(In case you missed it due to a technical glitch that may have prevented email notifications going out I recently went behind the scenes at Maine Wildlife Park!)
In October I wrote about pickpockets lurking in the billing departments of some phone providers after I discovered Wayne had been overcharged for years. This past month I noticed that my AT&T cell phone bill had gone up about $5 so I logged into my account to see what was up. Turns out I was “given” a “bonus” of 3GB I’ll never use or wanted that comes with an added price of $5. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a bonus something received vs purchased? My old plan was phased out so I have no choice but to pay an extra $60 plus tax annually. Such is the way of 2019. However, I dug a little deeper in AT&T’s website and found something very disturbing.
Just like what happened with Wayne and elderly people still paying a monthly rental fee for their old rotary phones, there are people on older plans paying up to $50 more per month for the same amount of data only with a different plan name! As far as I can tell they all have the same key points with unlimited talk & text. (Also, I have to assume the 9MB and not 9GB listed in the far right column is a typo!) It might be legal but it’s not right. So please, check your bills/plans!
I guess the dictionary will have to include a new definition for “bonus.”
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Why are phone companies and cable providers run like cons? That includes satellite providers.
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Averyl,
Since I stopped working outside the home six years ago, I have taken to calling every single utility and service provider quarter to see if we are on the most current and/ or lowest priced option for what we have. Through Verizon, I found a similar $5 increase to our bill, yet no obvious plan changes had been made. The helpful representative did some extensive research and found that our “old” plan had been discontinued and we were given a “new” plan which was EXACTLY the same except for a name change and a $5 increase. The representative made a manual credit for the difference in cost and submitted a help ticket to have the old plan reinstated. We shall see what this gets us, but I was pleasantly surprised by her genuinely kind assistance and, quite frankly, competence! Rare these days. It never hurts to call and ask!
Andrea
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