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mhmoore2476's profile

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Saturday, September 6th, 2014 3:30 AM

DATA OVERAGE ALTHOUGH USING AT&T APP?!

Is anyone else experimenting problems with AT&T's app reflecting that you were well below your data limit then getting slapped with a bill with overage charges? I have screen shots on my phone showing that my data was 6795.86 of 10240 mb with 2 days left in my billing cycle. This was using the AT&T app. Log onto their website and I get a bill with $75 worth of overage charges. Chat with a rep and I'm told that their app is not accurate and that I should text #data* for an accurate amount of data used. Considering terminating all lines on my account and switching providers.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

10 years ago

Texting (or calling DATA and receiving a text) is not accurate either.  I dialed DATA from home, under WiFi, at 9 pm on the last day of my billing period and the text response showed that I was below my limit. The phones were not used after that time.  When the bill showed up online a couple of days later, there was an overage charge.  I had been keeping track of data usage on paper and compared my notes to the itemized bill.  It showed that I actually did go over my data limit, but AT&T was about five days behind in reporting my actual usage.  

How in the world did you rack up $75 in overages? That means that you were 5 GB over your 10 GB plan when 2 days prior to the end of your billing period you had used less than 7 GB!

Since you did use almost 150 GB, you burned $130 worth of data (vs, $100 for 10 GB).  Your net "penalty" for going over is then $45 ($75 -$30). Perhaps you should bump your plan up to 150 GB if that's what your family uses.

Coverage is the most important feature of any carrier.  Look before you leap to another service.

Master

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4.1K Messages

10 years ago


@mhmoore2476 wrote:

Is anyone else experimenting problems with AT&T's app reflecting that you were well below your data limit then getting slapped with a bill with overage charges? I have screen shots on my phone showing that my data was 6795.86 of 10240 mb with 2 days left in my billing cycle. This was using the AT&T app. Log onto their website and I get a bill with $75 worth of overage charges. Chat with a rep and I'm told that their app is not accurate and that I should text #data* for an accurate amount of data used. Considering terminating all lines on my account and switching providers.


The AT&T web site, and your monthly bill both tell you:

Data, Text, and Talk usage may take 2-5 days to display. Wireless roaming usage normally takes 2-10 days but could take 60+ days. Usage information may be unavailable while we process your invoice. Invoices will be based on usage in AT&T billing systems. Talk usage may include voicemails and other unbilled calls. Talk usage in excess of your plan allowance will be deducted from available Rollover Minutes(R) first then incur a per-minute charge. Hawaii Text/Data: Unbilled Data usage time stamp may be off by 3 to 6 hours because of the time zone difference.

 

I do also recall that for Mobile Share plans there is a note in there that the data displayed is a summary of a 3 hour period grouped together as a single entry in the billing system.

 

In the end, it is up to us to either pay for what we use, or monitor it closely enough to know if we are going to go over and prevent that overage ourselves.  My phone has the ability for me to reset it's data usage counters myself each month, so I can do that and keep track of how much data I use (and even how much each app on the phone uses).  I can use that to track how much data I use each month, and if I am very concerned about AT&T's billing, I can even compare my phone's totals to my AT&T bill.  I used to keep a spreadsheet of what my phone indicated each month and what the AT&T bill indicated I had used.  I found that some months, my phone showed more than my bill, and other months my bill showed more than my phone.  Knowing that my billing cycle ran from the 20th of the month through the 19th of the following month, I started looking at the edges of the billing cycles and saw that I had data usage on the current month's bill that had occurred 3-5 days before the end of the previous billing cycle.  When I check with the previous bill, that usage was not there, so I was not being double-billed, it was just delayed in appearing on my bill.  In the end, I found that it all averaged out, and I was not being billed for more than I was using.  If you are one who uses right up to the last KB of your data plan, this could come back to bite you on some months, but for me that has not been an issue yet.  I just bumped my data to a point where I can use it freely and not have to worry about "will this email cause me to go over my limit?"

 

For you, you just need to look at your own data usage and see if it makes sense to go to a higher data plan or not.  Back when AT&T still had the $10/1000 text messages, $15/1500 text messages, and $20/unlimited text messages, I was generally using about 900 text messages a month.  A few months I used about 1100, but I was generally in the 900 message range.  I simply signed up for the $10 plan and did the math at $0.25 per message, I would get 20 messages for the $5 plan difference. As long as I didn't use more than 100 messages over the 1000 limit in every 5 months, it was cheaper for me to keep the lower plan, and pay per message for the overages, but my bill might not always be the same.  You would just need to sit down and do the same for your data usage and see how much you actually use and see if it is more cost effective to pay an occasional overage or to increase your data plan.  Of course, if you opt to keep the same plan, keep in mind that some months you will have overages, and if those get to be too frequent, you may want to just call in and change your data plan to a higher one.

 

Here is also a little know fact for you.  AT&T will allow you to change your data plan at any time during the month, and as of a month ago, they would still let you call in to customer service and select to have that change dated one of 3 ways: At the beginning of the next billing cycle (the default), Immediately where they prorate your old plan up to the current date, then prorate the new plan from this point to the end of the billing cycle (this one is almost always the most expensive), or Retroactive to the beginning of the current billing cycle (so the whole cycle is on the new plan).  Using this last option would allow you to have the benefit of paying for a 10GB data plan, and if you happen to see that you are going to go over this month, you can call and have them change you to the 15GB or 20GB plan for the current billing cycle, then after the cycle ends, you call then and switch back to the 10GB plan for the next billing cycle.  This technique can save you the most money, but it does require the most effort on your part.  If money is a huge thing for you, you could save your self hundreds of dollars a year by doing this, assuming that you have one or two months that you go way over your plan limit, but most the time you are under.  Also, if you decided to go this route, keep in mind that any off-contract discounts are lower for data plans less than 10GB, so a 6GB data plan with 3 smartphones might cost you more than a 10GB data plan with the same 3 smartphones if they are all getting the out-of-contract discounts. I only mention this here for those who haven't already thought about their costs knowing that anyone who is really worried about their costs would have already done that math.

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