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Teacher

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Friday, February 21st, 2014 2:48 AM

Mobile Share Value Plans Questions and Discussion

Beware.. The $160 per month plan for 4 smart phones with ATT is pretty shadey. They don't tell you that you are required to pay for 4 smart phones at full retail price. Maybe that small detail is buried somewhere in the fine print when the adds on TV play, but make sure you know exactly what you are paying for before jumping onto this.... It's very, very tricky. 

Expert

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12.2K Messages

10 years ago


@dmapr wrote:

@wingrider01 wrote:

Actually it is disclosed, if you would add the phone utilizing the Next plan it is 15.00, but if you want a subsidized phone it is 40.00

 

att_value.PNG


 LOL, your screen shot is the perfect example of it not being disclosed. Sure, it tells you all the cases of when it costs $15, but how much it'll cost on subsidy is nowhere in your example.


Maybe becasue I concentrated exactly on the fact that the words specificly state with Next plan or no annual service contract. It was stated that there is no disclosure that show the requirements for the 15.00, which according to the insert disproves that/ Maybe this one will work better for you becasue is specificly gives both the 15 and the 40 cost and what the requirements are for the 15.00 pricing. Notice the caveat at the bottom

 

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html#fbid=yKiX0roX6QJ

 

 

disc.PNG

 

2 Attachments

Scholar

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105 Messages

10 years ago


@GLIMMERMAN76 wrote:

it is what it is.  ATT states that you will pay full price when you upgrade.  I was told this when I switched to the new plan.  

 

It amazes me that people think they should get the 15 a month if you buy a subsidised phone.  That 25 extra covers the cost of the phone.  

 

What you should have done was buy a used smart phone and add it to the line.  Or better yet the moto g is only 179 bucks or nexus 5 for 350.  

 

If people want subsidised phones this plan is not for them.  This is for next customers or BYOD people


That might be because you don't just pay $15 a month on any plan.  For years people have walked in and paid from 1 cent to $199 and paid an upgrade fee and left with the same monthly charge. Now all of a sudden you go in and pay $199 for a 5s and a $36 upgrade fee and the bill increases by $25 a month.

 

Look how this works out. For the wonderful priviledge of agreeing to be an AT&T customer for 2 more years and get an Iphone 5c you get to pay $600 more in payments, $199 plus $38 upgrade fee for a grade total of $837. All this to upgrade one of your 4 lines.

 

You are right if you want a substidized phone this is not the plan for you.  Problem is AT&T employees did not explain the details till after people have signed up and tried to get a new phone.

 

Then there is the problen of charging people $40 instead of $15 when they brought an old phone into the plan. If you want to make AT&T the innocent party in this MVS plan you aren't looking very clearly.

ACE - Expert

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6.6K Messages

10 years ago


@wingrider01 wrote:

Maybe becasue I concentrated exactly on the fact that the words specificly state with Next plan or no annual service contract. It was stated that there is no disclosure that show the requirements for the 15.00, which according to the insert disproves that/ Maybe this one will work better for you becasue is specificly gives both the 15 and the 40 cost and what the requirements are for the 15.00 pricing. Notice the caveat at the bottom

 

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html#fbid=yKiX0roX6QJ

 

 

disc.PNG


 Yep, this is a much better illustration. I think most complaints that I've seen here were specifically mentioning ads and store personnell interactions. I myself have not been confused by the pricing at all, but I only looked online. I haven't seen any ads and I haven't talked to anybody in a store so I have no idea what that experience is like.

1 Attachment

Explorer

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17 Messages

10 years ago

Wow!  Unbelieavable how many people will not take responsibility for their laziness towards lack of detail.  I didn't need a rep to "spell it out" for me what would cost $40 and what would cost $15 per month.  I did a little homework before deciding to make the switch from my old plan to the new value plan.  And, as crazy as it may seem, I actually did the math before I decided to go from my HTC One to the G2 on the Next plan and go from the I-Phone 4 to a 5c for my son on the Next plan.  Why Next?  Because it was cheaper than buying a subsidized phone over the life of the contract.  Again, a rep didn't tell me that; I figured it out on my own.  People need to take a little responsibility for their choices and actions. 

Scholar

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105 Messages

10 years ago


@urbhusker wrote:

Wow!  Unbelieavable how many people will not take responsibility for their laziness towards lack of detail.  I didn't need a rep to "spell it out" for me what would cost $40 and what would cost $15 per month.  I did a little homework before deciding to make the switch from my old plan to the new value plan.  And, as crazy as it may seem, I actually did the math before I decided to go from my HTC One to the G2 on the Next plan and go from the I-Phone 4 to a 5c for my son on the Next plan.  Why Next?  Because it was cheaper than buying a subsidized phone over the life of the contract.  Again, a rep didn't tell me that; I figured it out on my own.  People need to take a little responsibility for their choices and actions. 


You do realize that all these disclosures that are being printed are from the updated promotional add after a lot of the problems. They are much more detailed than the MVS plan add when it first came out.

 

The televison add and the phone reps in most cases didn't explain the change in cost you would get when there was an upgrade to the account. There are 1000's of unhappy customers. When you have this much confusion over a plan with customers and AT&T employees the problem is with the plan roll out and not being lazy.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

10 years ago


@T-Boy wrote:

@GLIMMERMAN76 wrote:

it is what it is.  ATT states that you will pay full price when you upgrade.  I was told this when I switched to the new plan.  

 

It amazes me that people think they should get the 15 a month if you buy a subsidised phone.  That 25 extra covers the cost of the phone.  

 

What you should have done was buy a used smart phone and add it to the line.  Or better yet the moto g is only 179 bucks or nexus 5 for 350.  

 

If people want subsidised phones this plan is not for them.  This is for next customers or BYOD people


That might be because you don't just pay $15 a month on any plan.  For years people have walked in and paid from 1 cent to $199 and paid an upgrade fee and left with the same monthly charge. Now all of a sudden you go in and pay $199 for a 5s and a $36 upgrade fee and the bill increases by $25 a month.

 

Look how this works out. For the wonderful priviledge of agreeing to be an AT&T customer for 2 more years and get an Iphone 5c you get to pay $600 more in payments, $199 plus $38 upgrade fee for a grade total of $837. All this to upgrade one of your 4 lines.

 

You are right if you want a substidized phone this is not the plan for you.  Problem is AT&T employees did not explain the details till after people have signed up and tried to get a new phone.

 

Then there is the problen of charging people $40 instead of $15 when they brought an old phone into the plan. If you want to make AT&T the innocent party in this MVS plan you aren't looking very clearly.


your price for the 5c is a little high there.  The 5c is 99.99 or 199.99 depending on size.  its also 549 off contract so next would be cheaper with this phone. 

Scholar

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397 Messages

10 years ago

Bottom line--if having to pay not 1 penny more than the cost of purchasing a phone at subsidized pricing is important to your bottom line (other than any required taxes or upgrade/activation fees associated with purchasing a subsidized price phone), then your best bet is to stay on your grandfathered non-MSV plan.

 

If on MSV 10 GB or higher, then Next is the better way to go if looking to upgrade your phone since if you go with the subsidized pricing option on MSV, you will have to pay a minimum of $600 ($25 increase in per-line charge x 24 months) plus the cost of the subsidized phone itself, over the course of the 2-year contract--less, if you ETF but then you'd have to factor in the cost of the ETF.  OTOH if you're on a MSV 8 GB or lower plan, then Next may not absolutely be the best way to go--if you go the subsidized route, then it's $360 ($15 increase in per-line charge x 24 months) plus the cost of the subsidized phone--using iPhone 5s 16 GB as an example, subsidized phone cost is $200 + $360 for going subsidized, while Next price is $650 (spread over 20 or 26 months)...do the math and you'll see that subsidized is the better way to go in this case, cost-wise.

Explorer

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17 Messages

10 years ago

There are 1000's of unhappy customers over this? Again, it took a little reading and personal accountability on my part to figure out what was best for me.

Tutor

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5 Messages

10 years ago

Oh it was very confusing. We wanted to add my grandmother to our plan and switch to the new plan and the guy at the store ended up having us paying $500 for an iPhone 4S and our bill went from $162 a month to $180??? Unfortunately I had to spend 3 hours on the phone with AT&T fixing the problem. The customer service rep admitted that the store associate made the mistake, not me, but the point is the billing of it was made more complicated than it needed to be by the sales associate. Just another way that AT&T shows the most valuable part of what they do is take my paycheck.

Tutor

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2 Messages

10 years ago

You are so right I have been with ATT for over 10 years and regretted it the whole time you have watch your bill very very closely if it was it for there good coverage I would have left years ago. 

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