AT&T agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle...
AT&T agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act when it knowingly overbilled the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Fund, the Justice Department said Thursday. The fund compensates IP Relay service providers for placing calls…
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on behalf of hearing-impaired individuals. Justice had alleged that from December 2009 through December 2011, up to 80 percent of the calls AT&T claimed reimbursement for were ineligible because they didn’t originate in the U.S., or weren’t made by hearing- or speech-impaired people. AT&T’s communication assistants knew the service was being used largely by Nigerian fraudsters, Justice said. AT&T had entered into a consent degree in May with the FCC resolving similar allegations (CD May 8 p11), which were related to today’s announcement, Justice said. AT&T agreed then to pay $18.25 million to settle the FCC investigation. “We will not tolerate abuse of this system,” said Michele Ellison, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. “While we continue to deny the allegations, we concluded that the most productive course was to resolve what was left of the litigation through a voluntary settlement,” an AT&T spokesman said. “This concerns an exceptionally small line of business that we no longer offer."