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AT&T Quietly Adds Charges To All Contract Cell Plans
guttentag writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AT&T Mobility, the second-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., has added a new monthly administrative fee of 61 cents to the bills of all of its contract wireless lines as of May 1, a move that could bring in more than a half-billion dollars in annual revenue to the telecom giant. An AT&T spokeswoman said the fee covers 'certain expenses, such as interconnection and cell-site rents and maintenance.' The increased cost to consumers comes even though AT&T's growth in wireless revenue last year outpaced the costs to operate and support its wireless business. The company has talked of continuing to improve wireless profitability. Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins noted that the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year. He said the fee should add 0.30 of a percentage point to AT&T's 2013 revenue growth; he predicts total top-line growth of about 1.5%. Normally, consumers could vote with their wallets by taking their business elsewhere. AT&T would be required to let customers out of their contracts without an early termination fee if it raised prices, but it is avoiding this by simply calling the increase a 'surcharge,' effectively forcing millions of people to either pay more money per month or pay the ETF."
AT&T would be required to let customers out of their contracts without an early termination fee if it raised prices, but it is avoiding this by simply calling the increase a 'surcharge'
I love the way there's always a loophole!
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
deserves what they get. Worst Telcom in history (and that's an achievement considering how rotten all of them are.).
..which are the expenses you were supposedly paying for already.
ditch 'em. and sue 'em for screwing the etf.
what good is the rule, if they just add charges and still have you pay the etf?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And here is a very succinct how to by someone who successfully ended their AT&T service sans ETF.
(Note it still did take 2 hours)
"the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year"
So, have I understood this correctly? If you have a contract with them, they aren't violating it, because they aren't raising your rates. They're just adding a separate administrative fee. Reminds me of the game airlines play: your flight is cheap, but you have to pay the fees for the airports, for fuel, for your luggage, for having wings on the airplane...
This is great for the bean-counters and marketeers, but it's unethical as hell. Why do big businesses lose their ethics? Does MBA stand for "Must Be an A**hole"?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Congressperson: That's fucked up. I should introduce legislation which would allow the consumer to get out of their contract if the carrier breaks it like this.
AT&T lobbyist: (Opens suitcase full of cash.)
Congressperson. Free market!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If it is required that the customer pay this money, it is an increased price - no matter how they try to spin it.
Another example is tips at a restaurant. You leave a tip as a reward for excellent service. If a restaurant puts a mandatory 'tip' for any reason on the bill, it is now a fee not a tip.
Ok, so no kidding:
A while back my company was trying to resolve a billing issue.
We were under "foundation" billing. Whatever that means.
So the customer service dude on the phone gave us a URL where we could check our "foundation" billing. In this web portal, we were able to see all the other foundation accounts bills.
As in detailed bills of other people and companies, including call logs. There were thousands of these, all in PDF for the download. With everything you'd expect on a bill, like name, address, phone number, ammount due. I suppose anyone could have seen our bill too.
It reminded me of the at&t ipad "hacker" case.
AT&T overcharges many customers on every bill anyway. I have to call in every month to receive a credit to my account because of their business practice of overcharging and hoping customers don't notice. I've been an AT&T customer a few times over the years, and EVERY time they do this. It's not a mistake on their end, it's a deceptive business practice.
This new "surcharge" is just the tip of the ice-berg of AT&T's deceptive business practices. I know people who work there and most of them I've spoken with actually agree with me, thought they wouldn't go so far as to call the company "evil" as much as greedy and mis-managed.
There's some sort of charity for retired law enforcement officers and their widow(er)s.
AT&T evidently has an Additional CEO Compensation Fund.
Just wondering... How is it possible to add a surcharge on top of the contractually agreed charges? If it's not in the contract, then why pay? And if the contract stipulates that AT&T can add whatever surcharge they like, why are customers complaining?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Part of what we pay for with state taxes is an Attorney General who amongst other things, is supposed to stand up for tax paying citizens in these sorts of situations - This is a clear david vs goliath contract law issue and a state AG or two suing these motherfuckrs could help...
I agreed to a particular price, if they can not offer the service and make profit for the price they offered it to me at, its their own bad business decision...
There's a good thread here detailing other AT&T customers experiences with getting out of their current contract without paying the ETF. That thread also contains extremely useful info about how to go to Arbitration with AT&T if they won't budge.
Why are cell phones not covered under public utility law like water, power or land lines?
The power company could ever pull this shit without state legislature approval and/or public PUC hearings.
At this point, there needs to be much tighter regulations since we have for all practical purposes an oligopoly in the USA.
This must be the same as what car dealers list on the invoice as "Extra Dealer Profit".
They have to administer all that new money coming in, don't they?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
It all started when gas prices shot up and the "fuel surcharge" hit UPS and Fedex customers in the wallet. Now this.
I brought cellular connectivity to a medium-sized town to connect the remote points of their water SCADA system. When looking deeply into the charges on their monthly cellular bill, I learned that they were (and still are) paying a 'municipal tax', that is, a tax, indirectly charged by them, to collect from any cellular users accessing the towers within the city!
Do you Americans not have any consumer protection laws and/or groups who would sue the providers for a move like this? It's what would happen in Europe.
"An AT&T spokeswoman said the fee covers 'certain expenses, such as interconnection and cell-site rents and maintenance."
So my question is, is then why have you just now started to add this fee? Haven't you always had to pay for cell-site rents and maintenance? Simply adding the "surcharge" because you feel like it should be illegal.
>" Normally, consumers could vote with their wallets by taking their business elsewhere"
Hate to tell you this, but I think they all do that. Sprint has, Verizon has... not how T-Mobile does it. They all have one or more mysterious "fee" lines on the bill. It is a sham and why you can't believe any advertising from any cell company about the price of the plans. It is bad enough that in MY locality, wireless is taxed at something like 22%, then add "carrier surcharges", E911 fees, administrative fees, "Federal Univ Serv Assess Non-ID" fees, "State Gross Receipts Surcharge", "State Special Revenue Surcharge", "Regulatory Charge", and even f*ing sales tax (how can the state charge sales tax on a SERVICE???)
Then don't forget to add that data add-on charge and insurance protection in case you drop that $600 phone.
Before all the above, my plan for two phones is $107.99. And after- it is $159.48. 48% higher than the shiny number being advertised.
Simple fix
Call up AT&T and switch to a pay by check through the mail. The cost of billing and postage will cost them more than the 61-cents.
I understand the need to add fees or increase rates. But it would have been a lot smarter just to add the fee to all new contracts or at contract upgrades rather than sticking it to everyone at the same time.
AT&T has decided its customers just have too damn much money.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think you can find instances of every carrier sneaking rate hikes onto customers with contracts. The contract only helps the carrier, never ever the consumer.
Thankfully, my contract is up next month. I'll be off to T-mobile no-contract plan.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And this my friends is why business imposed rule (law for the average consumer since it's legally binding and generally not practical/worthwhile to fight for your average Joe) through contractual agreements that sign your rights away (including participating in class action suits) is a bad thing. I'd like to see consumers in mass refuse to sign agreements waiving all sorts of liabilities to businesses and rights of consumers. This will not happen and businesses are well aware of it. As such, businesses' legal teams can tuck away with all sorts of crap in contracts/agreements for product/services that makes me want to vomit.
"After all, why bother reading and comprehending that 14+ page document you're signing? Just initial these pages and sign here to get what you want, no one reads these things after all (except us--Good Corp.--and the courts) and this particular example you read about helps our consumers at a completely insignificant cost (it's only $0.63 here, $.53 there, ..., $6.56/mo tomorrow)! We Good Corp. sales associates verbally cross our hearts what we've told you is true (though statements are counter to the contract), even though it won't legally hold a candle to that contract you just signed symbolizing you: read, understood, and agreed to all terms expressed there in. It does make you feel better though, right?" Then average said consumer signs, agrees, and moves on.
Every time I see this happen I watch my options dwindle to: A) completely refusing a product/service (since all competitors have similar agreements) or B) am forced to buy in with everyone else. Please, stop being wreckless with your purchasing power people. Purchasing power is real, it's just being manipulated to the masses. When the bulk of consumers realize this, we'll all get screwed a little less, which means it's time to stock up on lube.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/23/4253874/att-new-1-2-million-smartphone-q1-2013-financials
They added almost 300,000 subscribers, sold 6 million phones and they grossed $16.4 Billion (up 3.4% from Q1 2012).
Yeah they really need that extra cash.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
designed to insure c level bonuses for their "innovation"
Wish more people would not take this kind of stuff lying down. Especially in cases where the business is not a monopoly. For instance, I don't understand why anyone still banks at Bank of America. They don't have a monopoly, far from it, and they treat their customers like wolves treat cattle. And why does anyone pay for cable TV? Can't be for the absence of ads!
Cutting the land line doesn't help save money, not while the price of cell phone service remains outrageous. Internet service and phone service should have fallen well below $20 per month years ago. Over the years, hardware prices have dropped dramatically, but somehow these service providers have been unable to pass any of that savings on to customers. MMORPGs have been forced to offer alternatives to the crazy $10 per month kinds of plans. We have sub $100 laptops such as the Raspberry Pi. We even won the right to keep our phone numbers. Why can't we have $5 per month phone service and broadband Internet service?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"screwing the elf"
Yup, they really screwed the elf on that one...
Everyone is now able to leave their contracts without a fee.
No court in the world would deny that it was a cost increase and a sleazy lowlife one at that.
Maybe they are trying to make up the money they lost from my business when I dumped them last month.
AT&T can eat a bag of dicks.
Imagine if AT&T were the only game in town (Monopoly). Your only option would be to put-up-or-shut-up. Fanboism drives this sort of thing. And I'm not just picking on the iPhone crowd. Any corporation that can drop something shiny and have a customer base so willing to bend over for it would love to be sitting in AT&T's place. Think about how your future purchases are affected when "everyone is doing it". Be glad you can turn to many different alternatives right now. Alternatives are the only thing keeping these corporations from an all-out slave-driving of it's customers. No, the legal system is not protecting the consumer. Go google for copyright and patent issues if you need proof.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
The problem is that AT&T, like Comcast and Charter have a sort of 'geographical monopoly' for some services. I had this problem once when AT&T was my only option for internet. (barring satellite because latency on a good day can be between 900ms and 1200ms). So I had to deal with AT&T. They did suck quite frankly, but I've dealt with Comcast and they suck more for a higher price. The root problem is the lack of real competition between these companies. With the exception of Verizon, Sprint and similar cell phone only companies, they have other revenue streams. In the case of AT&T, TV and Internet service. That keeps them out of competition for certain amounts of revenue and allows them to bully their consumers...
Common Sense (+1)
AT&T...it's just not worth it...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The $0.61 fee is per-line, so with my 5-line family plan, it's an extra $3.05!
Send separate surcharge payment of .59 by paper check. Instead of spending 3 hours on the phone, just make 3 or 4 separate 3 minute phone calls. Fill up their hard drives. Support drones are cheap, not free. On the other hand you have a reall chance of some compassionate subcontracting call center drone give you a $20.00 credit you wouldn't have gotten. Cause they hate working for ATT as much as you do.
deploying class action lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...
All you need is an unlocked phone (or an unlock code for your AT&T phone) and you can move to a no-contract carrier with the same GSM radios with no up-front fees. I deliberately moved to another carrier with less coverage than AT&T and I still like it better, because I get unlimited data and everything with no dumbass "smartphone" fees added onto the bill. Whenever I find someplace that the coverage is gone, I just think back to my days in high school when I would have to call a girl on her house phone, or be at home when I was expecting a call because none of us had cell phones. Not such a big deal.
... since what was added was covered in the originally contracted and agreed pricing structure, already. So you can bet there will be a flurry of lawsuits against AT&T if they try to force an ETF.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The new fee will make more money for stock holders, NOT improve the network.
If one agreed to a contract that explicitly allows them to add a surcharge onto the bill at any time, without any prior agreement on what that surcharge would be... that's just... unfortunate.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How were they administrating all these months without these 61 cents ?
Steal a million dollars from someone, they will fight back hard. Steal 1$ each from a million people, most wont care and the rest wont matter. Wish there would be a class action lawsuit and that judge would get it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I know they piggy-back on Sprint, and I know they don't have the greatest service or the best phones but, for $35 a month it's pretty great. If we could get more people on board with lower cost carriers that would be a good way to send them a message.
"I used to work in cell billing back when there was still competition between the thousands of carriers. You'd be surprised how many fees and other junk they just make up. The big one back then was the USF(Universal surcharge fee). Every carrier has it now and it's absolutely meaningless. They pretty much asked the govt how much they could legally charge and that's what we would up with on the bill." - Good ol' JS
Of course, you can't sue AT&T because the government granted them immunity to a bunch of stuff, and probably to this as well.
People will respond just the same, and if they do not have due process of law, then they will respond outside of law. Hopefully in a civilized way, but it's only a matter of time before it turns violent.
The bank is always tacking on a new charge for service improvements. OK, if you've improved service shouldn't my charges go *down*?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Everyone who is bitching about this must do the following:
1. Pick up the phone, call AT&T and voice your displeasure about the surcharge.
2. Tell the attendant that you will be leaving AT&T
3. Find a new service provider
4. Switch to new service provider
5. Use social networking/blogging to call out AT&T, explain what you did and who you went with - and repeat this message.
They will continue to do it as long as they get away with it. If it hits them financially they will back off. YOU have the power. Don't believe otherwise.
-CF
...the charge is per line/phone on the account. i.e.: I have a family plan (no contract, way past that), and I am dinged 61 cents per line, and I have three lines on the account. That comes to a total of $1.83 per month, for the account.
Time to look for a better provider....
I am guessing that this is their attempt to replace the cash cow that left with the advent of smartphones and builtin messaging apps like iMessage on the iPhone. We all know that the Telco's were totally screwing over their customers with these ridiculous charges for sending and receiving SMS messages. (there are various calculations out there which place the rate to be at about $1200.00 / MB). Since people are moving away from using SMS as heavily as they once did, AT&T is making up for that loss of huge profit by adding in this fee. There's no basis in reality for the justification that is presented. Where are the current monthly subscription fees going if they are't being used to maintain the infrastructure? It's a money grab, plain and simple and it's completely slimy of them to add it in as a fee, thus negating the ability to tell them off and leave without the ETF.
The phone companies should be broken up, again, and the parts sold off to Asian operators that know how to deliver the best service at the lowest price. Even if our telecom's could do that, they wouldn/t. That is why they should simply be liquidated.
Never sign a contract with a phone company.
If this outrages you, and you think that you want to switch without paying the cancellation fee, then wait for the charge on your bill, then .61 fee or you will be switching because they have violated the contract. If you do it on the phone, make sure to get the name of the person you are talking to. Write notes.
1) Call/email/mail ATT and tell them that you want them to remove the
2) Wait for response. They might cancel the fee. If they don't and don't want to let you out of the contract, see step 3.
3) Make a complaint with the FTC. Every time that I have lodged a formal complaint with them I have had almost immediate response from the company.
Issues where a complaint to the FTC worked for me:
1) Switching phone to new carrier when they first changed the portability rules. Was in limbo for a week because Sprint was "having issues". Issue resolved within 24hrs of complaint to FTC.
2) Credit card offer on Virgin America's website. Appeared to offer extra points if I signed up and used the card for my fare purchase. Turned out the purchase I was making would not go on the card. Found out a week later that there was a $50 fee. Called credit card company, had the fee and card cancelled. Reported the whole event to FTC, received a letter from card company with note within a week.
Large companies take FTC complaints pretty seriously.
That's what I use and I'm happy with it. Given that I have two smart phones to pay for, I feel like I have an extra $50 a month in my budget.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This would be explicitly illegal and the carrier would face penalties. How's that unencumbered free market capitalism goin' for ya?
As a TMO subscriber, I (now) fully understand the 'no contract' thing. If I fulfill my contract, and the 24 monthly payments for my phone, I don't pay for the phone any more. I can bail on the contract, but I agreed to pay for the phone, so the balance is due. This replaces the ETF, which was probably mostly to recover phone subsidy, though of course an ETF that doesn't decrease over the term of the contract is profitable. That means gouging, unethical, or usurous in this context.
But if your contract permits you to bail without ETF if the terms change, and the terms allowed include fee increases or new fees, vote with your feet. If not, well, this is not only NOT NEW for AT&T, but virtually every carrier has done this.
My intention with thge TMO 'no contract' thing is to outlive the contract. My last phone failed, so I lost that bet, but the two before outlived my contract by 6-9 months. Each time my monthly cost did not decrease, though I had fulfilled my contract, and supposedly paid the subsidy. I won;t do that again if I can help it, though I may one day buy a phone outright.
And please, please explain how Europe has it so right, where most users buy their phones. And explain, if you would, how that model could work here in the US, where there are at least 2 different technologies, and multiple spectrum differences. Could I take my TMO-branded phone over to Sprint? Can my Cricket phone work on AT&T? How about my AT&T phone on Verizon? Europe has it simpler with GSM the standard and fewer spectrum problems. Different market, different solutions. In the US, phone interoperability is largely nonexistent. You buy your phone from your carrier because it works.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I am just imagining the board meeting that decided on this.
"Wait, so you mean we can charge them more and there is nothing they can do about it" -suit 1
"Exactly, and we don't even have to provide any additional services." -suit 2
"But won't people view us charging them more for nothing as a bad thing"-suit 3
"We'll just talk about how great it is for us and how much money we will make, no one will notice. Even if they do, we are just back to them not being able to do anything about it"-suit 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_server
"YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED"
If you have a messenger (of the court) drop the notice at the office its going to be very hard for them to claim otherwise
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I am out of contract and can leave if I wish. The income lost from loosing my family plan equals the fee from 147 customers. If 3.5 million people also have the same idea this would more than negate the $0.61 fee. Anyone want to create a petition to see if we can get 3.5 million people who are out of contract to say they will move on if the fee is not removed.
"61 cents!!?!?!?! No!!!!!" as crackles of thunder emanate from the nerd's basement
As long as all of their advertising has this charge included in the "big print" advertised rates, that's fine.
BIG PRINT: $50/month!!!!
Fine print: $49.39 + $0.61
is okay.
BIG PRINT: $50/month!!!!
Fine print: $0.61 fee not included
is NOT okay.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Contracts are two way agreements right? Can't people turn around and start charging AT&T a new fee, say $0.61 Contract Adjustment Costs Fee, used for the administrative tasks of going over new and unexpected changes to the bill.
Has anyone had any good experiences with Credo?
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'd argue it like this:
This surcharge used to be exactly $0.00 in my contract (by virtue of not being there at all). If you raise it to $0.61, then the price increase clause comes into effect.
I wonder how they can argue otherwise.
I often see my Verizon home phone bill go up every few months, whether it be a few cents or more.
To all of you who do this, would you mind making your shit lists public?
You'd think they would want to minimize the people who would want to fight this. You always round down from the dollar mark, not up.
"The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Yakir Aharonov
Here is a link to the FCC complaint site, if each person complained, copy and past this.... I feel the new surcharge AT&T is adding to my cell phone bill is a violation of my contract with them. I would like the option of terminating my contract with out any Early Termination Fee. Can you please intervene on my behalf. Thank you. .... I think the FCC would ack and fast. I would love to get out of my contract and just go prepay to save money.
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
When T-Mobile did this last year, I had to sue them in small claims court to get my ETF waived.
I was just in the middle of podunk nowhere about 2 miles past BFE today and decided to try and see if and how good a data connection I had on my AT&T S4. 11mbs down 3 up, which is slower than the 40mb down 5 up I was getting in a more populated area. They can have the 60 pennies.
So, how is that working out for you?
So what? I see nothing wrong with this.
The customer went into a contract that prevents them from filing class action lawsuits and has all sorts of others shady clauses. In fact, the customer went into business with a company that was so horrible they had to be broken up as a monopoly. You buy AT&T and Microsoft, don't blame anyone but yourself. They offered a horrible product, but you bought it.
IOW, you did business with a shady company and are getting screwed. End of story. No one's fault but your own.
Even before this story. Usually terrible customer service. Expensive. As soon as contracts are up in a few months I'm not looking back.
It's the new American Way. It works especially well with those who have payments automatically set up. Many times when you buy a one time service the fine print says you are enrolled in a monthly service for a fee oif $ xxx a month and if you don't cancel you will be charged forever. It used to be called fraud.
Tom Horn
hjttp://www.purewaterhq.com
Your only recourse to a utility company cheating you is to
...bitch to the city utility regulators, whose jurisdiction the utility company accepted in exchange for access to the city's rights of way. See comments by JWW and minkie.
The vast majority of terms that bind the end user "survive termination of service".
And why does anyone pay for cable TV? Can't be for the absence of ads!
Cable television and satellite television form an oligopoly on live sports telecasts. Or they pay for cable TV because they get it for free or nearly free with the purchase of high-speed Internet access.
Why can't we have $5 per month phone service
There is magicJack for $2.50 per month provided you already have low-latency Internet access. But then customer service costs labor, and the wired last mile costs labor, and cell towers cost land, and the price of land and labor will only go up over time.
... of how corporations now base their business models on lies and deception.
Making "quiet changes" to users bills is a lie of omission. Such changes should REQUIRE a large, obvious, prominent and oversized notice to the customers with the largest and boldest font in the entire mailing stating something like We have once again raised your total amount due by $5. This is the third time this year, for a total increase of $7.89. Your amount due has been raised by us a total of 15 times since you opened this account in 2011, resulting in a total lifetime increase of $21.56. Federal Law dictates that you have a 30 day period of time in which you can cancel or transfer your contract to another carrier without penalty for early cancellation.
hello. ..."revenue growth" is corporate theft. fascism is destroying America.
Announce that all enterprises that impose a surcharge (see also airlines with their "fuel surcharges" etc) will be subjected to a 50% tax on the surcharge. Even Grover Nordquist would release the crazy long enough for his drones in Congress to vote for it.