Verizon Wireless to Pay Refunds for Data Charges - NYTimes.com
... Verizon Wireless will pay up to $90 million to 15 million cellphone customers who were wrongly charged, one of the largest-ever refunds by a telecommunications company...I wonder if David Pogue's Nov 2009 NYT column played a role in the settlement. Maybe AT&T will refund me the $5/month I pay to block my son from inadvertent data access.
I'm sure Verizon will still money on the deal, especially after they write off the cost of the refund. (There's no wrongdoing, it's all an accident, so they can write it off). I'm reasonably sure they never explicitly planned this fraud, it was simply a happy accident.
See also:
- Emergence: how entropy and incentives create scams
- Mobile phone fraud - The accidental data charge and other scams (Pogue, 11/2009). This post has a nice collection of similar scams if any DA is interested.
- Gordon's Notes: Emergent fraud: Anthem and automatic payment denials
- Gordon's Notes: 21st century deception and the evolution of the emergent mind
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