T-Mobile USA faces mobile billing lawsuit

Another day, another mobile content billing lawsuit: T-Mobile USA is the latest operator to face legal action following allegations subscribers were billed for wireless services without their consent. The class action complaint, moved from California state to federal court this week, alleges that plaintiffs Robin Moore and Crystal Butler were unfairly charged for mobile content services provided by T-Mobile partners including Flycell and Ringazza: "Defendant T-Mobile caused plaintiff Moore's cellular phone to include the unauthorized charge of $9.99 per month for Ringazza, and similarly caused plaintiff Butler's cellular phone bill to include the unauthorized charge of $9.99 for Flycell," the suit reads. "In doing so, defendant T-Mobile omitted necessary information from plaintiffs' cellular phone bills … including the means to contact the offending third-party company, such as a toll-free number." The suit goes on to state "T-Mobile benefits from this practice by taking a share of the monies collected."

Earlier this week, Sprint Nextel was slapped with a similar class action suit [1] alleging the carrier charged subscribers for unauthorized mobile content purchases while failing to adopt procedures requiring customer authorization before download fees are assessed. In March, rival AT&T Mobility agreed to refund [2] thousands of Florida consumers more than $10 million following accusations the operator billed subscribers for mobile content services advertised as free.

For more on the T-Mobile suit:
- read this RCR Wireless News article [3]