vB Easy Archive - Saving $2.99/mo. ATT-hidden charge..

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Saving $2.99/mo. ATT-hidden charge..
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Posted by: Digitol

Although the title of this post will have you thinking it may be a spam post..No, No, I can assure you not! :P ATT may be charging you an extra $2.99 per month for a service you didn't agree to. "Roadside assistance" If you are billed for this simply call up ATT and request they remove the charge and cancel the "Roadside Assistance" option. Be sure and check your bills closely. Smile I just saved you $2.99/month.

-Digitol-

Posted by: plasm0

cool. That's $72 bucks off the life of the contract!

Posted by: *TexMex*

roadside assistance is a feature. Like txt messaging. It isnt automatically added to each account. If it was on your account, you got slammed by a sales rep. Guessing you bought your iPhone from an ATT store? Reps will throw it on your account hoping you don't notice it since its free for 30 days.

On the other hand I don't have AAA and have used roadside assistance to get unlocked once and jumped another time and have had great experiences with response time.

Posted by: Digitol

Tex, that's the strange thing, I didn't buy it from att, and in fact didn't even have att service before the iphone! WEIRD! :P

--Edit Upon googling for att roadside..I found this!
http://www.ucan.org/forums/telecomm..._for_asurion_un

Looks like they are being sued for this practice!

-Digitol-

Posted by: eas

Btw, auto insurance policies often have an option for towing insurance wich covers roadside assistance. I think I'm paying $15/year for it.

Posted by: awj223

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digitol

Although the title of this post will have you thinking it may be a spam post..No, No, I can assure you not! :P ATT may be charging you an extra $2.99 per month for a service you didn't agree to. "Roadside assistance" If you are billed for this simply call up ATT and request they remove the charge and cancel the "Roadside Assistance" option. Be sure and check your bills closely. Smile I just saved you $2.99/month.

-Digitol-

That is against company policy. Call ATT, figure out who added it, and get the person disciplined or fired.

Posted by: scaredpoet

Quote:

That is against company policy. Call ATT, figure out who added it, and get the person disciplined or fired.

That person could be pretty high up.

If you look in the AT&T forum and do a little searching, you'll find that some AT&T employees were griping angrily about this. It looks like at least one regional sales manager for AT&T has instructed their sales droids to add roadside assistance to all new account activations or upgrades/feature changes that they handle. If the customer notices it, they are to make the suggestion that it's a "standard" feature, but they can offer to do them the "courtesy" of removing it for them.

While most sales droids have no qualms about earning some extra commission of their own, most do hate being front and center when a customer angrily complains about being screwed over. So altrusim aside, they don't like what they've been told to do for that reason, but it's been suggested to them they'll get fired if they don't do it. SO much for company policy.

Not sure how widespread the practice has become, but I suspect one or two rouge regional managers has looked at this as a way of boosting quotas and earning themselves a bonus. These are the perils of running an industry that pays its sales people on commissions and retains them on quota performance.

I guess the real question is, does the FCC's policies on cramming/feature slamming apply to wireless?

In any case, everyone should look at their bill after they talk to any rep to make absolutely sure your account has only the plan and features you want, no more or no less. This is a practice I learned in the bad old days when I was a Sprint customer, and I recommend it regardless of what carrier you're with. If the CS rep isn't acting on orders from a bonus-hungry manager and adding things deliberately, then they're just as likely to be incompetent and have unwittingly screwed you some other way.

Posted by: payroll

I know when I worked at Best Buy the feature is a choice we can choose to add or decline, it isnt automatically there.

Posted by: elushon

Actually policy is that we inform the customer that a free 30 day trial is available of that and Voicedial(*8), and tell them after 30 days it expires and you will be billed the normal rate.

The features do not auto attach, anyone who says otherwise is trying to pull some shadey moves.

And i mean really, what rep is so desperate for features that they are nailing people for 8 measley dollars that 90% of the time will charge back to begin with?

Posted by: BrooklynDash

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digitol

I was offered that by an ATT rep and I specifically said no, then I got a letter welcoming me to the service. I promptly called cs and asked them to remove it.

Posted by: BIGMERF

ive got roadside..actually used it quite a few times

Posted by: MrDumbDumb

I just added this last month. Great Feature. We've already had to call them out twice to unlock my wifes car and I call them a few days ago since I ran out of gas on my way to Nevada. Great service much better then AAA and much less expensive.

Posted by: awj223

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrDumbDumb

I just added this last month. Great Feature. We've already had to call them out twice to unlock my wifes car and I call them a few days ago since I ran out of gas on my way to Nevada. Great service much better then AAA and much less expensive.

That's not really comparing apples to apples, and it's not that much less expensive. AAA membership is $50-60 per year. This service is $35.88 per year. However, AAA membership includes travel discounts for members (savings on hotels/restaurants) as well as free maps and travel guide books.

Posted by: harveybirdman

I bought mine from an apple store and activated through itunes. Sure enough, there was the $2.99 charge on my bill this month. The drone took it off and credited me, but couldn't explain why it got put on in the first place. First he claimed that it was included when I signed up. When I said, no i signed up through itunes and never agreed to it, he asked a manager and said i got 2 months free and the trial was up. When I told him it's only been one month, and that there was nothing on my first bill mentioning the feature, he was stumped. I'm not going to lose much sleep over it, but I am watching my bill like a hawk from now on.

PS-I don't know if its a problem with certain regional managers, but i have a DC number and CT billing address, for what it's worth.

Posted by: RyanM

IIRC I got a letter when I signed my Cingular contract that I would get roadside ast. free for so much time and then it would be billed thereafter but I could cancel if I wanted to.... which I did.

Posted by: Digitol

Quote:

I bought mine from an apple store and activated through itunes. Sure enough, there was the $2.99 charge on my bill this month.

EXACTLY what i did too. So it's very interesting how the charge/service I don't need showed up! Anyhow regardless, I just thought I would share and hopefully save some people some money. -Digitol-

Posted by: MrDumbDumb

Interesting My AAA was $108 for the year and the RoadSide Assistance for ATT also has discounts. For many it may not be worth it but for us it is a life saver.