Overage charges and customer service lies

not paying your bill will only get service shut off and credit ruined  however at&t does not read or monitor these forums were all just customers here same as you

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@rottiemama wrote:

Today marks the second time I've dealt with customer service regarding some HUGE standalone wireless and mobile data charges that occurred within a 10 hour period. On August 6th, we called while it was happening, and after nearly 2 hours we were told that something definitely was not right and the overage charges would be taken care of.

 

 

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What was "not right?" Why do you think the overage charges are erroneous?

@Constructive  Is correct.   If you don’t pay bill At&t will suspend your service, they won’t turn your service back on until you have a zero balance, and they will charge you a restoral fee on each line. 

     First we need to clear up your comment about a large amount of data posting in 10 hours.   Data is not recorded on your account live.  So it’s not like you could run around and look at everybody’s phone and shut all the data off and stop the data from being recorded on your account.  Typically data used during the day posts overnight, but can take up to 3 days to report all data to your usage reports. 

   Since you indicate that you have had a problem before, (same issue?) AT&T is not going to continue to credit for data overage again and again.  I’m sure that’s why your credit was denied. 

     It is extremely unlikely that AT&T is charging you incorrectly for Data Usage.    Not impossible, but it is far more likely it is something on your end it is causing the problem. You may have a defective phone, or an application which is acting abnormally and using excessive amounts of data. Sometimes it’s an incorrect setting on your phone. All these are your responsibility, and no carrier can control for you. 

     What you can do:  Proving a data overage did not happen is like proving to the IRS that you don’t owe them any tax money. You have to have records supporting your side of the accounting. 

 Since smart phones actually do keep a record which is independent of whatever carrier you are using, this is very easy to do.   Android smart phones actually have a built-in meter that keeps track by your bill cycle. You may have to set that tracking to make sure it is correct on the phone. iPhones do not have a meter that resets automatically, so you have to manually reset data statistics at the end of each bill cycle.

    Which device?   Since this is a repeat, you should be looking at which device AT&T is saying used and unusually large amount of data. If it is the same device both times it is far more likely it is a defect in the device or something on the device.    Look at which applications on the device. In settings on each phone data usage is tracked so you can see which application Used how much data during any particular bill cycle. Things like YouTube and Snapchat are quite common culprits with teenagers. With adults it is frequently a location-based service like mapping,  Video always chews up a tremendous amount of data. 

     If at the end of a bill cycle you can show that each of your devices used less data than AT&T claims by a significant amount take screenshots so that you can show AT&T that something is very wrong. 

He got a customer service award for this rude reply? His simile about proving non usage being like telling the IRS you don’t owe taxes was not apt; it was absurd as they are obviously entirely unrelated. I supposedly ran up 4,609 mb last month with cellular data turned off & all apps attended to. I have wi-fi with a good signal, of course. I’m a disabled senior and not online 24/7; nor do I need this aggravation with an income of $1,000 a month after medical premiums. I have noticed AT&T never admits being wrong. Remember the scandal about ten years when people’s i-phones were showing making hundreds of calls, day & night, some of them lasting 30 seconds or so? I do, I was one of them. All AT&T would do was read my bill out loud to me as tho my Master’s degree had been attained without the ability to read. Some help.

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@Crow4it wrote:

He got a customer service award for this rude reply? His simile about proving non usage being like telling the IRS you don’t owe taxes was not apt; it was absurd as they are obviously entirely unrelated. I supposedly ran up 4,609 mb last month with cellular data turned off & all apps attended to. I have wi-fi with a good signal, of course. I’m a disabled senior and not online 24/7; nor do I need this aggravation with an income of $1,000 a month after medical premiums. I have noticed AT&T never admits being wrong. Remember the scandal about ten years when people’s i-phones were showing making hundreds of calls, day & night, some of them lasting 30 seconds or so? I do, I was one of them. All AT&T would do was read my bill out loud to me as tho my Master’s degree had been attained without the ability to read. Some help.

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@Crow4it There was nothing rude in that reply (and came from a “she”, not a “he”) and the comment about the IRS was “Proving a data overage did not happen is like proving to the IRS that you don’t owe them any tax money”, that is an analogy and basically saying proving you didn’t use the data is very difficult. As you yourself are apparently finding out, that is very apt. Oh, she did not get a customer service award as she is another customer, as are all of the relies on this thread.

@Crow4it   4600 mb is about 4.5 gigs, which isn’t an unusual amount of data for a month.  Way back when 3g was the thing, 2 gigs was normal use.  With LTE 2 gigs is insufficient.   Perhaps you are on a excessively small data plan and should be considering a plan with no overage charges? https://www.att.com/plans/wireless/mobile-share-plus.html

I called several times  to resolve my high bill than the plan, but even after sPending hours talking to customer service they are not ready to correct their mistake. All different agent talk different about my account. Every time  I call, I came to know some different plan information. Bill is Not consistent . Fraud company. Extremely dissatisfied. Don’t be fooled by any promotion as that is the only trap to fool you. They charge way more than promotion plan each month, and you can not leave as they have penalties for breaking so called one sided contracts. You will be always in loss even after you are getting latest phone for free. 

Worst customer service faced every time

Don’t be fooled by promotion of free phone, that’s  a trap. I am trapped by taking a such offer, imposed penalty to leave. Every month got  Bill almost two times more than the promised plan. Customer service is worst, got me disconnected every time I called to resolve the issue. Even service is poor in my area, Internet always down. Extremely dissatisfied. Looking for a an option to exit without any penalty.