The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has started issuing partial refunds to former customers of AT&T who were covered by a settlement over the company’s data throttling practices several years ago.
The action comes five years after AT&T agreed to settle an FTC investigation over improper data throttling practices and misleading consumer advertising regarding some of its wireless plans.
AT&T agreed to issue $60 million in refunds and bill credits to customers, and doled out $52 million to customers who still had wireless service through the company as of 2020. But around 267,000 former customers who submitted valid claims still haven’t been paid, a situation that the FTC is now remedying.
Around 213,000 former AT&T customers will be paid via checks, while another 54,800 will be issued a refund via PayPal, the FTC said this week. Collectively, former AT&T customers with valid claims will receive $6.3 million in refunds, the agency said.
The FTC’s investigation centered around claims made by AT&T in marketing materials about its wireless service — specifically, that customers could enjoy unlimited data. Absent from AT&T’s commercial messaging was that many of those plans included thresholds that would throttle or deprioritize a customer once they used a certain amount of data within a billing cycle.
“AT&T promised unlimited data, without qualification, and failed to deliver on that promise,” Andrew Smith, the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement issued after the agency resolved its case.
“While it seems obvious, it bears repeating that Internet providers must tell people about any restrictions on the speed or amount of data promised,” Smith affirmed.
The FTC said more than 3.5 million current and former AT&T customers were subject to unexpected wireless data throttling. As part of the settlement, AT&T agreed to make things clearer to customers when they purchase wireless plans that include data throttling provisions.
