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Text Messaging Feature Causes Suit for T-Mobile USA

T-Mobile USA Inc is now being bombarded with several allegations on their text messaging feature. In fact, a lawsuit has already been filed in the Seattle District Court against T-Mobile USA Inc by these consumers who receive text messages that they did not request on their plan. They claim that they are charged for receiving these text messages.

According to the lawyers of the complainants, including Maria Detwiler, T-Mobile did not allow the removal or disabling of their feature that uses text messaging in the account of their customers, even if the customer expressed no interest in having it in their plans since they have no plans of sending or receiving these messages. Furthermore, those T-Mobile customers who did not subscribe to their messaging plans have to pay for each text message they receive, even if they did not solicit them. These lawyers and their clients believe that T-Mobile deliberately deceived their customers when they made their policies on text messaging by billing them in small amounts of money for services that they do not use or solicited.

They also allege that the policies of T-Mobile USA on text messaging violated federal laws on telecommunications as well as the Consumer Protection Act on Unfair Business Practices that the state of Washington implements which apply to T-Mobile USA since they are based in Bellevue, Washington. No figure was stated on how much the complainants are claiming for damages.

A spokesperson for T-Mobile USA did not give any comments on this issue.

The dawn of text messaging in the USA has met a lot of issues with regards to its charging and payment scheme. In fact, giving a fee for messages received that are not even solicited is not foreign to these telecommunication companies. A solution that is being implemented by Sprint Nextel Corp and Verizon Wireless is giving their customers a remedy to exclude the text message feature from their plans. AT&T Mobile gave no comment on this matter.

Detwiler declares on her claim that she requested T-Mobile USA to remove the feature of text messaging on her handset but they refused to do it.

Attorney General of South Dakota Larry Long cautions the users of mobile phones to be aware and vigilant in inspecting their bills to detect those charges on unsolicited text messages that were received. He further stated that there are already numerous complaints by cell phone users to the Consumer Protection Division on receiving text messages that they did not subscribe to such as images, new ring tones, daily jokes service, horoscopes, among others.

These text messages appear on the bill under the category on download. They usually have a recurring fee monthly that are not easily seen in your bill. Also, having no subscription to the text messaging service means that in the event you do receive a message, you will be charged for it individually.