AT&T Quietly Adds Charges To All Contract Cell Plans 338
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."
How To (Score:5, Informative)
And here [reddit.com] is a very succinct how to by someone who successfully ended their AT&T service sans ETF.
(Note it still did take 2 hours)
Write to your state AG (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...
How to get out of your contract (Score:4, Informative)
There's a good thread here [fatwallet.com] 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.
Re:Surcharge (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.
Re:Anyone stupid enough to use AT&T (Score:4, Informative)
Many of us on ATT are not stupid at all - Many are grandfathered in on really old plans that they keep letting us carry forward each cycle! I have a plan from the old Cellular One, which became Cingular which much later became ATT Wireless...why on earth would I change when my rate hasnt gone up since 2003 (with the exception of the data package added in like 06)
I pay like $78 per month for what on ATT or VZW now costs about $120 or so - I get a new phone and sign a new contract every two years and they dont ever manke me change when my contract terms expire so...I would be nuts to NOT stay with them, right?
Needs to stop (Score:4, Informative)
>" 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.
Re:Surcharge (Score:2, Informative)
My impression of what will happen when they get your letter:
First Option:
-Receive letter
-Show to supervisor
-"HAHAHA this guy thinks we're going to let him out of our illegal charges! NOPE!"
-Send form letter, toss your letter, game over.
Second Option:
-Receive letter
-Toss letter in trash
-"What letter? We never got anything."
Anyway you go, good luck with getting that evil giant to do the right thing, for any amount of time or effort.
Sorry but you're completely wrong.
First, you send the letter via certified USPS, which means they sign for it so they can't pretend it didn't show up.
Secondly, snail mail doesn't get opened by call center flunkies or some outsourced group. You send it to their Corporate address, and if you're halfway smart you'll put it to the attention of their legal affairs department.
Point being, most of the trouble you run into over the phone is you're dealing with low-paid people who are required to work off a script which is basically a flow chart, and other than telling you to talk to their Legal group there is no escalation path for Legal matters. Snail Mail isn't subject to that process at all, there's so little of it anymore that there aren't large departments of people working the mail. It's being opened by the actual people in the positions who really do have the power and knowledge to properly handle the complaints.
But honestly if we really want any of this to change the only way to deal with it is a class action lawsuit.
Re:Surcharge (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.
Re:Surcharge (Score:4, Informative)
You can't take your tier one support call into court unless you recorded it.
I was wondering about this. Is it always legal to record such calls if you are yourself informed that the call is being recorded by the other party?
Most states require both parties to be aware that the recording is taking place. Since most of those places inform you that the call is being recorded when you call in, you can record the call legally. I would start the recording from the warning on. And I actually have some SIP software that will play a tone every 5 seconds to make sure all parties know it is recording (quite handy if you're going to record calls). In any event, for extra safety, it doesn't hurt to remind the person that they are being recorded when you finally get them on the line.