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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"
..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.
"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
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...
Not only that, but the prices should never go up for the same service. It's not like the machines want better working conditions (yet). Growing revenue with a surcharge is not a valid way to grow revenue. You grow revenue by getting more customers, providing a better service, using more efficient hardware, PROGRESS. This is a pure example of profit for profit's sake. It's stealing, plain and simple. Taking from me without giving any benefit in return is stealing, even if the amount is too small for us to notice individually, in aggregate it's outright theft.
If I came home with a big pile of cash the question would be: "Wait, where did you get all this money?!" If I was AT&T my answer would be: "Uh, from customers?" "What did you do for them to get the money?!" "Nothing!" THAT'S STEALING. It would be one thing if they actually had higher costs to operate, the answer could be "I provided them with a service that cost more to provide", but that's a lie. Costs they're citing have actually GONE DOWN.
So long as it remains more profitable for companies to simply oversell and raise the prices to make profit vs using some profit to do the work to provide better services then you can expect this to happen again and again. What happens if you spend a bunch of profit to provide a better service? Your stock price goes down. Blame the fucking stock market.
You can get unlimited talk, text, and data through Straight Talk or similar for less than $50 a month. Bring your AT&T phone and just buy a new SIM card, if you like (usually around $15 or less). Or if you're not overly concerned with having the fanciest phones (which these days doesn't make nearly as much difference as it did 2-3 years ago), you can get a phone on Verizon's network and possibly have better coverage.
Yes, I think you're nuts.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
You can blame the courts for that. It astonishes me the complete and utter lack of common sense in the judiciary. We're not all rich enough to be able to afford an attorney every time somebody asks us to sign a contract. We don't have access to a law library to look up the precedence over whether or not they're allowed to call this a surcharge.
At the end of the day, the law needs to recognize that people can't sign away their rights. Especially in cases like this where the only competition also requires us to sign away our rights.