Verizon To Pay $25M For Years of 'Mystery Fees'

Ponca City writes "The Washington Post reports that the FCC has reached a record $25 million settlement with Verizon Wireless over the company's wrongly charging subscribers 'mystery' Internet fees over the past several years — the largest settlement in FCC history. With the action, Verizon Wireless's total costs associated with false data fees reached $77.8 million, one of the largest payouts for false business practices in the communications services industry. 'People shouldn't find mystery fees when they open their phone bills — and they certainly shouldn't have to pay for services they didn't want and didn't use,' says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. 'In these rough economic times, every $1.99 counts.' Verizon Wireless said in a news release that its overcharges were inadvertent. 'We accept responsibility for those errors, and apologize to our customers who received accidental data charges on their bills.'"

Verizon also promises...

[Samantha Wright]

"...We promise we won't get caught next time."

I'd RTFA

[morgan_greywolf]

But, apparently, there is no FA to R. Way to go. tim-mahy!

Verizon: We'll pay $0.25M

[Allnighte]

"A spokesperson for Verizon has issued a report correcting the FCC, stating their settlement with the FCC was at a rate of 0.002 cents, not 0.002 dollars [youtube.com], bringing their total liability to $0.25M."

Re:Statistical significance test

[jcl-xen0n]

You know these things happen 'accidentally' because 50% of the time the error is in the customer's favour.....

Haha, good point - I've personally lost count of the number of times my TelCo has given me bonus money for no good reason :}

Re:I'd RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

My hobby (xkcd style):
Mentally tagging events, texts, thoughts etc the way /. would.

Didn't even notice the lack of an FA (I guess that's an indication I'm ready to get an account and stop posting as AC), so... andnothingofvaluewaslost

Re:An insult of a fine

[Pharmboy]

What engineer writes their software to intentionally miscalculate?

I take it you never watched Office Space? [imdb.com] ;)

Re:Back-handed Apology

[hedwards]

This is America, when's the last time you received an apology? Chances are if that the answer is at all recent your either a wife or living in some other land.