that's in this agreement for some time."

For more on the AT&T settlement:
-read this Tampa Tribune