Verizon’s TracFone to pay $23.5 million in Lifeline, Emergency Broadband Benefit settlement

Verizon’s TracFone Wireless subsidiary reached a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enforcement Bureau to resolve an investigation into whether the company violated the agency’s Lifeline and Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program rules.  According to the FCC, TracFone’s internal systems: 1) improperly considered a subscriber’s receipt of an inbound text message to constitute qualifying Lifeline usage and 2) improperly claimed support for a group of customers who were enrolled jointly in both the Lifeline and EBB programs, but did not use one of the services in the prior 30-day period. In 2022, TracFone reached a $13.4 million settlement with the FCC and the Department of Justice over allegations that TracFone violated the False Claims Act by signing up more than 175,000 ineligible customers for the Lifeline program during 2012-2015 and that the false claims resulted from TracFone’s “lax oversight and monitoring” of its Lifeline program.