Got an iPhone? Had your first AT&T bill through yet? You might be in for a surprise - David Pogue certainly was, when a small tree's-worth of paper dropped through his letterbox.
"It’s a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion"
Turns out AT&T itemise each kilobyte of data transferred - in Pogue's case over six pages' worth - all with the meaningless code of "Data Transfer". As he points out, everyone has an unlimited data contract, so they don't really need to know each tiny exchange.
There are a couple of unknown charges, as well:
"The first bill, believe it or not, comes to $150. It’s filled with unexplained services and features that were never mentioned during the signup process, like MEDIA MAX, EXPD M2M, VOICE PRIVACY, and AT&T DIRECT BILL"
You might not think this is too unusual for a cellphone contract - and yes, you're probably right - but it stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of the iPhone activation procedure. Perhaps Apple should take over all the paperwork on AT&T's behalf, too.
[via O'Grady's Powerpage]
WAAAH.
What some people find unnecessary, others demand. Don’t like the paper? Sign up for electronic billing. Need an explanation? Make a phonecall.
Vincent, your picture is on BGR’s website as posterchilld of Apple Fanoboyism. LOL.
I must be on the same plan, I got an e-bill for the same amount in my inbox today. Pretty strange though, I’ve had my iPhone for less than two weeks. You’d think since I only had the phone for half the month my bill would be a little less.
Yes, I just paid my first bill for $153.26. Though, luckily had signed-up immediately for paperless billing.
I never got that. My bill was $75 and it was not any different that the previous bills. Though I am happy to stop receiving two bills. I think because I was (tear) a business customer I received my copy and a corporate copy. Whatever, I love my phone and AT&T.
I just got my bill too. and, like a good america, i called an complained. i spent about 1.5 hours on the phone discussing my bad cell phone reception in my apartment (i live in downtown chicago @ michigan ave. & roosevelt, so its not like i should be having bad reception).
after the whole ordeal, i was able to get them to take about $75.00 off of my bill. i was complainging about 2 things, 1. the bill being crazy and 2. the fact that i can’t make ore receive calls unless i’m standing at the edge of my balcony. if you have experiencing any troubles with your reception & bill i highly recomend calling AT&T and bitching them out. the more people who call & complain the sooner AT&T will get its act together.
I have yet to receive a bill, but I made sure that I called right away after I activated my iPhone to have them remove the MediaMax bundle that I had with my Treo. I am so far happy with the iPhone, I actually can talk for more than 5 seconds without having a dropped call. I have two brand new treo 680s here that I am waiting for return labels to ship them back. I love the treo’s functionality, and miss the Document to Go features (I actually do use the phones for work), but I couldn’t live with the bad reception.
On a bad note, though, I lost my discount (through my employer) when I got the iPhone. I thought I would lose it only on my phone, but I lost it on my entire account, which included my dad and his wife’s phones. Oh well, it’s nice to have a phone that actually works with a great calandar feature and the ipod built in. I could live without the stock feature and youtube– I’d rather have a document feature and some games I can play when I’m in a boring meeting or while waiting to board a plane…..