Ever looked at your smartphone bill and wondered what those “usage” charges mean? Ever brush it off and just figure you went over on your data plan? Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission accused T-Mobile of making hundreds of millions of dollars by charging users with bogus usage fees. Now, the FTC’s goal is to make sure T-Mobile repays all customers for scamming them. Looks like its best to go with your instinct when wondering if you’re being overcharged.

35 of the 40 percent of the total amount of these bogus charges T-Mobile acquired were from third-party services such as “flirting tips, horoscopes, and celebrity gossip”. T-Mobile customers never signed up for these services which typically cost up to $9.99 in “usage” fees per month, per customer. Most customers didn’t realize these charges were unauthorized because they were hidden, often deep in the 50-page long paper bill. If one were to dive deep enough, they would find a “premium services” portion of the bill, where these third-party service charges lived. They were often identified by names like "8888906150BrnStorm23918". Perhaps this was in effort to confuse customers, or to trick them into passing over them.

You better believe a number of customers noticed the spurious charges and called T-Mobile to question them. But just when you think it’s bad, it gets worse. T-Mobile outright declined refunds to some customers, “offering only partial refunds of two months worth of the charges, and in other cases instructed customers to seek refunds directly from the scammers without providing accurate contact information to do so”. Despite the FTC accusing T-Mobile and demanding refunds, T-Mobile declines wrongdoing. In fact, the company CEO, John Legere, made an online statement saying, “We have seen the complaint filed today by the FTC and find it to be unfounded and without merit”.

Technology can be a dangerous thing, so sometimes it’s best to print out your entire bill to scan through and make sure you didn’t miss anything. Included in the FTC’s press release is an example bill from an actual T-Mobile customer showing the cramming charges they never signed up for. In it you can see how the $9.99 was unidentified and buried under the category of “Usage charges”, and then “Premium Services” 123 pages later. In this case, the customer was hit with trivia-based text messages, yet neither page showed any explanation of this. T-Mobile has resisted settlement overtures and will now face the US government in court.