DENVER-A Denver District Court has certified a class-action lawsuit against AT&T Wireless Services Inc., claiming the carrier’s delayed billing for roaming calls violated its contracts with certain Digital One Rate customers.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the District Court of the City and County of Denver, claims that AT&T Wireless’ billing practices allow calls made or received on another carrier’s network to be accounted for in the month they were reported to AT&T Wireless by the other carrier and not in the month the calls were made.
The lawsuit notes the delayed billing process caused subscribers to incur charges for roaming calls that would not have been incurred if the calls were billed in the month in which the subscriber actually placed the call or if the calls had not been a roaming call.
Due to the practice, the lawsuit claims AT&T Wireless is in breach of its customer contracts and seeks to recover the additional airtime charges incurred by subscribers.
The class-action trial, which is reported to include more than 600,000 members, is scheduled for April 19. Customers who signed up for AT&T Wireless Digital One Rate prior to March 1, 1999, and remained subscribers until at least Dec. 23, 1999, are automatically included unless they ask to be excluded.
Nextel Communications Inc. and Sprint PCS are defendants in 11 class-action billing lawsuits. Nextel’s cases are pending in federal courts in California, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Consumers have sued Sprint PCS for alleged billing misrepresentation in Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
In July, Nextel and Sprint PCS settled a lawsuit with the Missouri attorney general on how they break out taxes and fees related to federal mandates on consumer bills.
