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Real-World 3G Monthly Cost With Taxes and Fees?
Kristl writes "I have called AT&T and walked into several AT&T stores to ask 'How much will an AT&T phone plan cost per month with taxes and fees and everything?'. No one can answer this question. They are evasive and become testy when I push them on it. Their answer is they can't tell me what the government is going to charge me as the fees can vary month to month, but I've been an AT&T customer for several years, and my taxes and fees have not varied more than a dollar in all of that time.
So I question them: 'Can you just tell me what the taxes and fees will be for a 3G plan in California that has the basic calling plan, basic data plan, and the basic text plan?' I even do the math for them, that's $75. Okay AT&T, what are the taxes and fees on $75? Oh, they can't tell me that, as the taxes and fees can vary from month to month." There's more to this justified rant (below); real-world numbers in comments could help answer the questions that cell carriers seem content to sidestep as completely as possible.
"Okay ATT, can you tell me what the taxes and fees were on $75 plan last month? No.
Okay AT&T, cn you tell me what my taxes and fees were last month on my current $40 plan ... that only requires reading my bill right? Oh good! They can read! Yes they can tell me what the taxes and fees were on my $40 account last month.
Okay AT&T, we have progress ... can you now pull up a plan that has a $40 calling plan, a $30 3G data plan, and a $5 text plan? The answer? No, they can't do that, that would be an invasion of privacy.
So I ask, can they go through the motions of setting my account up for the iphone plan I described above and then tell me what the taxes and fees amount to? Oh, of course not!
This doesn't seem like it should be so hard. What is the conspiracy that ATT refuses to tell me what the my bill would cost per month were I to switch to a new plan?"
Okay AT&T, cn you tell me what my taxes and fees were last month on my current $40 plan ... that only requires reading my bill right? Oh good! They can read! Yes they can tell me what the taxes and fees were on my $40 account last month.
Okay AT&T, we have progress ... can you now pull up a plan that has a $40 calling plan, a $30 3G data plan, and a $5 text plan? The answer? No, they can't do that, that would be an invasion of privacy.
So I ask, can they go through the motions of setting my account up for the iphone plan I described above and then tell me what the taxes and fees amount to? Oh, of course not!
This doesn't seem like it should be so hard. What is the conspiracy that ATT refuses to tell me what the my bill would cost per month were I to switch to a new plan?"
Too expensive or looks shady? Don't fucking buy it. Take your money elsewhere.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
In most of Europe, sellers of consumer products are required to state the actual final price that the consumer is paying. And that includes monthly cell phone tariffs.
...this was a problem well before Steve ever even thought of the iPhone.
What? Did the universe even exist back then?
The answer is: They honestly have no idea. They're trained to say what corporate tells them.
Training typically focuses on trying to sell you on gizmo features and plan upgrades. They simply ARE NOT given that sort of info and, in my experience, the people that work these jobs are not the type to go the extra mile to figure it out or in some cases don't want to say the wrong thing and have an angry customer come back and throw the phone at them (seen it happen over the most marginal shit.)
No sig for you!!
Are there any other taxes for cell phones in the US which are directly charged to the consumer?
Yes there are various excise taxes levied on cell phone bills. The federal government as well as state and local government each levy their own taxes on wireless communications. This is a slightly outdated listing of taxes by state. For the most part it is a "because we can" sort of tax courtesy of our elected officials.
I work for AT&T. Maybe you are just asking the wrong questions. Every time I activate a new customer I give them a print out of exactly how their first months bill and normal monthly bills will break down. This print out is avalible through any AT&T vendor and is called a CSS (Customer Service Summary) This print out breaks down everything on you bill including rate plan, data, messaging, extra services ( insurance, roadside assistants ...) taxes and fees broken down by which entity is charging which fees and taxes. Any good sales person will present you with this at the time of the sale. If you not getting one maybe you should consider going to a different AT&T store. Just like everyone else that franchises their business you are going to have good agents and bad agents.
Probably because it's too complicated to figure just off the top of their heads, or because they haven't determined your alignment and class.
According to the 4th ed. FC&C Salesmaster's Manual, the taxes on a $40 calling plan is 2d10+2 percent for all classes and alignments of customer.
However, the rules get tricky when adding the data and text plans. If you add those and the customer is any Lawful alignment, or your class is Apple Cultist, the monthly fees and taxes are a d20+30 per month.
If you're Neutral, sales should charge 2d10+2 percent of the total purchase in fees, plus a flat setup fee of 3d20, and whatever the local tax rate is (see Table 13-4.7, "Telecommunication Tax Rates of Municipalities, Provinces, Kingdoms, Shires and Deities").
If your alignment is Chaotic, or you have the Late Bills or Frequent Support Caller flaws, or your class is Go Phoner, your fees are (3d20)d20+(d20)d6, plus (2d20)d20 percent taxes, plus 2d6 in franchise fees, plus 3d20+d6 setup.
If you're identified as Chaotic Hard-to-Please alignment, the Salesmaster may simply escalate fees and taxes and make up complex usage rules (2Gb bandwidth cap except on Fridays and the alternating days of the third week of every fourth month, when it's 256k, for example) until the customer gives up.
However, if sales can't determine your alignment or class - if you're a new customer, for example, or your billing and prior plan history isn't available -Âthey will probably refuse to answer your questions. If a customer immediately submits, they get Apple Cultist treatment. If a customer questions the refusal but eventually submits, they get Chaotic treatment.
If a customer is an insistent questioner, the Salesmaster considers the player in combat and gives the player d6-2 rounds to flee before calling security (see U.S. Government's "Monster and Enforcement Officer Bestiary," table 2.1-1, "Rented Muscle").
I don't know about you, but I don't buy anything else on which the tax is unknown by the seller, even though the seller is the one collecting it. When i buy something, they ring it up, the machine calculates the tax, and they tell me how much it is before I pay. The problem is that they're essentially telling you to sign a two year contract committing yourself to paying whatever bill they send you, but won't tell you what the bill will be.
It would be very easy for ATT to push out a list to their stores every month in which they say what each price plan worked out to with taxes for each state or zip code in the past billing cycle, with a disclaimer that of course if taxes and fees change the amount will be different in the future.
They just don't want to because they don't give a shit about customers or customer service, not because it's a difficult task or some mysteriously unknowable figure.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
And yet they manage to send out hundreds of thousands of bills every month that calculate it down to the penny. Sure, they might make mistakes and have to offer refunds or disclaimers, but there's no excuse for them to not be able to tell you exactly what a $79.99 plan in a given ZIP code would have been billed after all taxes/fees were added last month.
This is basic customer service, not some advanced alien technology beyond the reach of AT&T.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The reason is a bit more insidious. Many of those surcharges and fees are imposed by the phone company. They just tack it on at the end with the taxes and government levies to make you think they're all imposed by the government and thus outside the phone company's control. Sprint's customer service may suck, but this is something they've started being truthful about. At the end of my bill, they break up the surcharges into "Sprint surcharges" and "government surcharges". On my latest bill, 75% of the surcharges were Sprint surcharges.
The effect of forgetting to switch accounts when shilling your own posts can be described only as halfway between creepy and amusing.
That's why they have a web page that tells you what your charges are for your area:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/additionalcharges/
State
CALIFORNIA
Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge
0.43
Federal Universal Service Fund
11.4%
State Universal Service Fund
$0.00
Other AT&T Surcharges
0.18%
Believe it or not they actually tell you what the charges are for. This is 150 times better than what we had when I was younger. Training is an issue in any retail store, but before hitting the slashdot front page, maybe a bit of googling is in order.
.. You know, that seems strange, since the purpose of a FLAT RATE plan is to know what your bill is going to be from month to month.
"Some men just want to watch the world burn..."