T-Mobile Customers Fight Arbitration in Location Data Class Action

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T-Mobile customers have filed an opposition to the cell-phone company’s motion to compel arbitration in a class action lawsuit regarding the disclosure of their personal information.

The T-Mobile class action lawsuit argues that more than 50 million customers’ confidential proprietary information (CPI) and customer proprietary network information (CPNI) was disclosed to third parties without their consent.

T-Mobile “is attempting to skirt a public hearing and consolidated recovery by cowering behind its unconscionable arbitration clause that purports to restrict all 50,000,000 T-Mobile users from having a Court determine whether its actions in selling CPI and CPNI to shady data aggregators and data resellers was a violation of federal law,” the T-Mobile class action lawsuit asserts.

T-Mobile argues that the plaintiffs consented to T-Mobile’s Terms & Conditions by activating their service which includes an agreement to “arbitrate any and all disputes, including those relating to wireless services and T-Mobile’s privacy policy.”

The plaintiffs’ opposition states that T-Mobile’s arbitration clause is “unconscionable” because they lacked a meaningful choice. The T-Mobile customers argue that there are four cell phone carriers in the U.S. that offer nationwide wireless services and they all bury their individual arbitration agreements in their terms and conditions.

The plaintiffs further claim that they did not have a choice when they agreed to the terms and conditions that were pressed upon them in exchange for cell phone service.  

“As a result, the contract Named Plaintiffs entered into with T-Mobile was procedurally unconscionable because it and all wireless carriers provide Named Plaintiffs and around 400,000,000 other cell phone subscribers no meaningful choice but to agree to the contract presented,” the plaintiffs argue.

In addition, the plaintiffs allege that T-Mobile’s Terms and Conditions are excessively long.  The plaintiffs say that the five pages of terms that T-Mobile submitted in this case appears to have been changed from its original length. 

In addition, according to the plaintiffs, the font size has been reduced from the original version available online.

Also, the plaintiffs say that the terms and conditions do not include the full text of the numerous hyperlinks which were embedded into the document. The plaintiffs calculate that it would take T-Mobile customers 67 minutes to read the original T-Mobile Terms and Conditions.

“71-pages, 20,116 words and 67 minutes is too long for a consumer contract to read and understand, especially where a limited portion thereof contains a waiver of the right to appear in Court and assert that your rights have been violated under federal law,” the plaintiffs opposition brief asserts.

The plaintiffs also allege that T-Mobile’s arbitration clause, “applies to any and all disputes involving the protection of tens of millions of customers’ sensitive personal information.”  The plaintiffs state that the arbitration provision is overly broad and unreasonably favors T-Mobile.

The plaintiffs conclude their brief by stating, “If proven true, the allegations of the Complaint would uncover an industry-wide wholesale disregard toward subscriber privacy rights in exchange for additional quarterly profit.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Cory L. Zajdel, Jeffrey C. Toppe, and David M. Trojanowski of Z Law LLC. 

The T-Mobile Data Sharing Class Action Lawsuit is Shawnay Ray, et al. v. T-Mobile US Inc., Case No. 1:19-cv-01299-SAG, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.