Tag: Lifeline

Law enforcement sirens

Trouble At Q Link

Christian 29 Comments

On Wednesday, investigators from multiple federal agencies raided the office of Q Link Wireless and Hello Mobile. While I’m not sure what’s going on, I’m suspicious investigators are looking into possible misuse of the government’s Lifeline program.

The program offers telecom providers subsidies to help low-income consumers pay for phone or internet service. Fraud isn’t anything new for Lifeline. The FCC recently caught Sprint misusing the program. Sprint’s misuse ultimately lead to a $200 million fine.1

CBS4 covered the raid and shared this quote from Ivan Ramirez, a member of one of the agencies involved in the investigation:

We are looking into how they provide their services…If they are to provide a service that is backed by the federal government there are certain stipulations and guidelines that must be met. If they’re not meeting those guidelines or there are some situations where anomalies pop up somewhere we’re going to come in and look.

The websites for Q Link and Hello Mobile were down when I tried to access them on Wednesday, but both websites are back online now. This latest incident only adds to my reservations about both carriers. Just a few weeks ago, I was discussing Hello Mobile and shared my two cents about the company:

I’ve just been so floored by its [Hello Mobile’s] unprofessionalism…seen an outrageous number of customer support horror stories relative to the company’s size…Hello Mobile responded horribly to what was already a pretty unimpressive security failing…the company (or someone it hired) seems to have left spam comments on my site.

A Reddit comment gives a feel for the frequency of the customer support fiascos. Ars Technica covered the security issue. One of my blog posts discusses the spam comments.

Hat tip to Joe Paonessa of BestMVNO who alerted me about this story.

FCC Hits T-Mobile With A $200 Million Fine For Sprint’s Abuse Of The Lifeline Program

Christian

The FCC fined T-Mobile $200 million for Sprint’s abuse of the Lifeline program. Under the Lifeline program, wireless carriers can get a nearly $10 subsidy for each eligible, low-income American they provide phone service to. Often, the Lifeline subsidy is large enough for carriers to offer basic service at no cost to eligible consumers.

According to the Lifeline program rules, carriers are only supposed to get subsidies for lines that are in active use. Lines that go unused are supposed to become ineligible for a subsidy. Here’s how the FCC explains the rationale for rules about usage:

The FCC developed this and other rules after investigations showed that companies were aggressively selling free Lifeline service, knowing that they would get paid each month even if consumers didn’t use their phones. Since there was no bill, consumers had no incentive to relinquish the subscription.

Before Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile, the carrier was receiving subsidies for almost a million lines that we’re in violation of the usage rules. Since T-Mobile now owns Sprint, T-Mobile is on the hook for the FCC’s $200 million fine. The FCC’s press release describes the fine as the “largest fixed-amount penalty to be paid in Commission history.”