On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit alleging that T-Mobile made hundreds of millions of dollars from 2009 to December 2013 by charging customers for shady text message subscriptions.
The third-party merchants peddled subscriptions for celebrity gossip updates, horoscopes, and flirting tips, the FTC said, and many customers did not authorize the charges, which were allegedly obscured on monthly bills. About 40 percent of the customers affected tried to get their money back, which was an "obvious sign to T-Mobile that the charges were never authorized."
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