Walmart, TracFone Accused Despite Promises Of Unlimited Data

A class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California after users of a joint Walmart-TracFone Straight Talk cell phone accused the companies of throttling, or limiting, data usage.

Users have also experienced sudden termination without notice or warning.

The Straight Talk phones were created in 2009 and advertised, according to the suit, that they would provide ‘unlimited’ data. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that in reality, customers are routinely penalized for usage that is excessive in the eyes of the provider and have had their data usage slowed via ‘throttling’. The amount of data usage required to prompt throttling is, according to the complaint, “internally established, but undisclosed,” and users who complain have allegedly been accused of misusing the service by representatives from TracFone. Users have also experienced sudden termination without notice or warning.

Throttling itself is not as controversial an issue as might first appear. The practice of slowing a user’s access to data during peak or busy hours is intended to prevent undue burden on networks . When fully disclosed it is perfectly legal - and in many cases, the practice is far preferable to ‘capping’, where a user’s data usage is strictly limited, and is cut off after reaching its limit. In the case against Straight Talk, it is the alleged failure to reveal throttling policies that has some users up in arms.

A user cited in the case, Edward Tooley, switched to the service from a competitor, attracted by the lack of throttling. Whereas his previous provider applied a strict 2.5GB high speed data limit, after which service could be throttled, Straight Talk was advertised, he claims, as truly unlimited. Nevertheless, he found his service was being throttled, resulting in low speeds, after streaming videos and music, among other ‘lighter’ uses. This reportedly occurred within only a few days of activating the service, which was later terminated with no prior warning.

The class action suit alleged that throttling was not properly disclosed in terms and conditions or marketing tools, and that enough affected customers exist to form a class membership.