On Sunday March 13th, I arrived in Texas. I had taken a week off college + my spring break week to help rebuild houses that had burned down in the wildfires. We arrived at the ranch where we were staying and I discvered a) I had 0 reception with Verizon and b) there was no internet access on the entire ranch. This was a problem because I had assignments due and was planning to turn them in on-line.
My friend had AT&T which seemd to work fine for him. Sunday, March 13th: Desperate, I headed into the nearest town (25 minute drive) and found an AT&T store where I purchased a MiFi hotspot. I purchased it outright for ~$200 with the understanding that I could return it within two weeks and get a refund minus a restocking fee. I was told by the instore representative that the most data I could buy was the 5GB a month plan, so I purchased that too. For the next two weeks I worked side by side building houses for those in need. At night when everyone else was sleeping I would open my laptop and do my homework.
At the end of two weeks I had used 11 GB of data (that seems like a lot but you should see what kind of homework I have to do). So I estimated I would pay $50 for the service then about $60 in overage charges. I was fine with that. I got home on Saturday, March 26th and returned the hotspot for my refund. A few days later, I get a bill for ~$75. Broken down, that's $50 for the month's service and $25 in activation fees. So I pay that bill. A few week later, I get another bill for ~$110. Broken down, $50 for a months service + $60 for overage charges.
For a moment I was confused, I had only had an AT&T line for 2 weeks, how did I get charged for two months? Then I relized the billing cycle ended on March 14th. So in effect I've been asked to pay for two months of service even though I only used the line for two weeks. Or to put it another way, $50 for 6 hours of service. (I bought the device around 6pm on the 13th.) I'm working and paying my way through college so $50 means a lot to me. I took the second bill into the store, explained the situation and the representative told me to call customer service. He said they would cancel one of the months service charges. So I called. They told me the billing was legitimate and that I would have to pay both bills in full.
This makes me upset. What can I do to keep my $50? Anything?