[drcy]

The number of times you do something matters. If you leave a banana peal on the kitchen floor and someone slips on it, it's believable when you say it wan an accident. If you leave a banana peal on the floor twenty different times and twenty people slip on them, a judge will no longer believe it was accidental.

People say the police won't go after fraud if it involves only $25. But realize that 1,000 fraudulent sales of $25 each is $25,000.

The FTC is currently legally charging a phone company over a $9.99 overcharge on bills. The company is accused of the practice of bill padding, or trying to sneak under the radar a small surcharge for dubious or non-existent services. The bogus surcharges in bill padding are usually intentionally small so the customer doesn't notice, and the relative few customers who do notice and complain to the phone company often get individual refunds. The FTC isn't legally charging because a customer was overcharged $9.99. They're bringing the suit because customers were overcharged millions of dollars-- $9.99 at a time.

It can be safe to assumed that FTC will argue that if a single customer correctly points out to a company that a charge on his bill is bogus and illegal, it is not enough to refund just that customer. You have to refund everyone who paid that charge. And once it has been pointed to the company out that the charge is illegal, the company certainly can't continue to bill the charge. A company can perhaps reasonably argue ignorance over previous charges, but not for charges after it was informed and refunded the customers who complained.

The phone company has objected to the suit. Not because they say they didn't do the illegal practice-- they admit to doing it--, but because they say they already fixed the billing problem on their own.

Duly note that phone companies are a federally regulated industry and may have more and different rules and laws to follow than other industries.