A class-action lawsuit asserts T-Mobile USA Inc. charged consumers for wireless content they did not ask for, another in a long line of legal challenges against the wireless industry that raise questions about the relationship between cellular operators and third-party content providers.

The litigation, originally filed in May in California state court, was transferred last week to a federal court in Riverside.

“T-Mobile’s conduct is by no means accidental,” the 15-page complaint stated. “As previously alleged, it knows that many of its cellular telephone customers dispute the mobile content provider’s claim that such customer consented to be charged for their mobile content services. T-Mobile further knows that it cannot authenticate such customer’s authority to be billed for such mobile content charges. In light of its knowledge of these facts, T-Mobile’s decision continue to charge its customers for mobile content without taking steps to authenticate the representations of the mobile content providers that the customer’s authority to be charged was obtained constitutes a deliberate and willful scheme to cheat large numbers of people out of small amounts of money.”

T-Mobile was not immediately available for comment.

  Email Article   |   Print Article   |   Permalink  |