Tutor
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4 Messages
Fraudulently Charged by AT&T Billing
Towards the end of last billing cycle, I knew I was coming close to my 1GB of data limit.
So on the night of the end of my billing cycle, with 3 hours until the next billing cycle began, with 24 megabytes to spare on my data plan, I disabled all mobile data on my phone, put it into airplane mode, and went to sleep.
I open my .PDF bill a couple days later to find that I was billed $20 for extra data.
UNBELIEVABLE.
It made me sick that a such a huge corporation has such fraudulent billing charges. According to the billing, in that 3 hour period, I had mysteriously used 60 megabytes of data. On my phones data log for the ENTIRE DAY, I am at 1 megabyte.
How many people has AT&T fraudulenty charged $20 extra or more for other overages that are close enough to be dispuatable. Is this a common practice?
Luckily, I took screenshots of my AT&T data usage directly from their website that night to protect myself because I had a hunch that they would try to charge me for overages, and my hunch was correct.
THIS IS A BREACH OF CONTRACT. THIS IS FRAUDULENT. I wonder if an investigation by the FCC or FTC or the Bureau of Consumer Protection would turn up a very slimey pattern of billing.
Also, when I signed up, I was lied to by the sales associate. I was told that my USG State Department discount of 15% would apply to the entire bill. Instead, it applied only to a small portion of the bill giving an effective discount of 3%. More lies. More slimey practices. I am pretty disgusted.
kdfederer
ACE - Expert
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13.2K Messages
10 years ago
Data usage is sometimes delayed by 24 to 48 hours, especially if it is used on a partner of AT&T's towers.
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NooBaj
Tutor
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4 Messages
10 years ago
That is fine and well. I was told through private message by ATT customer care that it is calculated every 3 hours.
I am definitely on AT&T genuine towers.
This still does not account for the fact that my data usage grew by 40+ megabytes over a 4 hour period.
My data usage according to my phone for July 6, 7, and 8 was a total of ..... 1 whopping megabyte. My billing period ended on the 7th. I disabled the mobile data on these days just so that I would not go over the allotment.
How does AT&T account for this?
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NooBaj
Tutor
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4 Messages
10 years ago
Hello?
Is anyone going to help me?
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GeekBoy
Master
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4.1K Messages
10 years ago
If you want to try to track it down, then people can try to help, but you have to accept the help offered.
What type of phone do you have? Is it an iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, ...?
Depending on the type of phone you have, you can use the phone's internal monitoring tools, or use third party monitoring tools on your phone to see what the device itself is reporting as being used, then compare that to what AT&T is reporting. To be "fair" though, you would need to start with a known "clean state" so you would have to not use any cellular data on your phone for a few days to make sure any "backlog" gets processed through, then you could take the baseline for your monitoring tools and for AT&T. Next, use your device for some period of time, then compare the monitoring tools to AT&T to see what is reported. If there is a difference, who reports more and who reports less? Do your monitoring tools report more than AT&T? If so, then you see that there are delays in the reporting from AT&T. To be complete, you would need to stop using your cellular data entirely for a period of time and compare AT&T to your monitoring tools again to see if they match now or not. If not, once again, which reports higher usage?
I have been using AT&T service for many years and I can say that I have seen delays in reporting some of my cellular data usage for up to 9 days. Granted, I live in an area that is borderline between the old Bell South service area and the old Southwestern Bell service area. While these are both owned by AT&T now, I suspect that they are still 2 separate entities & billing systems and sometimes have delays in communicating between themselves. I used to see some entries on my bills every month that were for several days in the previous billing cycle, and when I would compare the details, they never overlapped with entries on the previous or following month's bills either. In most cases they averaged out, but in some special cases, I would have more data moved from one month to the next causing a minor impact on my monthly usage report. The way around that is to either pay for a higher data plan so you don't ever have to worry about going over, or to accept that the money you save with the cheaper data plan will compensate enough for the occasional overage charge. The choice is fully yours, it just means that your usage is near the boundary of the package you are on and you either need to buy a larger package and pay more every month, or you keep on the smaller package to save money and with that saving, you pay the occasional overage fee knowing that you save more than you pay in overage fees most months.
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NooBaj
Tutor
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4 Messages
10 years ago
[Please keep it courteous]
an AT&T rep told me the data reporting can be delayed by 3 hours
an AT&T zealot told me 24-48 hours
In both instances, I did not use 40+ megabytes in a 3 hour period. According to my data usage tracking on my android phone, I used 1 mb over a 3 day period. My android device itemizes data usage by program and allows me to disable all mobile data as well as restrict any background data.
You want me to buy a larger data package? HA, you must truly be an employee of theirs.
Rare circumstances lead me to the unusually high data usage on my end. I was in the sticks on a rural project.
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TheLoneWulf
Tutor
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5 Messages
10 years ago
I'm going to start off by saying that I do not work for AT&T. I work for a gaming control company.
That said, you have recieved attempts at help and have been combative about it. You had already made up your mind about the "fraudulent" behavior and the "Breach of contract," so nothing that could be said on a forum will appease you based on your current standing opinion.
If you feel you have a legitimate complaint than I'd suggest that you take your screenshots, your data plan, your contract, and everything else that you have to support your claim and take it to an AT&T B&M location. There, a manager can look over what you have and may be able to assist you.
I also have had odd brushes with usage. One month, apparently, I used in a 4-hour period more than one and a half times my family's typical data usage for a month! I took the information to an AT&T store because I was rather concerned. I had just recieved my Lumia 1520 and I wanted to find out if there was something on the phone that burst data. It hasn't happened again since, thankfully, but I do understand about the concern as it ran me right up against my limit as well. Unfortunately, according to AT&T Customer Service, nothing could be done. We managed to finish without going over but it was still rather disconcerting. In the end, my wife and I wound up just upgrading to a 10GB plan, up from 2GB, because it was $10 more.
But even with the best of tales that I can disseminate, it won't matter because it can't help you in your current predicament. Nothing on the forum really will be able to. This would be something that would have to be handled directly by a Customer Service Representative and this is simply a community board.
I wish you nothing but luck in getting the situation handled.
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MicCheck
ACE - Expert
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14.4K Messages
10 years ago
I'll try one more time to help you, though it seems you are rejecting said help.
"In both instances, I did not use 40+ megabytes in a 3 hour period"
No one is saying you did. However, due to delays in reporting data usage, you HAD ALREADY USED that data, but you could not see it on AT&T's tracker.
"You want me to buy a larger data package? HA, you must truly be an employee of theirs."
All AT&T employees on the forum are easily identified by their signature stating as much. He suggesting upgrading your data package as one option.
"Rare circumstances lead me to the unusually high data usage on my end. I was in the sticks on a rural project."
Fair enough. If you don't normally don't come close to using all the data you pay for, then your plan is fine. Just know that if a future "rural project" takes you back to "the sticks", you may want to upgrade for that month to avoid overages...or accept that you will have to pay more.
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marine87
Tutor
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3 Messages
10 years ago
Don't you find it strangely convenient that upgrading to the 10gb data plan was only $10 more, but yet they charge you $15/gb if you go over? ... What better way to get more money out of someone then blast them with data charges and make them pay for it though overage charges and then offer a simple solution to solve it all once they call in and complain (ie. $10/month upgrade).. sounds like a win/win situation for AT&T if you ask me. Either you pay the overage charges or you pay to upgrade. Either way, they're getting paid.
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