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AT&T Quietly Adds Charges To All Contract Cell Plans

Posted by Soulskill on from the fee-added-because-reasons dept.

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."

24 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Surcharge by rwise2112 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"
    1. Re:Surcharge by bobthesungeek76036 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!

      It's the American way!!!

      --
      Karma: Bad
    2. Re:Surcharge by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, ATT, I'm calling this paper bag full of shit, a "payment."

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    3. Re:Surcharge by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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!

      There's not. This is blatantly illegal and a breach of contract.

    4. Re:Surcharge by Lithdren · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While true in theory, what ends up happening is you call to cancle because of the breach of contract, and you get yelled at and treated badly by their 'customer service' for 3-4 hours as you escilate up the chain trying to terminate your now null and void contract without paying the ETF, over 61 cents a month.

      Most people will just cave and either switch once the plan is over, or not bother switching at all, because the hassel of getting these jerks to do what is legal and right will end up costing you half a days wage when you take them to small-claims court to get it overturned by a judge because they dont even bother showing up in court.

      Oh but dont worry, if you DONT pay the ETF and ignore it, they'll send you to collections, where when you dispute the charge, will get added to your credit rating and affect you for the next 10 years or 7 years or whatever the hell it is, even after you get them to agree that the charges were wrong, unless you spend even more time writing letters and sending lawsuit judgement letters to the credit agencies to get it cleaned up. Even then, might not work.

      Companies need to get slapped across the face when they pull this crud, individuals are unable to fight this kind of stuff without sacrificing more than what its going to end up costing them if they just put with it, which is of course excatly why AT&T and their kin do this kind of thing.

    5. Re:Surcharge by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      While true in theory, what ends up happening is you call to cancle because of the breach of contract, and you get yelled at and treated badly by their 'customer service' for 3-4 hours as you escilate up the chain trying to terminate your now null and void contract without paying the ETF, over 61 cents a month.

      The only time I've ever been in dispute with a phone company, I made the choice to deal with it entirely via snail mail.

      It's much quicker, since there's no frustrating wait in long queues, being put on hold, cut off or escalating to a supervisor. You can write a letter in 10 minutes, print it and mail it for a very small cost and then not worry about it until you get a reply again.

      Also, letters get the attention of other parts of the company and generally yield a much better response, in that they bother to respond in a coherent manner rather than leave the onus on you. This is because snail mail is often used (still, amazingly) for important things for which they have to respond.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Surcharge by tutufan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not as immediate, but I maintain a "shit list" of companies that I will never deal with again (dire circumstances excepted). AT&T is already on it, and for much worse shenanigans than this.

      The important thing, though, is to have that list and follow through. Don't think that it doesn't matter. One less customer pulls cash straight off the bottom line, and there's absolutely nothing they can do to change that.

    7. Re:Surcharge by jittles · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is because snail mail is often used (still, amazingly) for important things for which they have to respond.

      This doesn't surprise me at all. Why I just used snail mail on Monday to send a letter informing a management company that they were in breach of contract and that they had 7 days (by state law) to rectify the situation or they would be legally responsible for all sorts of damages, blah blah blah. Anyway. I had been calling and complaining (and even showing up in person) to said management company for 20 days and they did nothing. It wasn't until I filled out a form to file in court and sent it certified mail that they did anything. And let me tell you, they did something to rectify the breach that very day. Why? Because I had a little stamped piece of paper from the post office saying that they most certainly hand delivered my notice of breach of contract and the court system absolutely loves signed receipts. You can take your piece of paper (the one you sent, and the one you received) in and show a judge. You can't take your tier one support call into court unless you recorded it. Even then a tier 1 support person is probably not likely to get the company into as much hot water as a letter.

    8. Re:Surcharge by Holi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Fine, send it certified. Let them ignore it at their own risk. I'm sure the courts would look kindly on that.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    9. Re:Surcharge by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My impression of what will happen when they get your letter:

      Your impressions are misplaced.

      The thing is that letters are looked on kindly by the court system, and you can get into a lot of crap for ignoring then. And in the second case in particular there's a really huge risk.

      In a big company, mail will be dealt with by the mail department. By the time it gets to whoever it's meant to get to, they probably won't know whether it was sent by certified mail or not. Lieing about receiving a letter is not worth their time.

      Or if you really feel that they are going to do that, you can send the mail certified or with a return receipt.

      -"HAHAHA this guy thinks we're going to let him out of our illegal charges! NOPE!"

      That is by far the most likely response. But, I never said it would only take one letter. A little bit of persistence is required, but either way you'll waste a lot less time mailing it than phoning.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    10. Re:Surcharge by tompaulco · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The last time I dealt with AT&T was about 15 years ago when I was signing up for long distance service after a move. My dad had worked at AT&T Bell Labs so I had some loyalty to the company. The lady on the phone put me on a long distance plan with no monthly fee and 7 or 8 cents a minute, I forget what it was now. They also put me on an international plan (my wife is from Korea) that was about $4 a month and 40 cents a minute.
      The next month I get a bill for about $600 in long distance. When I look at the bill, they were charging me about 60 cents a minute for long distance and several dollars a minute for international. When I called about this, they said that these were the default charges because I was not on a plan. I told them that I was signed up for a plan the previous month and the details of the plan. They said "I''m sorry, that plan is not available in your area". I said that is not my problem. I was sold that plan and that is the plan I want and nobody even bothered to call to tell me that the plan they sold me is not available and would I be interested in an alternate plan. No, they just quietly put me on no plan at all and let the charges go. They were completely unapologetic and just said that the plan is not available and offered me a couple of options which were about twice as expensive. In the end, they refused to honor the plan they sold me and refused to even reprice the previous bill back to the plan that they had sold me. They knocked like $100 off of the bill expecting me to pay 80% of the cost for a mistake which was 100% their fault. I said I was not going to pay it and that is when they started trotting out the "we'll report you to collections" line. I told them that that was fine, I had just moved and I simply can't afford to pay for your mistake at this time. Finally, they agreed to put me on monthly payments to pay them for their mistake. As soon as I had them paid back, I switched companies and will never, ever deal with them again.
      Unfortunately, since that time, most of the other wireless carriers have joined them on the list of companies I won't deal with. Pretty soon i will be forced into Luddite status by the fact that there are no wireless companies left that have not completely screwed me over.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    11. Re:Surcharge by compro01 · · Score: 5, Informative

      AT&T's contracts prohibit filing a class action suit against them and the Supreme Court backed them on it on the basis of the ancient Federal Arbitration Act. See AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  2. cover certain expenses.. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..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.
  3. How To by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)

  4. Ain't it great? by bradley13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.
  5. I love this show by paiute · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  6. Ahhh at&t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  7. Evil Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Write to your state AG by anthony_greer · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...

    1. Re:Write to your state AG by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  9. How to get out of your contract by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  10. Simple fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  11. Re:Anyone stupid enough to use AT&T by socrplayr813 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  12. Re:Bend over... by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.