The Federal Trade Commission has revealed the details of its settlement with AT&T. The FTC says that AT&T will pay out $60 million to current and former subscribers who were affected by the carrier’s misleading “unlimited data” promises.
AT&T and the FTC first reached their settlement back in August, but details of the deal have only been announced today. The FTC initially sued AT&T in 2014 over its deceptive unlimited data claims, saying that the carrier failed to inform customers that they would face throttling after a certain amount of data use.
For its part, AT&T argued that only a small number of customers were affected by throttling and that those users were notified via text message when the throttling kicked in. The carrier accused the FTC of making “baseless and baffling” claims.
Today’s announcement from the FTC details that AT&T will deposit $60 million into a fund that will provide “partial refunds to both current and former customers” affected by the unlimited data claims. This includes those who had originally signed up for unlimited plans prior to 2011 but had their data access throttled.
The FTC says that current AT&T customers will receive a bill credit, while former customers will receive a check:
This means that if you were an early iPhone user on AT&T, and had unlimited data, you might be getting a refund from the carrier, though specific amounts are unclear. Read the FTC’s full announcement here.
