AT&T International Roaming Fee Class Action

A class action lawsuit in California claims AT&T charges “exorbitant” international roaming fees on calls that customers don’t even answer, and structures its bills so that customers can’t tell which charges are for unanswered calls. The lawsuit also claims AT&T hides from customers how they can avoid these fees.

The lead plaintiff in the case, a Los Angeles resident, claims that while he was traveling in Belgium in May 2005, he was charged $12.90 for calls he did not answer or place. After he complained, AT&T reversed $8 of the charges, but still did not provide an adequate explanation for why those charges were incurred in the first place. Then, while traveling in Montreal three months later, the plaintiff was charged $15.81, partly for calls he did not answer. He was then billed $92.72 in roaming fees in February and March 2007, but the bill did not indicate which of these charges were for calls that he did not answer. Many of these charges, the lawsuit says, went unnoticed because of the way they were purposefully structured on the bill.

According to the class action lawsuit, AT&T misleads customers into believing that they will not be charged for incoming calls while they’re abroad if they do not accept or miss the calls. AT&T representative are not trained to say, and don’t tell customers, that they will incur charges for calls they don’t answer while they’re traveling abroad, even when their phone is off or in flight mode, the lawsuit says.

“Many AT&T consumers were also charged double for unanswered incoming calls while roaming abroad, first for the ‘incoming’ leg of the call (from the caller to the customer’s mobile phone) and a second time for the ‘outgoing’ leg — i.e., forwarding the call back to AT&T’s U.S. voice mail platform. Thus, a one-minute voice mail would cost a customer twice the rate a one minute call would cost.”

The class action lawsuit alleges AT&T violated federal truth-in-billing laws; engaged in false advertising, deceptive trade practices and breach of contract; among other things. It is seeking damages for class members, including at least $50 for false advertising. A copy of the AT&T International Roaming Fee Class Action lawsuit can be read here.