VH says:
I call the 800 number for AT&T and ask the nice gentleman on the phone if there is anything he can do, can he add the discount even though I already signed a 2 year contract? YES! You (the consumer) can add a discount at any time. He is unable to do so, however, due to the computer program (they do not have access) but he is more than willing to walk me through the process. "Do you have a work email?" No, I'm out of luck online. I can add the discount myself with the discount sponsor code, but without an employee email for employment verification I will have to go to a store.
No problem, there is a store near my home. I called on Wednesday, and went to the store on Friday. I know they will want employment verification so I bring my name badge, photo id, the paper with the discount code. Go in and the man at the desk goes about setting me up. Then he says this "There is an activation fee of $36 to add this discount to your account."
I look at him shocked. I asked how long they were doing this for, the answer, it started just this week. He was unsure of his words, and seemed like he anticipated my reaction.
I asked "what?! Are you becoming an airline? You want to charge me for a discount, why? Is it because AT&T thinks they lose money on a discount?" He responds with "No, they don't think that". In shock I say "so what you are saying is I won't actually get my discount for 3 months, my discount comes to be about $12 (this was rough calculation in my head on the spot), so it will take 3 months for me to see any discount for my phone."The guy was nice, I wasn't being belligerent, and let them know that I am sure others will feel the same. I signed my papers stating I worked where the discount was coming from and was on my way, along with a copy of their estimated bill.
I then immediately called the 800 and spoke with a very nice woman. While she was pulling up my account I told her why I was calling. "I just want to know why the gentleman I spoke to on Wednesday did not tell me of the $36 activation/sponsorship fee for adding the discount to my account." The agent was shocked "He didn't tell you!?"
It turns out the notification of the fee was JUST released to the call centers that week. It was brand spankin' new and she wasn't even aware stores had started charging it. I was willing to pay, was not on the phone to get the charge reversed (although that was my hope!) but said, in the future, if any fee is even being considered, they should let the consumer know that "we will soon be assessing X fee" so we can be informed.
She sympathized with me and said if she were in my place she would be upset too. She offered to speak with her supervisor to "see if there was something they could do". She had me on hold for a few minutes and came back saying they would reverse that charge.
Since my acount balance was zero (I had just paid the bill) I would have a credit of $36 on my account, so when the new bill hits (with the activation/sponsorship fee) the fee will essentially be gone.
So, just a heads up, being uninformed is good if you get wonderful customer service and someone who sympathizes. I was not rude, nor angry, nor beligerant. I was more sarcastic and shocked, and jokingly compared them to an airline - a fee for everything and everything for a fee! I went to the source of my information (the call center) to iron out why I was not informed and did not ask for anything... she offered it to me. Although had she not offered, I would have asked if there was anything she could do for me.
We're glad you got the fee reversed, but we're still blinking at the idea of charging a fee for a discount. It's like those coupon books that school kids try to sell you, only it doesn't help any school kids.
(Photo:robrrt)
]]>I personally work for a local company called Cincinnati Bell which services Cincy, Dayton, and NKY areas. Although we don't have the national firepower as some of the other companies that you speak of, we are one of the only carriers out there to offer home phone service, internet (which was ranked top 3 in the nation), Fioptics cable/internet (where available) wireless service, home security and DirecTv as bundles. We not only can bundle all these together, but we require no contracts. I actually work in our Corporate Partners group which offers a substantial discount on all products for our top 1000 corporate partners (many of which are HQ outside of our local area) so it's interesting for me to hear about this ridiculousness. We can change your plan at anytime (even to bump you to save overage charges or lower you to save money on the minute plan) and add corporate discounts at any time with NO CHARGE. So I am intrigued to see this happening and if you are a customer in our area, this is yet another reason to check us out. This may not pertain to many of you as you are outside of your area...and I'm not making a sales pitch here, but just getting the word out and it may really make you rethink just what your carrier is looping you into. If you are local call us at 513.397.5084 or go to cincinnatibell.com/corporatepartners to check it out. Until then, you should demand those charges to be waived bc that is nuts!
]]>To be honest I don't really blame them, I think they're doing this since they lose TONS of money giving customers credit all the time because of their lack of responsibility. Customers call in all the time to get credit for things they can just keep track of or educate themselves about. Those bastards know that if they bitch enough or call multiple times they can get their bill paid in full. Trust me, you won't really know how much money they really lose until you work for them. It's ridiculous. A lot of customers are worse than any greedy corporate stereotype out there.
]]>If enough people around the country would contact their congressmen/women and their respective states Public service Commission ( Public Utility Comission ) and demand that wireless phones be regulated by this governing body you would see a dramatic change in quality of service and these funky charges would have to be approved before they could trick you into something that you don't want. How many people reading this would put up with the pitiful call quality on their landline phones that they recieve on their mobile phones and the landlines are cheaper.
]]>The CSR was so nice, she waived them for us anyway :-)
]]>If you are an IRU account, individual paying for their own account, then you are going to now be charged a $36 fee for adding the FAN (foundation account number) to your line. They used to not do this. I don't believe that if your company pays for the account (CRU), that you will be charged this fee. I do my company account stuff on their Premiere portal site and haven't seen a charge yet. But, I tried to add the FAN number I'm supposed to use for the discount the other day and they told me that a fee would be imposed.
This is a stupid fee that is just for extra profit/revenue. All they do is input the number into your account and voila, it's done. So, they are basically charging $36 to enter in a 9 digit number or so into your account. This is like a setup fee.
When will AT&T learn. Hopefully they won't charge this fee to 4chan members.
]]>Switch to Verizon their employee disount is actually a discount.
]]>And not passed on to customers?! What you think taxes and fees of all kinds are just paid out the CEO's piggy bank? Why the hell do you think that latte your drinking costs you $4 to drink about $0.50 in materials to make but they only make a 20% profit?!? It's called embedded costs. If your employer now gets charged this fee, what ever they sell will reflect it.
]]>Just a heads up! Source: Family member is a CSR for an ATT callcenter.
]]>Pffft - I see no reason why a cell phone company needs to see my paystub. It's not a freaking mortgage!
If you want to confirm my employment, contact the person who negotiated the national contract and have him/her check the employee directory. If it doesn't show up, yank the discount. Plain and simple.
]]>I'm not quite sure which is the real problem: the fee, or this person managing to get into the gray zone between a large company implementing a procedural change and maybe the guys on the bottom missing the memo, or having it not yet arrive.
Regarding the fee, I don't see the problem. It's your choice to take it. Go somewhere else if it doesn't please you. They may just be trying to cover themselves by asking for a committment: we're not willing to take a loss on the first couple months unless you're willing to make a finanical committment. Something like that. But, again, don't like? Go somewhere else.
Regarding the peformance of AT&T while integrating this new policy, it was definitely not something they're proud of, I'm sure, but what are you going to do? Yep, go somewhere else.
The more people to go somewhere else the more the company will stand up and take notice. Customer feedback is great but, clearly, in this case this person did exactly what AT&T wanted: she spent time going after the discount and was, apparently, willing to pay for it. That's a sign of a successful program.
]]>@Andrew Barker:
Yelling at the clouds again?
That's awesome, I had just actually discovered this fee yesterday and was pissed off about it. End of contract I am unlocking my 3G and going to t-mobile. F AT&T.
]]>The woman on the phone even had the audacity to say 'Well if it was in the first month that fee wouldn't have applied but since you are just over the first month it does apply'
Hopefully my email ends up working once everything is setup correctly because they want pay stubs as proof of employment but my company does that paperless. Who knows if they would accept an 8.5x11 sheet of paper I printed out from my web access I have to pay stubs as that.
This whole thing is just turning into a pain.
When I had Verizon they just entered my email address, it sent me an email, I verified then done. No fees, no having to call in.
]]>Funny i've never once been ripped off by AT&T, nor do I have problems with their coverage. In fact I have friends who absolutely loath AT&T so they use the only other carrier with decent coverage here. If it wasn't for their wifi enabled phones that can make calls through their home wifi network they would have no coverage in their own house yet I get 5 bars.
]]>All the companies are the same, let me reassure you of this. I've worked for a few of them and they're all soul-sucking, money grubbing jerks.
]]>Those adds with the nagging mom always saying the roll over minutes are just as good as new minutes. She states specifically that they don't expire.
]]>Um no, actualy over in howardfourms.com we had been discussing this topic. The reason for the fee is to prevent abuse of the system. There was several stores/reps that would toss on the higest discount to people who dident even work at said places, and showed no proof. The idea is that anyone that has an employee discount will have a work email they can use to verify their elg. vs comming to a store. Now i do feel AT&T should be waving this fee upon sufficient proof of employment, such as a paystub dated within 2 weeks of attempting to add the discount in store.
]]>looking over my recent bill,like other utilitie bills..sure would like to hear a realistic explanation for some so-called charges w/At&t:USAGE Charges. An add-on?Regulatory cost recovery charge? Federal universal service charge,taxes,ok, then there"s county tax..never paid that..can I deduct it? I would also call and ask for explainations but know what I"d get..from some air head that knows less than me ! Recently E-mailed the electric and gas Co.over the same problem.Guess what...no reply.They have a 'gun to our heads" so...pay up,or live in a cave.
]]>I'm with Tmobile, and I get a $15 discount every month for working for the county. They had to adjust my billing period for some reason, but no charge for the discount.
They did however double the fee they charge to collect fees. In the list of retarded fees, Tmobile's fee to collect fees takes the cake!
]]>@ludwigk: They're very sneaky about that. The commercials always have the kid say "These are old" or "They're from six months ago" and the response is always "They're still good!".
]]>Had I not already been an AT&T customer, this would have been enough not to consider them for wireless service.
]]>We as consumers should have the right to withhold payments and charge ridiculous fees when corporations do not hold up their end of the transaction / bargain / contract.
That would straighten them out and make them get their act together...
]]>This is absolutely no surprise.
]]>This is probably not a "Discount Activation Fee" but rather an activation (or upgrade, or whatever they are calling it these days) fee for modifying her contract (and consequently signing up for another 2 year contract.
]]>And after reading that through completely a second time... good work, AT&T. No wonder I was a t-Mobile customer when I worked for you. I feel bad for the folks hard up enough that they're stuck working there if that is indeed a new policy and fee. can't imagine how many screaming calls they're going to get. :/
The fee really is BS.
]]>Fear the asterisk, always fear the asterisk.*
* Taxes, fees and other charges may apply.
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: You can ask your HR department for the code, it's 5 digits.
]]>That's complete BS.
get your code, and call 1-866-499-8008. That's the Premier (business) phone line. They can add the discount to your account. I dealt with people without work e-mails all the time working for the AT&T Business side of things.
Report the store as well.
]]>The kicker was when the auto-debited my account for $600 (20x my normal bill) after I had called to correct the error. The rep recognized the error, and agreed they never should have charged that much, but couldn't put anything back for 6-10 weeks.
I left that day for Cingular, turned off automatic payments on all my accounts, and have been happy since - except for the $5k in extra interest I have to pay for a NSF against my student loan.
Two weeks after I left, VZW called me to ask what they could do to win me back. I told them to send me a check for $5K as I hung up.
]]>When I switched activated my discount at AT&T I was told they were waving the standard $36 activation fee for new accounts (even though I had the account for 2+ years at that point).
Other than that I've never been charged extra.
]]>They might ask you for a business card or pay stub as "proof" you work where you say you do.
]]>I don't get how ATnT can have ads where they explicitly say that your rollover minutes never expire, when they DO expire after 12 months.
]]>I've written to our AT&T rep asking for details, but have yet to get a response.
]]>To everyone saying "This is why I stuck with " They all have, at one point or another, screwed a customer or all of their customer's in some fashion. It happens, it's how these guy's work. I'm lucky in that I've never had a problem with VZW, but I guarantee you there are people here that will reply to this and say "oh man, I had horrible service with VZW, it's why I switched to AT&T" and someone else that goes "A&T sucks, they did 1, 2, 3 to me and now I'm with Sprint" and a third guy that goes "Sprint? Bastards, they screwed me royally. I'm with VZW now!"
I stick with VZW because their coverage is the best for southern mass/north rhode island, not because of some amazing deal or customer service.
]]>+1. Sprint gets beaten up on this site, but their unlimited plan is the reason I stick with them. I happen to like Sprint.
]]>This isn't too dissimilar to a membership fee, really. Pay an annual membership fee, receive discounts on purchased products. This, though, is a one-time fee.
]]>How exactly do you get a discount code? I put in my email address, got the "congratulations, you qualify" and then a link to the web store, but not a discount code.
]]>What would we do? Throw our cellphones into the harbor? I mean, I can get there pretty easily, but you know I don't want to hurt the jellyfish.
]]>If i were Vz or Sprint, i would start a huge promotion campaign telling people they dont charge for discounts...
]]>Don't know why they're "blinking at it."
]]>Partly why they are transitioning us to verizon blackberries and telling AT&T to kiss off.
I do hope they burn for that.
]]>Chances are the only reason employers can get discounts is because the carrier knows it will cost them nothing and will drive business to them so charging this kind of fee is pretty crappy.
]]>