$2 per megabyte: AT&T mistakenly charged customer $6,223 for 3.1GB of data
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Never do business with AT&T. More than their long history of abuses and unchecked power, they enthusiastically helped the feds with warrantless wiretapping.
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I got hit with a $500 bill from Verizon because of this; I confirmed verbally with a CSR that the charge was allegedly 0.002 cents per Mb well in advance of billing. I and my family haven't been with Verizon since.
Also at that time, Verizon charged different prices per SMS image sent depending on the model of phone that sent the picture. I had a nicer phone at the time so I got charged the more expensive tier. It was like pulling up to a gas station, filling up, and then the cashier telling you the price you are going to pay is more than the posted price because your vehicle is a newer, nicer model.
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I'm sure these things happen all the time. This pales in comparison to the $12k water bill I just had resolved. At least the person who entered the meter number incorrectly took a picture of it so it was easily corrected, but still caused weeks of stress for me. Firstnet has been good for us, and actually does save us money with, thankfully, no billing issues so far.
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SubWoofer2
Ars Tribunus Militum
Can someone tell Elon Musk about this? It looks ideal for his new efficiency department.
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JonnyOneNote
Ars Centurion
What a surprise! It's always AT&T -- adding a llttle bit there, a little bit there to every monthly bill to every customer.
They killed DirecTV with all their "surprise" surcharges and nonsense. And now I suppose they want the FCC and the Supreme Court to "give us back our monopoly! Life was better then! Just ask Donnie Dearest! He'll tell you!"
And of course every Republicant® will MAGGOT® will agree! "Oh, honey, isn't Free-Market Capitalism the best thing since New Coke? Can't wait to get our new bill next month!"
They killed DirecTV with all their "surprise" surcharges and nonsense. And now I suppose they want the FCC and the Supreme Court to "give us back our monopoly! Life was better then! Just ask Donnie Dearest! He'll tell you!"
And of course every Republicant® will MAGGOT® will agree! "Oh, honey, isn't Free-Market Capitalism the best thing since New Coke? Can't wait to get our new bill next month!"
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Are people in the USA really paying 260$ a month for 4 cell phone lines ? As in 60$ a month per line ???
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I've been proudly fleeing AT&T since 1979, when you had to buy long distance.
They keep buying things that I subscribe to and I keep moving on.
They keep buying things that I subscribe to and I keep moving on.
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Let me diagnose the problem for AT&T:
The customer was using the wrong access point name for their mobile data. When they switched plans, their phone was not properly reconfigured to route through the correct APN, and ended up on one probably reserved for roaming customers.
Contact me for the invoice.
The customer was using the wrong access point name for their mobile data. When they switched plans, their phone was not properly reconfigured to route through the correct APN, and ended up on one probably reserved for roaming customers.
Contact me for the invoice.
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Yes. Even the “budget” carriers are generally charging $40+ a month for unlimited text/talk/data per line
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Yes Fines are useless, they will just add that to the cost of doing business column.
Unless the CEO/board get personally punished then they have no motivation to change
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When I visited the US back in the mid 2000s, I couldn't believe that every cell provider charged for incoming and outgoing calls and messages.
Received a text? Oh, that's one off your monthly allowance (or 25c? from memory, if you'd gone over your quota.) Incoming call that lasted 10 mins - that's 10 mins off your allowance, or some hideous per-minute charge if you'd gone over.
I honestly couldn't believe users put up with the utter bullshit of being charged for incoming calls and messages. And then I was surprised that the idea hadn't spread further.
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Not the slightest bit surprising: over many years I must credit at&t with absolute, unwavering consistency in getting every single order wrong at least once; some many more than once.
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Well, AT&T did put on my bill a SIM I did return. For 1 year. The charge was low (compared to the total bill) and buried into their nonsensical bill itemization, so I didn't spot it until I made a deep review of the bills to try to save some bucks.
When I finally found out, the store (both physical and phone) only offered me a discount on a new SIM (which I don't need), so I sent them to hell.
I would LOVE to change operator, but in the liberal America the market competition rules, so In my area there's only ONE working way to have a phone: through AT&T.
Sad story, but fortunately everything is going to change with the new FCC chair appointed by President Camacho.
When I finally found out, the store (both physical and phone) only offered me a discount on a new SIM (which I don't need), so I sent them to hell.
I would LOVE to change operator, but in the liberal America the market competition rules, so In my area there's only ONE working way to have a phone: through AT&T.
Sad story, but fortunately everything is going to change with the new FCC chair appointed by President Camacho.
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In the UK my plan is 22 pounds for unlimited calls, texts and data on my cell phone. That includes hotspot as well. I pay about 44 pounds for my home broadband, unlimited data and a 1gig connection, I can definitely get a better deal when that contract expires. My satellite TV costs around 37 a month.
The real question is: Why do people in the US accept such high prices?
The real question is: Why do people in the US accept such high prices?
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$2/Mb? Try 19c/Kb. Gotta love Telstra (Australia)
To be honest, I was thrilled when I got a GPRS card for my laptop, and it came with a $200 credit for data. It only took 6 transfers to find someone who knew how to find it in the system to apply it.
Edit: 20+ years ago of course. And all credit to the people I was on the phone to. They didn't doubt the credit, they just didn't know how to make it happen and were trying to find the right person to sort it out. And they got there in the end.
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Worst I've ever seen was about 20 years ago when I worked at an AT&T Wireless outsourced call center with an international desk. What happened was a person went to Japan and bought an unlocked phone there. They then put their US SIM in the Japanese phone and started streaming video while international roaming at 7 cents per kilobyte. By the time they got home they had apparently racked up a $200k bill.
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I was thinking this may be a repeat of the famous $0.50 vs 0.5 cent fiasco years ago. The phone company reps couldn't grasp the difference even layers deep into managers.
edit: I see it now it was 0.002 dollar vs 0.002 cent
edit: The original site posting since as xkcd said just because you've heard of something it doesn't mean everyone else has.
edit: I see it now it was 0.002 dollar vs 0.002 cent
edit: The original site posting since as xkcd said just because you've heard of something it doesn't mean everyone else has.
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Back before long-distance calling became included in the base cost, the way companies billed was that essentially everyone used the "standard AT&T tariff" as a baseline, and discounted from there. That standard tariff was some kind of pre-AT&T-breakup rate structure grown at inflation. In around 2005, I was charged $100 for a nine minute phone call by a hotel. This was back when using a cell phone from a hotel room was kind of hit-or-miss, so I had had to make a call using the land line. The manager told me "well we charge the standard AT&T tariff". Needless to say I didn't pay it.
I wonder if the billing still works that way, where if the "unlimited data" box somehow doesn't get checked, some ridiculous, outdated rate gets applied.
I wonder if the billing still works that way, where if the "unlimited data" box somehow doesn't get checked, some ridiculous, outdated rate gets applied.
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You pay for airtime. Why would it make a difference who initiated the call?
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You receive spam calls/texts and have to pay for them?
It matters because you control outgoing interactions - you don't control who calls or messages you.
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How long do you stay on a spam call? Of all the things that are wrong with our telecom costs, that's about 57 on the list.
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We'll have to agree to disagree. It doesn't matter - even 1 second is egregious. I'm forced to actually pay for someone spamming me.... there's something inherently wrong with that.
And with text messages, there's no way whatsoever to control the costs of that.
Of course, with the prevalence of unlimited talk/text it's a moot point, but back in the day it mattered, a lot.
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Mistakenly? Nah, AT&T is very intentional about ripping off the public -- they've had 139 years of experience at it and they do it very well.
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An MVNO running on Three, or a sale price. Smarty's unlimited SIM is £20/mo.
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Wait till anal cyst T**** (the felonious sexual predator) dismantles the FTC and the FCC.
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This sort of thing is what happens when sensible regulations are not enforced, eliminated, and/or never implemented. But, hey we live in a capitalist society so business is king.
I feel for the guy in the article and I know nothing about him, but who we vote for matters for situations like this. And the people this country just put into power are going to do their best to eliminate any consumer protections whatsoever. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so absurd, but you get what you
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Yep! And I think "mobile web" on your little flip-phone was around $1.99/MB of data but that was back when most things loaded in a couple KB of data
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I think you vastly overestimate the sophistication of the systems they use to generate bills.
I'm pretty sure their billing system for cellular data plans is still the one they used to generate bills for long-distance toll calls, only the printing subsystem has been patched to substitute "megabytes" for "minutes."
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FirstNet is more than just another plan. It's specifically a service for first responders.
In fact, it's an independent government agency, the First Responder Network Authority, that was set up to make sure first responders have a reliable, nation-wide network for emergencies. They've partnered with AT&T for supplying that network:
https://www.firstnet.gov/about
One advantage is that the first responders on the service get priority on the network:
https://www.firstnet.com/power-of-firstnet/why-firstnet/priority.html
So it's a service first responders will want to be on for reliability and support during emergencies, not necessarily to save a buck.
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I'm sure some are, but it's pretty trivial to get unlimited everything for $40ish a month if you want, and that normally bundles in some streaming services or subsidized phones as well.
We have three lines with T-mobile, unlimited everything and lots of hotspot data along with a few smartwatches for $150 and that comes with Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV and a lot of international coverage.
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$2/MB? Amateurs. Vodafone Turkey here casually dropping $1,400/MB, although this is also roaming, so totally extra ok.
(was some time ago so hopefully sorted this out by now)
(was some time ago so hopefully sorted this out by now)
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Having managed Foundation Accounts for thousands of users, I can say this issue is not uncommon. Based on the description, AT&T seems to have done a decent job resolving it. While it's understandable that a customer might feel stressed about a $6000 charge, even if only for a few days, this seems like an instance where AT&T deserves credit for resolving the problem - importantly - within the billing cycle. Of course, the customer would have preferred a quick resolution in just one phone call, but just as $6000 is significant for the customer, it’s also a considerable amount for AT&T.
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...and Customer Service may have you call Customer Loyalty. And Customer Loyalty may have you call Billing. And Billing may tell you, "There's nothing we can do, sir. It's only $xxxx, sir, why not just pay it?" Hoo boy, been there.
A lot of folks working for AT&T are good people, though I reserve special thoughts for Billing. In my experience, much of the problem with AT&T is there are too many divisions, too much legacy crap, and too many situations where one hand simply has no idea what the other hand is doing.
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Had that happen once when i worked in wireless, for some reason the customer wanted a blackberry without a required data plan and the sales person at the store figured out how to activate it on a legacy per minute data usage tier. The customer had a much larger bill than this one did It was a mess to process
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I was thinking the officer's entire barracks needed to discuss the billing issue with the closest executive office with a full physical discovery warrant.
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