WASHINGTON—The attorney general of the District of Columbia is reportedly suing InPhonic Inc. as a result of more than 2,000 consumer complaints filed against the company during the past three years.
The attorney general filed suit against InPhonic yesterday in D.C. Superior Court, according to the Washington Post, which said that the lawsuit was based on 2,210 complaints to the D.C. Better Business Bureau. Of those, InPhonic resolved about 1,600. About 1,400 of the complaints involved refund practices, advertising and selling practices, or credit or billing problems.
According to the Post, the suit in particular singled out InPhonic’s rebate practices, saying that the company made rebates “difficult or impossible” for customers to obtain. On example from 2004 alleges InPhonic required that consumers send in a wireless bill at least 120 days old to qualify for certain rebates—but at the same time, the document had to be postmarked within 120 days of service activation in order to get the rebate.
InPhonic representatives did not immediately return phone calls for comment. The Post quoted a written statement from Greg Cole, InPhonic’s senior vice president and corporate treasurer, that said the company believed it “provided clear and sufficient information, advice and direction to our customers” and that “anytime you’re dealing with millions of customers, as we are, there are going to be occasional concerns.”
InPhonic sells wireless phones and services from multiple manufacturers and carriers through Web sites such as wirefly.com and A1wireless.com, and also has a mobile virtual network enabler platform. The company saw losses of $32.3 million in 2004 and $38.2 million in 2005, according to its latest annual report.
