“Don’t allow them to charge you 5.00 folks. Let’s at least attempt to keep them honest”
I know this is a photography site, but most photographers have cellular phones, so this is relivent for us too. Oddly I’m not seeing much reporting on this. I guess I’m just a cranky geek.
If you call AT&T Wireless to pay your bill with a real person they’ll charge you a five dollar fee to give them money. I’m not kidding here. They’ll tell you that if you go online, or use the automated system there will be no fee, but if you pay them it will cost you five US dollars. I’m not really interested in them forcing their system on me. I didn’t agree to pay a fee, I agreed to pay my bill.
So why am I whining over five bucks? Cell phone companies are constantly finding new ways to squeeze money from us and frankly I’m sick of it. All we need do is let them no it’s not acceptable. If you go pay your bill this month on the phone and with a real person and refuse to pay a 5.00 fee you’ll make a simple statement that won’t allow them to take your money for no reason. It’s too bad there’s not more brand choices in the cellular industry.
If you went to the store and your grocer said. “Oh, I’m charging you a five dollar fee to check you out” would you pay it? I hope not. By allowing them to force you to pay this it’s like saying laying down and letting them tread on you. Many of us are paying AT&T hundreds of dollars a month for “Service” why should we pay extra to actually get it?
Make a statement. Call AT&T (800-331-0500) live and in person this month to pay your bill. Don’t allow them to charge you 5.00 folks. Let’s at least attempt to keep them honest. I’ve made them waive the fee multiple times.
OK, I dislike phone companies too, BUT, if I went to a grocery store and my groceries were cheaper if I used the self-checkout line I might think twice about going through the line with the cashier …
Yes but that’s the opposite. If ATT gave a discount for paying with other methods that would be OK What would you do if the prices were marked on the groceries and then the checker said it would be more when you check out?
Face it Gavin, this one is ridiculous.
Call centers cost a whole lot more to operate than online payments, so it’s no surprise that this is happening. Self serve online brokerages are a lot cheaper than calling a live broker. Online stores are often cheaper than bricks and mortar stores. Even online web host services are cheaper than going down to your local computer shop. Welcome to 2008. It’s a digital world now!
It’s your show, and your site, and you can’t rant all you want, but that doesn’t make it any less silly.
Are you kidding me. I cannot believe consumers are buying into this. I’m paying ATT 124.00 a month. What is all that for, since you think we need to now pay them to run a call the center. Why don’t they also add a fee to maintain the towers since the hundreds we already give is not for getting service. That grocery store has more overhead per dollar made than ATT does, yet you expect them to be fair.
I thought people would be outraged that ATT is taking advantage at every turn, instead they say baaaa, whatever you say AT&T. Is that what’s happening here? No wounder big corps like Adobe, ATT ect keep charging more for less. They can actually convince people that it’s fair.
Hey why doesn’t Canon charge a daily use rate after we buy the camera. “Oh that’s to support our call centers”
Sean you have great photography, but I fear you’d buy in to whatever a good pr guy tells you.
Gavin
I understand your frustration, the thing is that when you buy groceries, part of the price of each item goes to pay the cashier and all the employees. So if you eliminate cashiers altogether, THEORETICALLY, groceries should get cheaper. And maybe, we get used to paying the cheaper price for our groceries. Then, along comes someone who wants to use the cashier, and he gets charged a fee, because the price of his groceries does not reflect the use of a cashier.
Gavin, I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not buying into it, I’m just saying I’m not surprised.
The simple truth is that there is plenty of choice out there and if you don’t feel like giving them your $129 every month (or only $124 if you do what the vast majority of customers do in this day and age and pay your bill online, at the bank, or by mail) then you have plenty of options. There are plenty of other phone companies, and plenty of other options to pay your bill.
It’s not PR but simple math that says that call centers are expensive to setup and operate, and practically every large corporation out there has already figured it out. Any company that includes the cost of the call center in their price is simply charging all of their customers a little bit rather than charging the very few people that use those call centers the true cost of that use.
So your use of that call center for free is not at all a statement about fairness, rather you are penalizing every other ATT customer that chooses not to use the call center.
As I said before, it’s your show and you can rant if you want, but I don’t think most people are buying it…
I guess my question to you Gav is, why do you even want to deal with a live person anyways? I have been an ATT subscriber for many, many years. Every month I dial *729, press a few buttons and the balance is paid in literally seconds. Why make it more complicated than it has to be?
I have unfortunately found that most live humans in the retail suck at even providing the very basic customer service skills. I am talking about greeting the customer and then thanking you for your business. Is that too much to ask? It’s so irritating when you don’t get even the basic customer service and even more frustrated when the cashier says it in that “I have to say this because my boss told me so” tone.
It’s for this reason that I much more prefer a machine/computer over a live person. I’ll usually always choose a self check out over a live person every time. Why? Because I am always guaranteed a pleasant greeting and a thank you (it also lets me avoid trying to decipher what the Teen McGee cashier is trying to say while she gets used to her new tongue piercing.)
This brings me back to my opening comment, why a live human? It sounds like settling your bill over the phone is a high priority for you. You may have to find a “friendlier” carrier with more of a modern day milkman philosophy. Are there any carriers that don’t charge a fee to pay over the phone with a live person?
I guess I’m the only one who thinks old fashion fair treatment should be expected. It seems most have been trained by big business to be satisfied with less. I’m not.
This is not about ATT paying for call centers. That’s basic overhead that’s required for their type of business, and you pay for it every month on your bill. It’s about ATT squeezing a few more bucks because astronomers will fall for it.
Also there is NOT a lot of choices. If there were ATT would not even try this. A lot of choices would be like us in photographer. Always someone down the street to go to. That’s why we can’t get away with this stuff.
I have a phone I paid 500.00 for. I have ONE other choice here and the coverage it not any good. The other options would require me to waste that phone, and still get poor service.
A couple more choices is not alot. I forces us to put up with garbage. I’ve been seeing this same thing for years in the carpet industry I used to work in (another story) Taking to time to demand decent service makes a difference. It’s disheartening to see nobody really cares, and that’s why it will get worse. Sigh…
Several years ago they would charge business owners $5.00 a month if I didnt make long distance/toll calls on their phone each month. I had been very upset with them for a few other reasons. Because of that choice they lost me as a customer for my business and home.
well to my point of view a big coporation wouldnt charge that fee for giving you the service that you paid already!! those 5.00 fee chargin is something that does not look good. and someone should put attention to that soon they gonna try to charge you for the air. they also are saying that thay don’t have change if you are paying cash so you must have te correct amout of money or try to get chage from someone thats bs what can i said totally wrong
I pay my bill in the store because it is easier for me and they charge me 5.00 for paying cash. After about 3 times of doing this I finally am so mad I ask why at&t charges me to pay my bill. I am told that because the money goes through so many different accounts, they have to charge a fee.
So I tell the guy, ” I paid $329.00 for my Razor V9 a few months ago and paid cash”, why was there not a fee then for taking my cash? He could not come up with an answer for that! So I called a customer service representative and asked her why I am charged the 5 dollar fee. She hum haws around for 10 minutes trying to look it up on her computer and finally tells me it is because they want their customers to utilize the online billing or pay on your phone services they offer. So I say, ” so basically since I do not use those services and want to pay cash, I am punished for not using them and I am charged 5 dollars for it?” She says, oh I wouldn’t call it punished! Then what do you call it I ask? As if $120 is not enough that I pay, you charge me to PAY my bill? I tell her, Direct TV does not charge me to take my money, The electric company does not charge me to take my money, neither does the water company. So why in the world does at&t do it? Because they can and they expect us just to take it. I tell you what I told her, I told her that it was going to cost them money!
I canceled my gps on my phone, $9.99 per month it cost them plus I lowered my plan from 79.99 to 49.99 per month! I said you may get the 5 dollars per month out of me but it has just cost your company way more than that for the simple fact that you guys are ripping people off! When my contract is up, I told her they can take it and stick it, I am going to switch carriers and I have been a customer of them for a while now. It is a pathetic way to earn an extra buck for a company that should put their customers first and not treat then like it is a privilege to have their service! Just my 2 cents!
AT&T is one of THE worst corporations that there are. They are in the top 5 easily! I just discovered this ridiculous $5 charge when I went to pay my bill today and you know what, I refused to pay it! They refused to process my payment too, but still, the point has been made. I am not taking this laying down and there appears to be waaaay to many people out there that are just fine with doing just that. Wake up people!
Thank you for this article. Just last week my girlfriend was charged $5.00 for paying her AT&T bill at the store. Scammers!