I have a theory, which is unsupported (as far as I know) by the scientific community, but I like to tell everyone about it anyway. Here it goes: companies can only minimize their gains by minimizing their costs to a point. Once they reach that sweet spot, they start exploring less than ethical ideas to save a buck. In short you can only squeeze a buck so far, and eventually you start stealing bucks from other people.
A lawsuit filed by Patrick Hendricks argues that AT&T is artificially inflating data usage by their customers, and charging them overages. He’s filed a lawsuit against the company, and he’s hoping the judge lets them make it a class-action case. Hendricks isn’t basing his claims on unsubstantive evidence either. He hired a consulting firm, and according to their findings, AT&T over-estimates usage by 7 to 14 percent on average, and in some cases by as much as 300 percent. I bet my “theory” doesn’t sound so crackpot now, does it!
During a 10-day stretch, the same consulting firm found that AT&T billed a new iPhone’s account for approximately 2.2MB of data transfers, even though the smartphone had had all push notification and location services disabled, no e-mail account configured, and no active apps.
The lawsuit is pending, and there’s no proof that AT&T is actually overcharging customers, with the obvious exception of Hendricks’ findings, so let’s reserve some judgement for now.
That being said, how many of you would be surprised to find out that Hendricks’ claims are true?
I certainly wouldn’t.
Article Via Macworld
