Tutor
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4 Messages
ATT dishonest additional data charges
On the final day of my billing cycle, I get the following message:
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AT&T Free Msg: 75% of the add'l 1GB of shared data added to your plan this billing period has been used. If you exceed this 1GB, we'll add another shared 1GB for $15 to your plan for use through 11/03/2016. Avoid add'l data charges by using Wi-Fi. Visit att.com/changemydata to view your data use or change your plan.
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On the first day of my next billing cycle, I get this:
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AT&T Free Msg: All of the add'l 1GB of shared data added to your plan in this billing period is used. We've added another shared 1GB for $15 to your plan for use through 12/03/2016. Avoid add'l data charges by using Wi-Fi. Visit att.com/changemydata to view your data use or change your plan.
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I've been disabling all sorts of apps (who knew the GPS chews through gigabytes of data!?) because I've been hit with multiple over limit charges in the last month and a half. This is the last straw though.
Has anyone else dealt with AT&T's dishonesty successfully? I'm about to pay the $150 to end my NEXT plan and jump to Sprint.
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AT&T Free Msg: 75% of the add'l 1GB of shared data added to your plan this billing period has been used. If you exceed this 1GB, we'll add another shared 1GB for $15 to your plan for use through 11/03/2016. Avoid add'l data charges by using Wi-Fi. Visit att.com/changemydata to view your data use or change your plan.
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On the first day of my next billing cycle, I get this:
-----
AT&T Free Msg: All of the add'l 1GB of shared data added to your plan in this billing period is used. We've added another shared 1GB for $15 to your plan for use through 12/03/2016. Avoid add'l data charges by using Wi-Fi. Visit att.com/changemydata to view your data use or change your plan.
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I've been disabling all sorts of apps (who knew the GPS chews through gigabytes of data!?) because I've been hit with multiple over limit charges in the last month and a half. This is the last straw though.
Has anyone else dealt with AT&T's dishonesty successfully? I'm about to pay the $150 to end my NEXT plan and jump to Sprint.
pgrey
Master
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3.5K Messages
8 years ago
Umh, you pretty much covered it, in the above statement, you need to do some legwork here.
Apps use data, some apps can use a LOT of data, even in the course of your first day of a new billing cycle, if they're syncing a whole set of offline maps, for example.
App updates can catch you by surprise too, a reasonable-use app can become a very-high-use app, with an update, for example.
You need to go through the list of your apps, and see which ones are the biggest offenders, and either restrain them (some have settings), or de-install them, to you get to where your data usage is manageable.
It may *seem* like AT&T did something odd here, but really they're just giving you more data, per your plan agreement, since you've used up all your plan data (the app thing above).
One other option is available to you, under AT&T, is the new Mobile Share Advantage plans, which don't have overages, they just switch to 3G, until your next data cycle.
ANY carrier will more or less have the same system, if you use up all your plans' data, you'll either get overages, or get bumped to a "throttled" tier, until the next cycle.
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CensoredComment
Tutor
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4 Messages
8 years ago
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CensoredComment
Tutor
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4 Messages
8 years ago
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sandblaster
ACE - Expert
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64.7K Messages
8 years ago
Those 75% data used warning messages are not guaranteed, especially if your entire 1GB of data got used in a single reporting cycle. Pgrey is not an ATT employee, he is just trying to help you figure out what is using your data but apparently that is not what you are concerned about.
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Light818
Contributor
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2 Messages
8 years ago
I have been an ATT customer for 20 years and will switch carriers after this incident with the data scam. My daughter and I both bought new iPhone 7 and immediately our data was eaten up with the hidden "wifi assist" (scam your data) feature. [Per Guidelines: Keep it Relevant and Appropriate].
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sandblaster
ACE - Expert
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64.7K Messages
8 years ago
@Light818 Seriously, you blame ATT for wifi assist? Unbelievable.
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CensoredComment
Tutor
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4 Messages
8 years ago
I still think the wording of the second text I received indicates the data transaction took place in the new month and I want a refund for everyone who has gotten hit with that issue because I'm pretty sure I'm not special.
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David606
Employee
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3.5K Messages
8 years ago
They do notify you.
Data reporting is not in real time. It's absolutely not possible to report it instantly. It's delayed. This is laid out in the terms and conditions of service. It can take a tower up to a day to report any usage. It's like using your debit card as a gas pump. That transaction is pending, may not appear on a statement until the gas station closes it's batch for the day and sends that to your bank. The towers have to return their usage stats to central billing.
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pgrey
Master
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3.5K Messages
8 years ago
@CensoredComment Trust me, per @sandblaster's comment, I'm not an AT&T employee, I'm just a s/w and h/w engineer who's worked in various fields, for quite a few years, and like to contribute, on various forums, when I can provide insight.
Latency (data in this case) is a problem in computing in general, be it on your PC, over your
network, over the internet, on a server (possibly AT&T's in this case) and more.
Nowadays I mostly do systems and test design, but I still deal with latency (as most people close to the system do, in design), and worked on a voice project awhile back; I could tell you all kinds of things about latency, that I thought were done and buried...
I also didn't catch your X-Y transition exactly, maybe I didn't read it closely enough, but either way, you have a valid point, just not a realistic one.
It's hard, particularly with domestic-roaming, for AT&T to be able to keep these messages up to real-time, or realistically, even close. What if they don't get a notification from a TMo tower use, until 1.5 days after? Or maybe it's USCellular, or some other small-ish player they have an agreement with (that lets you use your cell in more places).
I agree with you, it would be nice if they were able to do this in "pseudo real-time", but if I had a nickel, for everyone who's ever said that, as an engineer, I'd be retired, long, long ago ;-]
This goes back to @David606's good comment, about the fact they do inform you, they just can't do it fast enough, in some cases, for these reasons.
In the absence of that ability, at least for now, I'd still suggest your review of what's using your data (from your comments I'm pretty sure you know how to track this), using a data-counter-app, whatever it takes, to get a handle on usage.
Even if they were able to magically fix this issue, tomorrow say, you'd still want to be able to control this use, and not be running out of data at the start of a reset, or similar, IMHO...
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pgrey
Master
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3.5K Messages
8 years ago
@sandblaster I know, right?
Often AT&T gets blamed for apps that update and consume data like crazy too, 'cause I'm sure it's AT&T who allowed those apps to be installed/updated ;-]
@Light818There has to be some accountability here, if Apple re-enables a setting (bad move, IMO, but I'm really not an iOS guy, by any stretch...), it's still up to the user, it's in that huge EULA you scrolled through, and clicked "I agree", I can guarantee it.
Maybe AT&T should try to notify people, but I bet we'd see an equal number of comments, if not more, saying "why is AT&T telling me about what I know, or how to manage my device"...
I gripe about some stuff AT&T does myself sometimes (you can see my posts), but they're typically things where they're outside industry standards, or not keeping up with the competiton. I even wrongly gripe, occasionally, we're all human ;-]
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