A cautionary tale for those who upgraded their iPhone and have AT&T. Check your bill because AT&T is trying to pull a fast one!
I received my most recent AT&T wireless bill recently and since the bill was $24 higher than normal I had to investigate. There was an $18 upgrade fee charged for my iPhone 4S, which I expected, but that didn’t explain the additional $4 until I saw that when they changed my data plan from the iPhone 3GS to the 4S they screwed up the math. See, my prior bill covered 10/03-11/02 and I paid the full $30 data plan charge. My current bill covers 11/03-12/02, but in addition there was a data plan charge for $19 covering 10/14-11/02, and underneath was a credit of $15.30 for 10/15-11/02 for the same charge. WTF? The credit should have been for $19 as well from 10/14-11/02 but by them putting the credit in a day later (10/15) they tried to rip me off for $3.70 plus tax.
I understand that they want to show that the data plan changed when I upgraded my phone but since I already pre-paid the full $30 the month before and they were charging me for a full month again, the charge and the subsequent credit for the date the plan changed should cancel one another out.
So I called AT&T and at first the guy was trying to explain away the charge because of the difference in dates, but when I explained that there SHOULDN’T be a difference he agreed to credit me $3.70. I reminded him that I was also charged tax on that $3.70 so I should be credited that as well. He agreed, but didn’t know the tax rate. I told him it’s 8.75% in Illinois, but instead of calculating it and giving me a credit for $4.02 he gave me an even $5. Does the guy not know how to use a calculator or was he just lazy? Not sure, but I’ll take it
That should be a lesson to AT&T not to mess with a Senior Billing Analyst, because I know how to read a bill!