Lawsuit Says Sprint Overcharging For Its 'Premium Data' Service

A class action lawsuit charges that Sprint has wrongly charged millions of customers a $10 per month “Premium Data Add-On” fee, even though the customers contract provides for “unlimited” data transfer at a fixed price.

The suit lists 25 separate data plans that promise “unlimited domestic web access,” unlimited domestic text and “all you can stream, browse email, chat watch and game on the Sprint network.”

But on June 4, 2010, when Sprint began selling its HTC EVO 4G mobile phone, it began charging the “Premium Data Add-On” fee of $10 per month to customers whose contracts already entitled them to unlimited data.

The suit charges that the “Premium Data Add-On” is nowhere defined in Sprint's terms and conditions and alleges that it is simple “a made-up term that Sprint created to disguise the fact that it was simply charging an additional fee for data services for which customers had already paid and which was already obligated to provide.”

While $10 may not mean much to an individual customer, it adds up quickly if you, like Sprint, have 42.8 million subscribers. The suit estimates that more than a million customers are being charged the new fee, translating to $120 million in new revenue for Sprint.

Plaintiff Gretha Wilkerson of Vallejo, Calif., said that she subscribes to the Sprint Everything Plus Data Share 3200 plan for her four lines. Wilkerson said that so far, she has been overcharged $35 in “Premium Data” charges.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.