T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T will pay a combined $10.2 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the carriers falsely advertised some of their wireless plans as “unlimited” and their phones as ‘free.”The deal was announced earlier this week by a coalition of 50 attorney generals led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.“New Yorkers, and all Americans, deserve to know that when they buy a service or product, they will be treated fairly and can trust what the seller is saying,” James says. “AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile lied to millions of consumers, making false promises of free phones and ‘unlimited’ data plans that were simply untrue. “Big companies are not excused from following the law and cannot trick consumers into paying for services they will never receive,” she added. “We will continue to go after companies that hurt everyday Americans and try to take advantage of this basic and critical service.” The investigation reportedly found that “the wireless companies made several misleading claims in their advertising, including misrepresenting ‘unlimited’ data plans that were actually limited, offering ‘free’ phones that came at a cost, and making false promises about switching to different wireless carrier plans.”In addition to the $10 million fine, the agreement requires that future advertisements are “truthful, accurate, and non-misleading” and that plans are only marketed as unlimited “if there are no limits on the quantity of data allowed during a billing cycle,” amongst other requirements.
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The companies are also required to appoint a dedicated representative to work with the attorneys general to address complaints filed by customers and train their customer service representatives to comply with the terms of the agreement. They must also enforce a program to ensure compliance across their teams.This comes shortly after the FCC fined wireless carriers almost $200 million for illegally selling real-time location data about their customers.
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