AT&T Doubling Its Upgrade Fee to $36 on February 12th

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
What do you do after reporting "blow-out" earnings and instituting larger, pricier, data plans? If you're AT&T, why not go for the jugular by doubling upgrade fees? That's exactly what Ma Bell plans to do come February 12th, upping the existing $18 fee to a new high of $36. That might sound familiar, as it's much in the same vein as cross-town rival Sprint, who went through the same kerfuffle back in September.

” This fee isn't unique to AT&T and this is the first time we're changing it in nearly 10 years”.
Click to expand...
 
My my my, the more money coporations make, the more they look to milk money from the consumer. What the hell does that fee cover anyway and why does it need to DOUBLE?

I just looked at my Verizon receipt for my recent upgrade and all I paid was the price of the phone plus NY State and City tax.
 
So the T-Mobile merger fails, and they still had to pay T-Mobile for the failed merger. Then they raise fees.
 
tesfaye said:
My my my, the more money coporations make, the more they look to milk money from the consumer. What the hell does that fee cover anyway and why does it need to DOUBLE?

I just looked at my Verizon receipt for my recent upgrade and all I paid was the price of the phone plus NY State and City tax.
Click to expand...

Well, since they're a GSM network the fee basically covers nothing (they can't even claim it's to cover the 25 seconds it takes to update the device on your account like a CDMA carrier could try to claim since you're still swapping out the SIM yourself). It's just a flat increase of $36 to the price of all their phones without having to raise the amount they actually advertise as the price their your phones.
 
Man, AT&T customers have it bad. T-mobile just called me to tell me that they want to reduce my monthly bill down to 49.99 for unlimited 4G, txt, and 500 minutes (overkill for me). I also appreciated the letter the CEO sent out thanking its customers who stood against the merger. T-mobile seems to be doing well, so why is big bad AT&T hurting?
 
Ualdayan said:
Well, since they're a GSM network the fee basically covers nothing (they can't even claim it's to cover the 25 seconds it takes to update the device on your account like a CDMA carrier could try to claim since you're still swapping out the SIM yourself). It's just a flat increase of $36 to the price of all their phones without having to raise the amount they actually advertise as the price their your phones.
Click to expand...

Err, wish we could edit, 'price of their phones' is what I meant to say.
 
JosiahBradley said:
Man, AT&T customers have it bad. T-mobile just called me to tell me that they want to reduce my monthly bill down to 49.99 for unlimited 4G, txt, and 500 minutes (overkill for me). I also appreciated the letter the CEO sent out thanking its customers who stood against the merger. T-mobile seems to be doing well, so why is big bad AT&T hurting?
Click to expand...

AT&T isn't hurting. Their wireless revenues were up 19.4% from the year prior, and the only reason it wasn't blowout earnings is because of the one time penalty resulting from trying to go from being a duopoly GSM carrier to the monopoly GSM carrier.
 
Ualdayan said:
AT&T isn't hurting. Their wireless revenues were up 19.4% from the year prior, and the only reason it wasn't blowout earnings is because of the one time penalty resulting from trying to go from being a duopoly GSM carrier to the monopoly GSM carrier.
Click to expand...

So they're doing fine, turning a profit, and raping customers? It's a win-win-win for them, wow :D
 
tesfaye said:
My my my, the more money coporations make, the more they look to milk money from the consumer. What the hell does that fee cover anyway and why does it need to DOUBLE?

I just looked at my Verizon receipt for my recent upgrade and all I paid was the price of the phone plus NY State and City tax.
Click to expand...

That genuine USDA greed for ya.
 
tesfaye said:
My my my, the more money coporations make, the more they look to milk money from the consumer. What the hell does that fee cover anyway and why does it need to DOUBLE?

I just looked at my Verizon receipt for my recent upgrade and all I paid was the price of the phone plus NY State and City tax.
Click to expand...

I don't know about Verizon but ATT puts the upgrade fee on the next bill. I just upgraded my wife's phone 2 months ago and forgot about the the fee. I called them to bitch about my phone bill being higher for some reason and the rep reminded me that I just upgraded one of my numbers on the plan. I then appolized for being a dumbass and she removed the upgrade fee for being a valued customer. Valued is right I give those people about $500 a month from cell phones, Uverse, internet, and home phone.

BTW - Best Buy is running a promo for a free $50 gift card if you upgrade with them with ATT Verizon, Tmobile and Sprint. End today but you only have to register your number and upgrade by 12/31/2012.
 
JosiahBradley said:
Man, AT&T customers have it bad. T-mobile just called me to tell me that they want to reduce my monthly bill down to 49.99 for unlimited 4G, txt, and 500 minutes (overkill for me). I also appreciated the letter the CEO sent out thanking its customers who stood against the merger. T-mobile seems to be doing well, so why is big bad AT&T hurting?
Click to expand...

I just to NYC with a friend and their AT&T Samsung Galaxy SII SkyRocket had no data connection the whole time. Which really sucked since we relied on that phone for GPS. Pulled out my T-Mobile G2 and had no problems the whole time.

Is it really that bad for AT&T customers in NYC? Everywhere I go I can't help but noticed AT&T customers getting screwed. I guess it's a good thing I stuck with T-Mobile.
 
Baditude said:
I don't know about Verizon but ATT puts the upgrade fee on the next bill. I just upgraded my wife's phone 2 months ago and forgot about the the fee. I called them to bitch about my phone bill being higher for some reason and the rep reminded me that I just upgraded one of my numbers on the plan. I then appolized for being a dumbass and she removed the upgrade fee for being a valued customer. Valued is right I give those people about $500 a month from cell phones, Uverse, internet, and home phone.

BTW - Best Buy is running a promo for a free $50 gift card if you upgrade with them with ATT Verizon, Tmobile and Sprint. End today but you only have to register your number and upgrade by 12/31/2012.
Click to expand...

$500/ month? Please say you are joking.
 
If you don't recall, AT&T had to give T-Mo a fuckton of money to pay for the failure of the buyout.

Guess who gets to pay for that now. You do, congrats
 
So what costs are there exactly for a salesperson or some other low level employee to update a database? How on earth can the fee for that double? Is there a union for those employees and they demand full health benefits or something? I would be okay if a company just came straight out and said, we're greedy bastards, so we're going to increase the fee. This bullshit about the cost of upgrading more complex devices is higher is a pretty thing smokescreen.

Ever notice how fees only increase? I can't remember one fee that ever decreases.
 
ninjaturtle said:
$500/ month? Please say you are joking.
Click to expand...

That is actually easy to do with AT&T. A couple smartphones with 4gig plans and unlimited nationwide minutes and texting runs about $240. Ad Uverse, a home phone line, and perhaps another smart phone, and you can see where this could go.


Anyway, call and argue any of the extra fees they tack on for activations and they usually will toss you a credit.
 
ninjaturtle said:
$500/ month? Please say you are joking.
Click to expand...

Enough cell phone spending and I can see it.

I'm on antenna plus lifetime Tivo (free), Uverse 12mb ($30/mo for now), Virgin Mobile (2x$25/mo), and home phone (Ooma, free).

So I spend $80/mo...even when we had Uverse though we were under $120/mo.

Boggles my mind what people spend for cellphones and such.
 
Anytime I get a new iPhone I just call and complain and they refund the upgrade fee.
 
Brak710 said:
Anytime I get a new iPhone I just call and complain and they refund the upgrade fee.
Click to expand...

Yeah, good luck with that. They straight up lost mine and my wife's iPhone 4s', which were already a month late getting here, and I called probably 5 times and talked to different CSR's trying to get the upgrade fee removed to no avail. In fact, they even started charging me for service on my phone I hadn't recieved, and refused to stop! God AT&T sucks. If I didn't get a 30% discount because my wife is a nurse, I would drop them like a bad habit.

And doubling their upgrade fee? Are they not happy already being consistently the lowest rated wireless carrier for customer satisfaction, for how many years running now?
 
Remindes my of why I cut all ties to ATT 2 years ago and will never go back.
 
Guys, what is the "upgrade fee", and when does it apply? Do you have to pay any time you renew your contract and get a new phone, or only if you are renewing your contract prematurely?

This is just another reason (among others) that I like PagePlus so much. They are a CDMA carrier, and they do have to manually change your MEID (since it is a CDMA network), but they don't charge any fee. You pay the $10 one-time fee to become a member, then upgrades are free. It takes 24-48 hours for them to do it online (in my experience), but hey, it's not a deal breaker for me.

Ualdayan said:
Well, since they're a GSM network the fee basically covers nothing (they can't even claim it's to cover the 25 seconds it takes to update the device on your account like a CDMA carrier could try to claim since you're still swapping out the SIM yourself). It's just a flat increase of $36 to the price of all their phones without having to raise the amount they actually advertise as the price their your phones.
Click to expand...

This was well put, and a good insight. ATT can advertise better prices in its commercials, but still charge higher prices. "Get the hottest new phone for $100, and save $25 compared to the competition." But they are really charging you $136, higher than the competition, at the end of the day.
 
I added a line and they charged me a $36 "activation fee". I called att customer service and told them to waive it. Was put on hold for 30 seconds while it was reviewed. Girl came back and said it was waived.
I said thank you and all it took was 30 seconds and me asking.

Its a fee that can be waived.
 
ninjaturtle said:
$500/ month? Please say you are joking.
Click to expand...

Everyone complains and guess what? They do nothing about it. Many of them are here on this forum. I think anything over $50 a month is ridiculous and a lot of people think $100 a month is acceptable.
 
I've been an ATT user for over a decade now and I really am starting to lose my patience. It's not the fee really, whatever, it's bullshit, but its $36 dollars. If everything else was gravy, I wouldn't give a shit.

I've got my entire family on grandfathered unlimited plans, which, if those morons wouldn't fuck with, would ensure that I am a customer for life. Instead, they start throttling me at less than 3gb a month, not to mention sending me harassing emails for using their service too much. Some nerve I must have.

EVEN THEN, I might consider sticking around, but they haven't done dick in terms of LTE rollout, so at the end of the day I'm left with nothing in the pro's area and a bunch of shit in the cons. Fucking lawyers running companies these days.
 
upgrade/activation fees are pure profit. They're charging you $36.00 for agreeing to give them your business for at least 2 more years.
 
Crotan said:
If you're running a family plan and also do international calling
Click to expand...

Also what was the article on the margins for the Iphone? Pretty sure that has something to do with this. The phones cost At&t $800 plus to buy from apple, and the cost of subsidizing it for the consumer kills their profits.
 
"AT&T Wireless" said:
Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased and is reflected in our new upgrade fee. This fee isn't unique to AT&T and this is the first time we're changing it in nearly 10 years.
Click to expand...

Devices are more complex, but for the most part, it's the same upgrade process. You have to write new code for the iPhone and when Android products came out the same was true, but those products also ensure that the carrier gets customers on more expensive plans for 2 years.

Until customers revolt, this will continue. It's like SMS. The cost is virtually 0. Thus, companies originally charged around $5.00. Then they went to 10, then 15 then 20 and so on. Virtually all the work related to SMS is related to billing.
 
fattypants said:
I thought the contract/data plan subsidized the upgrade. Now they're just piling on.
Click to expand...

Threaten to leave. There's really no reason you have to stay with your provider. The key is if they don't back down, you have to leave. It's the only way they'll learn. It costs a provider much more than $36.00 to acquire a customer and carriers always monitor/worry about the churn rate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top