My wife is wanting to upgrade her phone so we went to a local AT&T store and she found one she likes. AT&T currently has the phone for sale online for no cost with a 2 year contract. I have two phones and a iPad on my account and nothing is under contract. I really don't want to get back under contract but I figure if it saves me the cost of a phone I would. I decided to chat with a customer service rep to ask some questions. I asked if my monthly bill would go up if I got the phone by going under contract for two years. To my dismay, I was told my bill would go up $15 per month because I will lose the discount for mobile share value savings for going under contract. I told the customer service rep no thank you. My wife will just keep the phone she has.
I think it poor business practice to charge a customer more money just for being under contract. The "free" phone would actually cost me $360. I'm sure AT&T suckers hundreds of customers into this every day. Talk about bait and switch.