MobileShare charge complaint

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@ClientSince1192 wrote:

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To reiterate I was NEVER told that I would be charged $180 a year when I upgraded my phone and after spending over 1.5 hours talking to AT&T there was nothing you can do about it.  I have been a client for over 22 years, upgraded countless phones and have never had a problem like this.  I feel that the way this charge applied was at best misleading, at worst unethical.  

 

I would like to know if there is anything ATT can do to rectify the situation?

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While you may have been a customer for the last 22 years, you were not using the Mobile Share plan for that entire time.  The new Mobile Share plans with discounts for being off contract were just introduced about 9-10 months ago.  When you switched to that plan you get teh discount for being out of contract, and as a part of the details of that plan, you lose the discount when you sign a new service contract.  While not everyone read the details of the new plan when it came out, the information was always there, and the discount was clearly marked on your monthly bill.  When you signed a new service contract, you were no longer eligible for the discount, as they tried to explain to you over the phone.  You say that you were "never told" but if youhad read the details of the plan agreement when you switched plans, you would have learned the information that you missed.  Would a bank change your mortgage for you if you didn't read the details about your mortgage payments when you found that your variable rate interest could go up 2% every six months?  I suspect that they would tell you that there was nothing that they could do since you signed the contract, and that is essentially what AT&T is telling you now that you accepted the service agreemtent on the Mobile Share plan when you changed your account to the new plan earlier this year.

Since you are within the 14 days "buyers remorse" period, you could return the phones and cancel your new service contract so you keep your discounts if you so desire.  If you want a new phone though, you would need to either lose the discount on your service to get a discounted phone, or lose the discounted phone prices to keep the discount on your service.  You have one other option, which is to buy your off-contract phone form some other source and not get it from AT&T, so you could still keep the discount on your service, and not have to pay AT&T for the new phone at all.  You would need to do your full comparisons to see which is the cheapest/best option for you.  Since you mention the $180/year, that tells me that you are on teh Mobile Share plans and that you have less than 10GB of data each month.  In that case, it is probably only about $25 per year difference between paying the higher service fees and paying the higher phone cost.

The real problem that you are encountering is that you changed your service plan and assumed that you could jsut save money every month and nothing else would change.  That assumption was in error, and you have now learned that the change you missed when you changed your plan was that the discount for not being under contract goes away when you sign a new service contract.  For years AT&T always sold phones at a subsidized price and then charged more for service to recover that money they had to pay to subsidize your phone purchase, it's just that the price was not documented and you always paid it, even if your contract expired and you didn't upgrade your phone right away.  Now with the Mobile Share plans, you don't pay that extra service fee all the time, and you get the discount when you are no longer under contract, and it is even documented on your monthly bill as an out of contract discount, so now it is clearer to you that you have always been paying for your phone one way or another.

When I upgraded one of my lines, the rep did everything on an iPad and it instructed her to advise me of the changes that getting the subsidized upgrade would cost. I already knew ahead of time about the out of contract discount on the Mobile Share Data plan so I was educated and knew the costs.

I don't understand why all reps don't do the same thing. I went to a corporate store. I don't know if the authorized retailers are the problem or there are just lazy reps that don't want to take the time to advise clients of the repercussions of a subsidized upgrade while on the Mobile Share Data plans. 

All the plans state that  they are for out of contract lines. Consumers should educate themselves a little and that could alleviate the mis-information that the customer service reps cause.

Unfortunately, when you get a subsidized upgrade, you lose the discount for the length of the contract.

AT&T (and most of the other providers) are no longer subsidizing phone costs. One way or another, you will pay for the cost of the phone, either by buying through NEXT, in which you pay full price for the phone over the length of your agreement but keep the "out of contract discount", or buy paying the subsidized phone price, plus the $40 upgrade fee, plus the loss of the out of contract discount. It will be your decision which way to purchase.

you are just bunch of crooks !

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@charlesIROCZ28 wrote:
my bill keeps getting higher and higher I used to pay $ 64 a month now its seventy something dollars , keep on and I'll go with CSPIRE snd thats a promise

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Charles, that's not really a question. This is the community forum (customer to customer help).

What's your plan?  How much data/minutes? Maybe we can help you find a better plan...

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@charlesIROCZ28 wrote:
yall need to get my bill back down to where it used to be8

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Not helpful Charles.  How much data do you use? How many lines? You've got to help us to help you...

@charlesIROCZ28

You are writing to fellow customers.  This is NOT AT&T.   

We cant see your bill.  Taxes fees and other charges have increased over the years.  If you think a new plan with CSpire is cheaper (probably is not) then feel free to leave.  We don't care, this is not our business.