FCC Is Told Verizon Underpaid Data Refunds

An independent telecommunications lawyer filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission, claiming that Verizon Wireless had vastly understated the amount it collected from false data charges on customer bills when it agreed to refund the levies in 2010.

The lawyer, Arthur V. Belendiuk, of Washington, said in a petition for investigation that Verizon and FCC documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request contained evidence indicating that the company might have taken $240 million or more from the false charges, more than four times the almost $53 million it agreed to refund. Belendiuk, who frequently represents television stations and broadcasters before the FCC, said the documents produced by Verizon in the investigation indicated that in trying to assess how to fix the problem, the company’s proposed solutions would cost it $8 million to $10 million a month. The documents, Belendiuk said in his petition, indicated that when the company put in place a fix for the flaw, “Verizon’s $1.99 data charge revenues dropped by approximately $8 million per month.” Belendiuk said he had filed the Freedom of Information request and the petition on his own behalf and not for a client, and that he was interested in the case from the time it was disclosed. The settlement itself, as a precedent, “makes a difference for me as an attorney, in knowing how to advise my clients,” he said. A Verizon spokesman, Torod B. Neptune, said that the allegations were without merit, and declined to comment further. FCC officials and the Office of the Inspector General declined to comment.