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Mar. 7, 2008

Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile have both been reportedly involved in a class action lawsuit involving roaming charges and other various fees charged to wireless customers.

In a specific case in Florida, consumers have accused Sprint of charging roaming fees, even when sales reps for the carrier said the customer’s plan included free roaming.

The class action lawsuit alleges that Sprint customers were charged roaming fees for calls placed and received on Sprint’s network, even for calls users made from their home areas.

The carrier is also involved in a similar suit in North Carolina.

At the same time, T-Mobile is also being charged with not adequately disclosing its fees to its customers. Users are challenging that T-Mobile didn't disclose its $18 upgrade fee policy, charged when customers purchase a new handset.

Although T-Mobile’s use of service contract denies customers the right to participate in action suits, a federal circuit court in San Francisco ruled that those terms and conditions are unenforceable in the state of California.

Recently, wireless carriers have also lost some battles around the issue of action lawsuits.

Standard in most wireless service contracts is mandatory arbitration, and customers waive the right to file action suits. Several states have recently ruled that carriers don't have the authority to forbid customers from filing class action lawsuits.

Congress is currently debating which terms of wireless services provider’s contracts that states are allowed to regulate. The FCC is the only body that can oversee telecom rates, but states do have some regulation around other fees wireless carriers can charge their users.

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Source: WN News.

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