Apple builds legal case against Qualcomm piece by piece, chipmaker on the defensive

The Apple vs Qualcomm legal war over "double-dipping, extra-reward" licensing systems in place for years is looking more and more serious by the day.

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Advocacy group says T-Mobile sales goals led to insurance fraud

CEO John Legere has built T-Mobile’s empire upon a mountain of unethical pressure tactics in the backrooms and show floors of its stores. It’s also padded by accounts and services siphoned into customers’ bills that no one asked for.

So claims Change to Win, an advocacy group for consumer and labor issues. And if there’s anything that is controvertible, it’s that the Un-carrier was the subject of the most complaints to the Federal Trade Commission in 2016.

Data requested under the Freedom of Information Act from the FTC shows that over the past three and a half years (that last bit marked the first half of 2016) T-Mobile consistently had the most consumer complaints out of the four major US carriers.

It had 21 complaints per million subscribers in 2013, then 29 in 2014. The number skyrocketed to 60 in 2015 and in the early part of this year alone, there were 95 complaints for every million subscriptions — going by the company’s numbers, that meant that over 6,400 complaints were lodged, or, a whopping 18 percent of the 35,000 or so complaints put against the industry over the past three-years-plus.

When it comes to fraudulent enrollment claims, T-Mobile customers topped AT&T, Sprint and Verizon — between 2013 and 2016, there were 10.1 complaints per million subscribers. Compare that to AT&T’s 7.1, Sprint’s 5.9 and Verizon’s 5.0.

These claims cover many an add-on that came unwanted or not transparently offered to the customer like an extra line, bundled accessories, data plan upgrades or, most commonly, device insurance. According to an online poll of T-Mobile customers conducted by Change to Win, 36 percent of the sample population of 2,200 respondents reported such extraneous fees and about 56 percent of them said that they paid more per month than the rate Little Magenta advertised.

Pressure has been mounting for sales representatives to push insurance onto customers one overt way or a covert other. 83 percent of a pool of 500 sales reps serving stores in six states told CtW that they were under the gun to cram services and products not explicitly requested by the customer.

One of a handful of associates gave their account of what stringent and heavily-monitored hourly goals did to colleagues:

The fact that there is such extraordinary pressure makes it so you can’t do what’s ethically required. I will do the best possible job that I can do, but the fact that [T-Mobile’s managers] put me in a compromising position and do unethical things is stressful. There’s so much stress and internalized anguish because we can’t meet our goals. And we know we’re smart and capable, but are made to feel inadequate on a daily basis. That’s why we have people out on [off-time ensured by the Family Medical Leave Act ] because of stress and such a high turnover in retail.

The JUMP! program that combined insurance with an early device upgrade scheme was a centerpiece for T-Mobile’s drive for growth, costing $9 or $12 a month. Several associates reported that they added JUMP! to newly-enrolled and unwitting customers to meet managers’ goals, then took the program off after a few days.

“No one says ‘I want to work at T-Mobile to do fraud. But a lot of reps do it because they want to keep their jobs and they want to get the pay they need. They aren’t bad or dishonest people, but there’s just a lot of pressure.”

All of these practices, CtW asserts, account for T-Mobile’s recent props in average revenue per user. Workers are petitioning Legere to address these issues. He has yet to publicly respond.

The nation’s third-largest network by subscriber base has faced its share of consumer controversy with claims against its “no-contract” offerings when it first began its Un-carrier campaign in 2013. Labor conditions have also been a worrisome, ongoing topic.

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FTC pays out to AT&T customers after cramming settlement

If you were on AT&T in 2014 and unwittingly “signed up” for a text service to get your horoscope or love advice or ringtones, you’re about to get some compensation.

The Death Star settled with the Federal Trade Commission a couple of years ago over the practice of cramming third-party subscriptions onto more than 2.7 million customers’ monthly bills without them knowing about it. Tatto and Acquinity, two of the companies running the services involved, also settled in the dispute.

Soon, all those customers will either receive a bill credit (or a check in the case of 300,000 former customers) for all the charges racked — the average payout is $31.

The cramming process usually planted $9.99 a month bill items from Tatto and Acquinity for subscription text services. The FTC alleged that AT&T kept 35 percent of those fees. The Dallas-based cellular service provider settled for $80 million, which makes of most of the refund total.

Payments began December 8.

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FTC suit against AT&T throttling practices tossed out by appeals court

The Federal Trade Commission has lost a fight over mobile data throttling against AT&T.This two-year-old case stemmed over the FTC’s accusation that the carrier needed to inform the commission before slowing down the data speeds of customers using excessive amounts of it on a grandfathered unlimited plan. The agency said that such deceptive practices are prohibited under the Federal Trade Commission Act.The Ninth Circuit court of appeals, however, ordered a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit. ...

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FTC and FCC launch probe of mobile manufacturers and carriers’ security update practices

When not busy trying to force Apple’s hand to needlessly undermine its own mobile OS encryption and device security, the US government occasionally gets a half-decent idea of actually acting in the service of the people.Case in point, a joint FTC/FCC examination of the way smartphone and tablet manufacturers, as well as wireless operators stateside, look for, identify and ...

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FTC issues warning to Android app devs using Silverpush SDK for ad targeting

Another way mobile tech consumers are being targeted for advertising these days — you know, other than being chased around with a tracker and then bombarded with ads every page they visit — is apparently with a “Unique Audio Beacon” that tracks your TV watching habits.Silverpush makes an SDK that has this beacon that tracks embedded audio codes in broadcast television audio signals and has the ...

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FTC may be looking into Google antitrust complaints over Android services

Android continues to dominate the global smartphone market, accounting for something like four out of every five smartphones being sold. With smartphone use as pervasive a part of our lives as it’s become, it’s understandable that government regulators end up taking a close look at Android and Google’s intentions for the platform. That kind of scrutiny has resulted in allegations of antitrust violations before, like we saw last year in Europe, with complaints about unfair Google ...

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FTC makes carrier refund millions over deceptive “unlimited” data

It’s such a simple word, “unlimited.” Yet far, far too often when we’re using it in the context of smartphones and mobile data, it means anything but. Instead, “unlimited” plans still bind you to restrictive terms of service (prohibiting things like running a server over your wireless connection), ban “excessive use,” or start throttling your speeds after a certain point. Here in the US, the FTC has had its eye out for carriers who advertise “unlimited” data but give their users something that falls short, with

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FTC slams AT&T with federal complaint over throttling “unlimited” data

The smartphone industry is full of plenty of gigantic companies, with influence and buckets of money at their disposal. As such, it’s easy to feel a bit like David in the face of Goliath, and even if you have a valid complaint against one of these juggernauts, getting your way can feel like squeezing blood from a stone. Luckily for smartphone users in the US, the Federal Trade Commission has got their back, and we’ve seen recent efforts from it trying to stem unauthorized purchases from the ...

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