Hello,
I am a former AT&T customer and am not very happy at all! I canceled my service last month. I had one smartphone and one regular phone that did not access data at all. I had the 2G plan. Anyway, every month if I received a text stating that I had 75% left on my 2G, I would shut the data off on the smartphone, and this would guarantee that we wouldn't go over. Then last month I forgot to shut the data off and on the last day of the billing cycle I got a text saying that I was being charged for an additional 1G for $15 for the rest of the billing cycle, which was literally just one day. Ok no problem. Less than 24 hours later I receive another text saying that I was already at 75% of that additional 1G. The fact that it normally takes at least 24-25 days (or more) for us to use 75% of 2G, how on earth is it possible that we would use 75% of just 1G in just one day? This has also happened before. I called customer service and they said they had no explanation and suggested I take the phone in to make sure nothing was running on the phone that would cause the data overage. I brought the phone to one of your stores that same day and had them look at my smartphone. I was then told that there was nothing running on the phone that shouldn't be and perhaps I should just increase my data plan. I explained that I have never went over data before because I've always shut the data off and I do not wish to do that. At this time the salesman tells me that we have gone over the 2Gs every month. I insisted that this was impossible, not only because I have never been notified of going over the 2Gs in the past, but anytime I received a text that we were at 75% of data used, I would shut the data off on the phone. He had no answer as to why or how this was happening and again offered me the 3G plan. His only guess was that maybe with the phone's operating update, that more data might be being used? I again asked how this was possible when the data is turned off. Again he had no answer whatsoever and tried to sell me a higher data plan. At this time I told him that it made no sense to do that because then I'll just be told that I went over that data plan regardless if I turn the data off on the phone. Back to the beginning of the story.. if it takes 24-28 days to use 2Gs of data, how would 75% of 1G be used in one day, without doing anything different than usual with the phone. Again, this has happened before on the last day of my billing cycle and there was no explanation. Needless to say I canceled my plan. Of course I don't have a "contract", but I still have to pay $400 for the stupid phone, basically because I was talked into the new no-contract plan, which is basically a payment plan. So it's not a "contract" so to speak because it is called something else, but it still screws you if you try to cancel. Needless to say I am not paying this $400, and I would like an explanation as to why AT&T is allowed to just tell you that you used all this data, but there is no way to account for any of it. It's a great scam because how can a person argue data? If you are still using data when you shut the data off on your phone, and they can't explain why, then this is nothing but a huge scam. I will be writing to the Better Business Bureau about this.
One more thing. One Saturday on the very first day of the billing cycle, I woke up and checked the data usage on my phone and I had already apparently used all of this data while I was sleeping. Their explanation and was that perhaps my wi-fi went off during the night and that they can't really tell when data goes through or not. I thought that was interesting as well.