AT&T Data Throttling Settlement: $60 Million in Unlimited-Data Refunds

Who qualifies

• The 2020 automatic round covered current and former AT&T customers who had signed up for an unlimited data plan before 2011 and were throttled. Current customers received a bill credit; former customers received a check. No claim was required.
• The 2023 claims round was narrower. It was open only to former AT&T customers who held an unlimited data plan at some point between October 1, 2011 and June 30, 2015, experienced throttling, and had never received a bill credit or payment from AT&T in this matter.
• That second round existed because AT&T could not reach everyone — roughly $7 million of the fund was left over after the automatic distribution, mostly owed to people who had moved.
• Refunds were partial, not a full refund of what anyone paid for their plan. The amount depended on the fund and the number of eligible people.
• People who stayed on a throttled unlimited plan as current AT&T customers were paid by bill credit in 2020, which is why many never noticed a payment at all.
• Being an AT&T customer today does not qualify you. The conduct at issue ended long before the case settled in 2019.

The AT&T throttling settlement — what happened

1. 1

   October 28, 2014 — the FTC sues AT&T

   The FTC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (No. 3:14-cv-04785, FTC File No. 122 3253) alleging that AT&T failed to adequately disclose to unlimited data plan customers that their speeds would be reduced once they hit a monthly usage threshold. The FTC said throttling began in 2011 after as little as 2 gigabytes of use in a billing period, and had affected more than 3.5 million customers by October 2014.

2. 2

   2015 to 2018 — AT&T fights whether the FTC can sue it at all

   AT&T argued the FTC had no jurisdiction over it because of the common carrier exemption that covers traditional telephone service. The district court denied AT&T's motion to dismiss on March 31, 2015. On February 26, 2018 the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed that ruling and held the FTC did have authority to challenge AT&T's marketing of mobile data service, letting the case proceed. That ruling is why the case took five years to reach a settlement.

3. 3

   December 4, 2019 — the $60 million order is entered

   The court entered a stipulated order requiring AT&T to pay $60 million into a fund for partial refunds. The Commission vote approving the order was 4-0-1, with Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter recused. The order also bars AT&T from advertising the speed or amount of its mobile data — including calling it "unlimited" — without prominently disclosing material restrictions, rather than burying them in fine print or behind a hyperlink.

4. 4

   2020 — about $52 million paid automatically, with no claim form

   AT&T used the fund to credit the bills of current customers and mail checks to former customers who had been throttled on a legacy unlimited plan. Nobody had to apply. This is the round most people were paid in, and because a bill credit is easy to overlook, many affected customers never realized they had received anything.

5. 5

   January 19, 2023 — the FTC opens a claims process for the leftovers

   AT&T had not been able to reach everyone it owed, leaving about $7 million in the fund. The FTC opened an online claims process at ftc.gov/ATT for former customers who had an unlimited plan between October 1, 2011 and June 30, 2015, were throttled, and had never been paid. Claims had to be submitted by May 18, 2023.

6. 6

   April 11, 2024 — the final $6.3 million goes out

   The FTC sent payments totaling nearly $6.3 million to the 267,734 former customers who filed a valid claim before the deadline. Checks had to be cashed within 90 days and PayPal payments accepted within 30 days. That distribution completed the settlement.

7. 7

   If you believe you were owed and never paid

   Call JND Legal Administration at 1-877-654-1982 and ask whether a payment was issued in your name. There is no way to file a late claim. The FTC never asks anyone to pay a fee, transfer money, or hand over bank or Social Security details to release a refund — anyone who does is running a scam.

8. 8

   Don't confuse this with the AT&T data breach settlement

   AT&T has a separate, much larger $177 million class action settlement over customer data exposed in 2024. It is a different case, a different fund, and a different eligibility group. If you are searching for an AT&T settlement you can still act on, that is the one to read about — and ClaimBee tracks both, so you get told which of a company's settlements actually applies to you.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and official records

Every figure and date on this page was taken from the primary records below — court dockets, agency releases, and the settlement administrator's own notices. Payout averages we describe as averages are calculated from the official totals, not reported per-person estimates.

• FTC — AT&T Data Throttling Refunds page (267,734 payments, $6.3 million, April 2024)
• FTC case record — FTC v. AT&T Mobility LLC, File No. 122 3253, with the full docket timeline
• FTC press release — AT&T to pay $60 million over "unlimited data" promises
• FTC press release — the January 2023 claims process, eligibility window and May 18, 2023 deadline