Full Recovery Settlement of T-Mobile Overcharging Case

The Miller Law Firm P.C. and Chimicles & Tikellis LLP filed a complaint alleging that defendant T-Mobile overcharged its subscribers by billing them for data access services even though T-Mobile’s subscribers had already paid a flat rate monthly fee of $5 or $10 to receive unlimited access to those various data services.  The data services include Unlimited T-Zones, Any 400 Messages, T-Mobile Web, 1000 Text Messages, Unlimited Mobile to Mobile, Unlimited Messages, T-Mobile Internet, T-Mobile Internet with corporate My E-mail, and T-Mobile Unlimited Internet and Hotspot. Chimicles & Tikellis LLP and the Miller Law Firm defeated a motion by T-Mobile to force resolution of these claims via arbitration and successfully convinced the Court to strike down as unconscionable a provision in T-Mobile’s subscription contract prohibiting subscribers from bringing class actions. After that victory, the parties reached a settlement requiring T-Mobile to provide class members with a net recovery of the full amount of the un-refunded overcharges with all costs for notice, claims administration, and counsel fees paid in addition to class members’ 100% net recovery. The gross amount of the overcharges, which occurred from April 2003 through June 2006, is approximately $6.7 million.  To date, T-Mobile has refunded approximately $4.5 million of those overcharges.  A significant portion of those refunds were the result of new policies T-Mobile instituted after the filing of the Complaint.  Pursuant to the Settlement, T-Mobile will refund the remaining $2.2 million of un-refunded overcharges. 

More information about this Settlement can be found on the website dedicated to this Settlement— www.wongsettlement.com.  If you have any questions regarding your particular claim in this case, you can contact the Settlement Claims Administrator at Wong v. T-Mobile Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 3266, Portland, OR 97208-3266.  On August 10, 2007, the Court preliminarily approved the settlement.  The Court will conduct a hearing to consider granting final approval of the settlement on December 11, 2007