AT&T To Pay Fine To Settle FCC Lifeline Investigation
AT&T and its former subsidiary Southern New England Telephone agreed to pay $10.9 million in penalties for allegedly overbilling the FCC’s Lifeline program, the FCC said Wednesday in a news release. “An FCC investigation showed that AT&T and its affiliates…
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continued to provide service to landline customers in the program without recertifying the eligibility of the customers within the 35 days required by Lifeline program rules,” the agency said. The violations were uncovered two years ago. An audit found that a number of Lifeline subscribers no longer qualified for the program hadn't been de-enrolled after the annual recertification process for 2012 and 2013, the FCC said. “These subscribers were given one extra month of Lifeline support, and AT&T improperly claimed reimbursement from the government for this extra month.” AT&T said the problem was self-reported. "We discovered this issue in the course of an internal review, voluntarily reported it, and reimbursed the Universal Service Fund about a year ago. We also have implemented process enhancements so this does not happen again."