AT&T sucks. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

So, I took a look at my phone bill today. It was higher than usual -- for some reason, there was a data charge. Huh? I thought all the data on my iPhone was included?
Here's how AT&T got a little extra cash out of me.

Data Usage Summary

IPHONE TXT MSG 200
182 Text Messages Used
147 Text Messages Included
3-24 35 Billed at $0.10/Msg 3.50

Total IPHONE TXT MSG 200 3.50

IPHONE TXT MSG 1500
77 Text Messages Used
450 Text Messages Included

MEDIA MAX UNL MNET
32,533 Kilobytes Used

Total Data Usage Summary 3.50

I had a 200 Text Message plan. I knew I was getting close to the limit, so I upgraded to the 1500 message plan. Seems simple enough, right? I'd used 187 messages — still under the 200 limit — and added on an additional 1300. But that's not how the clever billing accountants at AT&T see it. As far as I can tell, here's what they did:
- Instead of "upgrading" my message plan, they canceled the first plan and replaced it with the new one
- They pro-rated the number of messages in my 200 plan by the number of days I had it, coming up with the number 147. In other words, it's not 200 messages during a month, it's 7.15 messages per day.
- Because I'd used 182 messages and their prorated package only had 147, they charged me for the 35 messages which should have been comfortably accommodated in the 200 message plan.
- Then they prorated the new 1500 plan down to 450.

And that's how the weasels at AT&T (like bankers) whittle away your money bit by bit. Imagine that, say, nation-wide there were 10,000 people who switched to a different text message plan to avoid overages last month. That's an extra $35,000 AT&T took in last month in addition to the higher plan fee!
Boy, I'll bet they're chomping at the bit to get those new iPhone MMS charges at 35¢ a pop, eh?

And don't even get me started about how these tiny bits of data are charged to us at something like $1,500 per megabyte. Bastards.

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