That $99 Aspire One deal we covered late last year – Aspire One + two-year AT&T DataConnect plan – has both RadioShack and AT&T in hot water after a lady signed up for the deal and tallied up more than $5000 in overage charges within her first month.
According to the class-action lawsuit:
Although the customer service summary informed plaintiff and other consumers that their first bill might be higher than expected because of a $36 activation fee, one month’s service billed in advance, and prorated charges and fees for the month when the customer signed up, neither plaintiff nor other consumers were informed, nor could they have reasonably discerned from the paper work that wireless Internet usage exceeding 5GB per month would result in astronomical charges running into the thousands of dollars.
So yes, she blew way past her 5GB-per-month limit – around 10GB over. But is $500 per gigabyte in overage charges fair here? Five gigabytes for $60 per month, then one extra gigabyte costs $500? Come on. Sure, AT&T and all the other wireless companies can charge whatever they want for overages but don’t they have a responsibility to clearly state how much such overages cost? Instead, we’re greeted with tricky math.
When are we going to get rid of this $0.00048/KB nonsense? How’s your average consumer supposed to know how to convert kilobytes to gigabytes? Is the RadioShack employee expected to explain how and why AT&T gives you five large gigabyte-units of data per month but then starts charging you in fractions of a penny for every one millionth of one gigabyte you go over? That’s like a gas station saying fuel costs $0.00048 per eye dropper of gas even though your tank is measured in gallons. How many eye droppers in a gallon? Who knows?
Look how stupid this sounds:
Salesperson: Yes, ma’am, you get five gigabytes of data per month which, at 1,048,576 kilobytes per gigabyte, equals a grand total of 5,242,880 kilobytes for you to use. Now, if you go over your 5,242,880 kilobyte allotment, you’ll have to pay an amount that doesn’t even tangibly exist in hard currency — $0.00048 – for each kilobyte you go over.
Customer: What makes up one kilobyte?
Salesperson: Well, nothing any more. That measurement hasn’t really been used for anything in years. So you’d never really go over by one kilobyte. It’s much more likely that you’d go over by hundreds or thousands of kilobytes at the very least. Just going to Google is around 50 kilobytes, which would cost you about two and a half cents.
Customer: So they give me five gigabytes for $60 per month, which is $12 per gigabyte. What happens if I go one gigabyte over?
Salesperson: That extra gigabyte costs about $503.
So I’m guessing that’s where this “astronomical charges running into the thousands of dollars” argument is coming from. Should she have read the fine print? Absolutely. Should the salesperson have explained to her that going one gigabyte over would cost her more than eight times her monthly bill? Probably, but there’s a chance that a) the salesperson didn’t do the math to figure out that it costs $503 to go over by a gigabyte or b) the salespeople are instructed to sell stuff, not break down overage charges for everyone. It may very well have been a combination of the two.
The bigger question: Is it fair for wireless companies to charge $60 per month for a five-unit set of something and then hide unbelievable overage charges disguised as fractions of a penny behind a veil of tiny units a millionth of the size of the units they’re selling in the first place?
Seems kinda shitty. Why not just use this chart instead?
After all, voice plans are made up of minutes and it’s clearly stated that for each MINUTE you go over, you have to pay a set amount, say 45 cents. Not that you have to pay $0.0000075 for every millisecond you use after your initial minutes are up. That’d be crazy.
To be fair, AT&T’s data connection software tells you how many kilobytes you’re using and you can set yourself up for alerts when you get close to your limit. But again, the whole kilobyte model makes for a fuzzy-at-best case of how much real data you’re actually using. And you certainly don’t see a clear monetary tally anywhere in the connection software. I’m pretty sure that if most people saw how much it cost them every time they checked their e-mail or, even worse, streamed a YouTube video after they’d blown through their 5GB limit, they’d shut the computer off and lock it in a safe place until the end of the month.
The suit against AT&T and RadioShack is a class-action suit that “accuses AT&T Mobility and RadioShack of common law fraud and violation of state consumer protection acts in connection with allegedly false, misleading and inaccurate advertising of the netbook DataConnect plan,” according to RCRWireless.com. The plaintiff, Billie Parks, is seeking recovery of the charges she had to pay, a cancellation of her contract, damages due to the affect of the charges on her credit score, an injunction against any additional charges, and court costs.
[RCRWireless.com via Consumerist]
you mean $50 per GB right?
mistake. i left one zero out on my calculator. sorry.
Doesn’t suprise me that RS is involved in this crap. Their CEO is famous for concocting plans to screw people, even their own.
Does Sprint and Verizon have these outragous data overage fees? I believe they are also capped at 5 GB. If so, I am glad I am grandfathered in my unlimited data plan with Alltel before the Verizon/Alltel merger.
I have the sprint one and its set at .5 cent/overage
I really want to live in a world with this insane overcharging for data simple stops. It’s just plane bullshit but crops up all the time. Companies should only be allowed to pass along actual charges incurred in overages.
This pricing is great – let’s just imagine that the carriers ran hairdressing salons:
http://www.viewfromlondon.com/2009/03/what-if-mobile-phone-operators-ran-hairdressing-salons.html
Sprint Nextel does not have these type of overage charges on their Simply Everything data plans for mobile devicrs. They do however have the same restrictions for Air Cards.
yeah so my husband and i got this 5 g plan for $60 dollars a month, we had it for 15 days and supposedly went over by 2 gigs and they are charging us over $2,000…so this is absolutely obsurd!!! they are high if they think we will pay that!
I would love to know whats becoming of this. I have a Verizon plan… And its .25 a meg over the 5 gig limit. Not quite as much as AT&T.. But still a killer if you run a gig over.
My biggest complaint on the Verizon system is the way it keeps track of your usage. You cant get up the minute stats… It will give you data from where you were at 6 hours ago.
So, trying to make sure you are not going over by the end of the month becomes a guessing game.
We got a new phone for my son…. I know, I know… don’t say it. I didn’t even think to block internet. 16 youtube videos later in 4 days I have a $1309.84.
Verizon won’t budge in it. They said its my mistake. I understand that. So rap the top of my head with your knuckles. Don’t use a sledgehammer to rap my head.
Couple questions I have.
1. Why is internet automatically turned on? You actually have to turn it off or block it.
2. After the 1st video that was 11.73MB and a cost of $167.82. Being a good corporate citizen shouldn’t you notify the primary account (your valued customer) holder that the phone bill just doubled in 5 mins? They told me they have millions of customers and that was not feasible.
3 Shouldn’t there be a capped of what you have to pay? The so called “Unlimited plan” is $30.00 a month.
4. How do you Mr./Ms. Cellphone company charge a customer $500 for 5GB of data? Or a $170 for 1 youtube video?
This is price gouging plain and simple.
that is insane, i remember when the companies use to ask you if you needed the internet added to your plan. now they don’t even bother saying anything about whether you have it or not. but they know that we’ve become dependent on cellphones so they add all these little twirks because they know we won’t do anything.
I thought I would share this insane story.
I decided to cancel Verizon after like 3 years of having a data card with them…started with unlimited and they sneakily converted all or most accounts to the 5g(without us really knowing understanding ). Anyway, I decided to quit the service in the middle of the month….little did I know. This is a lesson thought some of you might like to know about . Because I quit in the middle of the month , they prorated the time..ok …but in MB, yes in MB..so I ended up paying three times the amount for the whole bill for half a month. I argued with two supervisors for over an hour and a half…they wouldnt budge. I am PISSSED. As a longtime customer , I feel completely screwed over…and they never mentioned they would pro rate the MG usage…I even tried to change ending time to end of month date…they wouldnt budge. Its just so ridiculous they can get a way with this…anyone have any suggestions on a class action lawsuit. I cannot even believe this kind of thing is legal..VERIZON WIRELESS COMPANY ARE BILLING THUGS!!!!
I, myself, am looking for a class action lawsuit against Verizon.
I just recently, less than a month ago, was involuntarilly switched from Alltel to Verizon. After this, out of our 4 phone lines I wanted to suspend one of them and cancel the texting, a $20.00 amonth charge, from that day forward. For some reason the rep that I spoke to, without informing me of this, took texting off for the whole billing month go back to the beginning of the billing month, before the date of the suspension and the date of the call to them. When I received my bill, it had $1396.00 worth of charges. The first time I called, I was able to get the rep to give me the credit but later discovered that the credit was denied. Called them back again and after another hour and a half they agreed it was their error and would give me the credits for the data usage but not the taxes and fees that were tacked onto that data, another $125.00 approximately. As of today my credits are still pending, with 12 days until my billing due date. I am now trying to figure out what my best course of action is if I don’t get my credits. And even if I do get my credits, hope, hope, hope, I am still being charged this $125.00 more than my bill should be. This is my first month with Verizon. HELLO!
Yeah. This kind of thing is infuriating. It’s what you get with big business… they get to do whatever they want and no one stops them. Them on the other hand if you have too big of government you have the same problem…
This is what happens when I company doesn’t value people and actually tries to make money off of their ignorance (there is probably tons of research that goes into this as well…)
This is clearly a scam! Does anybody know how the law suit went against them. I too signed up for the 5gb plan but when I corrected the at&t Sales rep that i wanted there unlimited plan, she told me it was the same thing they just called it the 5gb plan. I wish I would have had that conversation recorded. I haven’t went over my kb’s yet but I would definitely sue their ass if I did.
Had the same conversation with Verizon as Aubrey. They said the 5gb plan was “basically the same thing” as having the unlimited plan because it includes such a high amount that “you would probably never even get close to the 5gb.” Unreal. I’ve noticed lately that when I contact customer service via email, they actually call back instead of returning the email. Very interesting tactic. What are the odds that someone will record a conversation as opposed to save an email? I don’t even know how to record a call…
I bought the Sprint UNLIMITED USE Air card last month… Little did I know it’s Unlmited use, but with a 5gb cap on bandwidth! Bullshit. I just got my bill for $200 in overage on it. I used almost and extra 4gb of data in the first month. This is regular internet use, nothing crazy, no downloading movies and shit. I called them and they offered to cancel it and give me $50 bucks back. They should at least notify when you get close to your limit. I’m glad I caught this early, in this pay period I’ve already used half of the 5gb in 10 days! This is such bullshit. Makes me want to punch the lady at the Sprint store who sold me this awesome unlimited air card that’s not even that fast!
Latest gripe… For the past 4 days when I log onto Verizon…. I keep getting the same usage numbers. It has not updated. Of course, its my responsibility to monitor my usage… But they dont make it really easy. And when it comes time to pay… I doubt they will be very understanding if I am over!