IMs NOT INCLUDED in Data Package??!?

Hello All,

I am a long time AT&T GoPhone Customer who has spent thousands on my GoPhone and happily.. until now. I was in Boston for the PAX East 2011 Video Game convention when I loaded $25 (being charged $26.56 after tax) onto my GoPhone for the weekend. I purchased a 200 Messaging package for $4.99 then proceeded to use the phone. I was using the 10 cents a minute flat rate plan.

Everything was going fine, the texts were covered by my Messaging feature package and the calls were billed according to my 10 cents per minute plan. I also made some international calls which were billed according to the rate of the country I was calling. (I paid $1.19 each for a few 40 second second calls which is expensive for Australia but is fine I guess).

The issue I ran into though is that I ran out of money on my account way sooner than anticipated. No problem, I figured the calling I did must have run me out, after all I only loaded about 25$ on. I loaded on $45 (charge was $47.80) the next morning after discovering the GoPhone would not do ANYTHING.

I immediately bought a 100 MB Data package for $19.99 expecting that this would help cover the IMs I was doing since I realized they might be part of the reason my $25 had run out so quick. I still had the 200 Messaging Package and the 10 cents a call plan so I figured this would last me the rest of the weekend.

It turns out that what I didn't know was that I had been charged $18.00 on the 11th and $6.20 on the 12th for a total of 271 Instant Messages, and this is where 95% of the money went. Even still, even without knowing that I would EXPECT that the Data Package I bought on the 12th would have allowed me a GOOD Amount of Instant Messaging before running out of the package.

INSTEAD I was charged $25.00 that morning for 125 IMs following by my phone being completely dead for the remainder of the trip.

As it stands now my Account Balance is $0.08 cents and there is still 102400KB (100MB) Exactly on my Data Feature Package that doesn't expire until 4/10/2011. This is completely wasted since I won't be using the phone again until the E3 Convention in LA in June.

I want to know honestly, WHY are IMs not included in the Data Package? Is this a new policy or has it always been this way? Last Year in LA I used my phone for IMs way more than I did during the weekend in Boston and I did not run into this problem.

IF IMs are not going to be included in the Data Package I think it's necessary that we see an IM package of some sort appear, because these rates are completely ridiculous. When communicating with loved ones a few hundred IMs is not as much as it seems, and shouldn't be costing more than my actual Voice, Data, and Texting put together.

In total I was charged $49.20 for a very small amount of IMs. If this is the business I can expect moving forward you can all expect much less business from me, sorry to say because I prefer GoPhone above all else but IMs are very important to me and absolutely not worth this price.

Is there anything anybody can do to help me out with this? Anything at all would be appreciated. Like I said I have a $20 data plan which I don't even need on my account and I've paid $49.20 for Instant Messages that I assumed were included in the data plan.

-Jon