AT&T: thieving scummy bastards

[Exhibitman]

A little background: I hate cell phones with a passion. I think they are stress-inducing, intrusive and unnecessary [except for emergencies], and terribly disruptive of personal privacy. Needless to say, while I am forced to have one, I try to keep it as minimal as I can. I do not surf the net with it, I do not send texts (just respond to what I get from my wife or daughter). I don't even turn it on unless I am out. In short, I just hate the things, but necessities being what they are I have to have one. My wife loves them. She shuffled phones last year to get an iphone and gave me her old blackberry to use as a phone. We did not sign up for a data plan for my phone with AT&T because I have zero use for or interest in it

Today, my wife was calling AT&T about something and was informed that my phone has a data plan on it, to the tune of $25 a month. Since we never signed up for one, she was ticked off. I had to call AT&T to get to the bottom of it in my usual [i.e., nasty and confrontational] mode. Turns out that AT&T actively looks for blackberries used as phones and when it finds one it slaps the most expensive data plan it has on the line. Without any notice except a text. I looked for the text that I'd supposedly gotten months ago and I found it. All it says is that the blackberry is registered with AT&T. To me, all that says is that my phone is working. Nothing about a fee or data plan or any other consequence, and certainly nothing disclosing that AT&T has assigned me their most expensive data plan even though they know I don't use the internet from my phone. AT&T won't remove it either; their position is that as long as you have a "smart phone" you have to buy a data plan even if you did not order it, don't want it and don't use it. Apparently, they bury that requirement somewhere in the small print in their contract. Needless to say, to stop paying for a service I don't want and did not order I had to go out and buy a new "dumb phone" that does not require a data plan and then cancel the data plan.

What makes it worse is that my wife had the device for a year or so but she never had a data plan with the blackberry because AT&T did not require it under the contract for her line. It was only when she switched over the phone so I could use it that we got hit.

I am livid about having to pay for a service I did not order and do not want, particularly how underhandedly they slipped it in there. And talk about shameless, the rep even tried to sell me more services while I was complaining about how deceitful and unethical they are.

One word of advice: if you are forced to go with AT&T, force them to send you a paper bill and scour it for unwanted additions.

[LanceRoten]

had AT&T for home phone service for 3 years. They got ragged last summer, I switched over to TW. They started billing for voice mail and fax service to the tune of $14.95 a month out of the blue and totally separate from my regular bill. I don't trust them. Haven't had a cell phone since 2003. Not important enough to carry one and someone please shoot me if i'm ever seen in Wal Mart in line on a phone

[tiger8mush]

sorry to hear about that. I'm one of the few remaining that don't have a cell phone. My wife loves hers (texts all the time). All my friends have one w/internet. Heck my 2 & 4 yr olds know more about how to use them than I do haha. I'm holding out

I do have AT&T for both phone and dsl. pay a total of $50.60 a month combined for that service.

[teetwoohsix]

I am the same way with mine,,,I am not a big cell phone user and really just carry it for emergencies (possible ones) and to talk to my wife if needed. I've never even sent a text message before, and my phone service is through Verizon. Most of the time I leave this phone OFF.

We have had the "flip-type" phones for about 3 years now, you can text and go on the web and all that jazz but we simplified our plan to the basic 500 minutes (combined) per month, no texting, no web ( I don't know, maybe all of that is there?) and I think we pay a total of $50.00 per month.

The thing that irritates me is how they don't roll over the minutes that you don't use to the next month. We MAY on a busy month use around 250 minutes...........

One cool thing about Verizon is that they sometimes have "discounts" for you depending on where you work. We get a pretty decent discount because of where my wife works. And I NEVER get strange fee's out of nowhere or billed for crap we don't use (knock on wood).

[barrysloate]

Hey Rob- I've never had a cellphone either, and don't even know how to send a text message. I'll hold off as long as I can. I still use a land phone connected to a wire. Sometimes I just love being oppositional.

[Robextend]

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

One cool thing about Verizon is that they sometimes have "discounts" for you depending on where you work. We get a pretty decent discount because of where my wife works. And I NEVER get strange fee's out of nowhere or billed for crap we don't use (knock on wood).

Same here Clayton, I get a Verizon discount because of where I work too. And I don't think I ever had a problem with my bill as well. (knock on wood!).

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by Robextend

Same here Clayton, I get a Verizon discount because of where I work too. And I don't think I ever had a problem with my bill as well. (knock on wood!).

Awesome Yeah, we are pretty happy with them as far as providers go. They've even offered us upgrades for free a few times, we just haven't taken them up on their offers yet. Someday we will- but these old phones are still working great, so it's at the bottom of our list at the moment.

Barry- you rebel you

[barrysloate]

A rebel without a cause...or like they say in Denver, a rebel without a Coors.

[howard38]

.

[GoldenAge50s]

Count me in the stoneage crowd--Never had a cell & don't plan on getting one----My landline in the house works just fine, thank you.

Don't need to be bothered when I'm on the golf course or anywhere else! If my family needs me they can find me w/out a cell.