Wireless Carriers Finally Cave On Overage Fees; Reluctantly Agree To Stop Treating Customers Like ATMs
from the it'd-be-a-great-racket-if-it-wasn't-for-these-stupid-customers dept
About a year ago, various wireless service providers found themselves under investigation by the FCC for sky-high overage fees. Of course, they protested this charge in the form of hilarious statements, expressing "concern" that their customers might be "confused" if they were warned about impending overage charges. Some even went so far as to claim that customers obviously wanted overage charges because (get this) customers racked up overage charges.To wit:
"For accounts that repeatedly go into overage, it is reasonable to infer that it is a matter of consumer choice. These customers are either indifferent to overages or are making the deliberate decision to incur overages because it is the most cost-efficient solution for their usage patterns."Or maybe, just maybe, customers wanted to be informed of these possible overage charges but no cell phone company was interested in telling them. While tools are available for consumers to track their own usage, this is not something that's promoted very heavily (or indeed, at all) by most phone companies.
Well, the FCC has finally stared down the wireless carriers, who have decided to voluntarily (through gritted teeth) implement many of the rules suggested by the FCC, rather than deal with being regulated by the government.
Customers will receive free text alerts in real-time when they're about to exceed their limits, CNET reports. The move is supposed to cut down on the "bill shock" people may feel when hit with sky-high rates for extra usage. Wireless carriers will also warn customers who travel overseas about the additional fees they may incur.Of course, this being a government-related decision (and one performed under presumable duress), don't expect to be notified any time soon.
Under the volunteer measures, wireless carriers have 18 months to put their warning systems in place.Not only that, but your months-away warnings may not be timely enough, especially for those of you with notorious text-fiends (read: teenage children) on your mobile plans.
Some providers, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, already warn their customers as their data use approaches the limit. However, these warnings may be delayed. AT&T, for example, takes 24 hours.24 hours?!? That's like 3 years of texting for normal users! The good news is that sometime within the next two years, your mobile carrier may have to speed up its notification system to something approaching "real time."
Until then, you may want to consider switching to an unlimited plan or putting your kids up for adoption, whichever is cheaper.
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Filed Under: fcc, overage fees, wireless
Companies: at&t, verizon wireless
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Overage charges?
What is the economic driver behind this thinking, other than monopolistic practices that all the other post-pay carriers do the same thing? Why wouldn't carriers welcome these heavy users with unit costs that match or are somewhat lower than the plan unit costs?
Certainly, carriers would shun heavy users when the plan is unlimited, with no unit costs! But if a carrier offered a plan with decreasing charges as you bought more, the sting of not having "unlimited" (which never really is) would surely be lessened, with much happier and more loyal customers.
And if you say that there's only limited total radio bandwidth, then why do those same carriers offer you lower per-unit rates when you buy a bigger plan?
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Re: Overage charges?
Remember, if one includes the entire TCO of the US Space Shuttle program, the price of data to/from the space shuttle is STILL lower than the price of text messages, per kb.
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Of course, you could actually teach them a little responsibility, and perhaps take responsibility for them. I realize, however, that this is not the American way, because our failings are always someone else's fault (preferable a large corporation).
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Re: Or rather.
"Hey kid, you want a phone? Cool. Best get a job so you can pay for it."
TANSTAAFL.
:-)
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Re: Re: Or rather.
gah I thought I had deleted all those files
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Re: Re: Or rather.
"When I was your age, we had to walk uphill -- wait, what was I complaining about? I'm too bitter and stupid to be sure."
Unless there was something VERY wrong with your family, your mom didn't charge you a monthly fee of $80/month (plus overage fees) when you were a teenager to spend all evening chatting with your girlfriend.
Texting now is exactly the same as doing that -- only texting has an arbitrary, capricious, and utterly INSANE premium associated with it, due to the utterly monopolistic stranglehold a tiny number of companies have on the American cell phone market.
Since the US government hasn't the guts to do something about the monopolies, they're making the token gesture of making the phone companies warn people before raping them -- but this has nothing to do with you having a small penis, a smaller brain, and masses of self loathing you feel the need to project onto every random article you read.
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Re: Re: Re: Or rather.
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Never met MY mom...
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Re: Never met MY mom...
That's why I stipulated, "Unless there was something VERY wrong with your family" -- because I know that it's not impossible for such a thing to occur, but that doesn't mean it's right.
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Re: Never met MY mom...
Of course, my mom used to charge me up front for breast feeding -- but what the hell, I was in high school at the time.
-Simon Travaglia, IIRC
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Re: Re: Re: Or rather.
No my parents expected me to use either: AIM or email, the house phone (local calls) all for the low price of ZERO additional dollars to their existing monthly bills (parents had broadband internet (1-way cable) before I was in high school). When I got my cell phone (High School) I paid the "add-a-line" charge of $20/month AND any additional fees I caused... very reasonable. A cell phone is not an entitlement, its a privilege.
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So what you are suggesting is that because the corporations don't send you a reminder every 5 messages, effectively the consumer has no way to know what they are doing?
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Re: Re: Re:
I'll try to explain this in small words so you don't get confused:
When OTHER PEOPLE (those fleshy things you sometimes see when going out to collect your wellfare cheque) and YOU are living together, sometimes there is a thing called BABIES which happen when YOU and OTHER PEOPLE like each other enough.
Before many years have past, those BABIES have become CHILDREN, which are kind of like OTHER PEOPLE, except for smaller, and no constitutional rights. After they've figured out how to move their limbs without falling over too much, they usually have a developmentally-driven need to interact with OTHER CHILDREN -- this is called "socialisation" and is considered a healthy thing by most psychologists who aren't on too many drugs themselves.
Now remember, this isn't like that scary scary guy I read about in some whore's memoirs who narrated HER actions as well as his: "now you do this, and I do that, and you do the other thing . . ." -- these OTHER PEOPLE and CHILDREN are not figments of one's imagination; they don't just do and act exactly how you want them to.
If this isn't too confusing for you, you've probably realised by now that all of this means that in a FAMILY (a collection of OTHER PEOPLE you are related to) you don't know exactly what every single other person is doing at every single moment.
Since you and these OTHER PEOPLE probably all want/need cell phones, there are things called FAMILY PLANS which give multiple people access to a common pool of minutes/texts at a discount, compared to buying plans individually.
However, this is the problem, and I know this may be hard, but read slowly and get your social worker to help you if you get scared: when YOU and OTHER PEOPLE are using RESOURCES at the same time, and YOU don't know exactly what those OTHER PEOPLE are doing at a given moment, you can't account for what they're doing!
What they're doing might include making calls; it might include texting! You can't count their minutes used, or their texts sent/received, without wasting MORE minutes and MORE texts, making them continually report to YOU what they are doing! Exactly like this:
So what you are suggesting is that because the corporations don't send you a reminder every 5 messages, effectively the consumer has no way to know what they are doing?
Now do you understand? Or do I need to start over from the beginning?
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Those "OTHER PEOPLE" you refer to are your responsiblity until they come of age. You cannot pawn off their well being or bahavior training to a corporation because you don't feel the need or the justification to care about what your children are doing.
The rest your capital letter ranting makes me pine for the days of RD when he was off his meds. Are you two related?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How old fashioned of you.
Remember, CHILDREN are not the only kind of OTHER PEOPLE which occur in a family dynamic.
Also, I neglected to mention this detail, but CHILDREN can only be influenced -- not controlled. In other words, even in households with a relatively high degree of discipline, CHILDREN do not always do what they're told.
Further more, none of your yammering addresses the issue of parents who continue to maintain a family plan for their CHILDREN (above the legal age) in college, etc.
But I guess maybe you're the kind of creature which drops all association with its offspring the second it's no longer legally obligated to feed them.
By the way, want to know why nobody's jumped in to your defence? It's because you're a corporate apologist with the morals of a snake, and nobody cares if I rip you to pieces.
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Specially that children that didn't reach the 35 year mark.
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Then add all those values together because of the *FAMILY PLAN*..
You know, most families actually have more than one person.
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sure but how much data did you use today?
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It only becomes profitable when they get married and have grand children.
Just call me grandpa.
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Wouldn't 3 years be like 3 years? Your use of hyperbole is a overly dramatic and borders on trollism. Are you troll seeding?
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I believe it is the only writing style Cush is capable of based of his current body of techdirt posts.
Many (if not all) of my comments on his early posts were to point this out, and that it was very much being force fed rather than just laying out the facts from with which to draw an opinion.
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by the way, most humorous writing (of which this was obviously an example) involves some kind of exaggeration. it's simply a writing style. you may want to also refer to the writings of mark twain, douglas adams, charles dickens for examples where it is actually good (sorry tim).
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24 hours
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Re: 24 hours
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What about when you leave the country?
The really sad thing here is, when you see articles about people running up a $200,000 bill for using their phone in Canada, half the commenters on the article think the customer is stupid and deserves it. WTH? How can any sane person think that a few MB or even GB is worth $200 much less $200,000?
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Re: What about when you leave the country?
The $200,000 bill was one of the guys from Mythbusters, who used data extensively without consideration for what it would cost him out of country. He may be a very smart man in some ways, but that was an incredibly foolish assumption on his behalf.
I travel extensively, and always pick up a disposible sim-card with a local number (and more often now local data plans) at a reasonable cost. In most places, the costs are lower than the US carriers.
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Re: Re: What about when you leave the country?
And then, the lying scumhole cellular company claimed he owed an outrageous fee.
(Troll harder.)
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Re: Re: Re: What about when you leave the country?
I don't understand the mentality that people have that they can check their conscience at the door when they go to work. They somehow feel it isn't them personally screwing someone, it is the company. The thing is, companies are intangible objects and all decisions are made by people.
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Re: Re: What about when you leave the country?
They know people want pay that kind of money, why service or not put a limit on it?
You see it even harms them, as people start to get concious about it and don't use the service as much.
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Re: What about when you leave the country?
This. Is. Wrong.
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Re: What about when you leave the country?
any sane person
sane person
And here is the flaw in your reasoning: these are not sane people.
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Re: What about when you leave the country?
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Re: What about when you leave the country?
Because you agreed to it in your contract, duh!
What do you mean you didn't comb over all 20 pages of fine print? What sane person signs a contract they didn't read and understand in its entirety?
/sarc (or is it?)
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Always read the small lines at the end of the contract =)
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I'm sure that...
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Wishful thinking...
This kind of price structure would tell me that the company believes customer is the priority and not seeing how much money they can get the customer to part with on a monthly basis, which is how it appears now.
I know it all seems so simple - the great part, it REALLY is!
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A better solution
At that point, if I want to, I can log on to my account or call customer service to override the block for the remainder of the month.
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Re: A better solution
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Re: A better solution
It doesn't matter how badly a money making scheme harms a customer. As long as the bank/phone company can spin it to be a service for the customer all is fine and dandy.
Personally I am fine with being denied. Sure I may get frustrated that my Little Debbie craving will not be satiated every once and a while, or that I may not be able to call home if I am going to be late towards the end of the month. I would much rather be denied than hit with obscene expenses.
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Re: A better solution
However, I pay a flat $30 for 1,000 minutes, 1,000 texts, and 50 MB of data per month. Period. If I exceed one of these limits, that part stops working. If I want unlimited for all three, it is $15 more, but I'm sure if I were in a location where service would incur ridiculous charges it just wouldn't work there, either.
For all they've done to screw this up, WalMart correctly read popular desire for a flat fee for phones. Prior to changing over, our last bill from AT&T was eight pages long. Maybe AT&T thought that by explaining all their "death by a thousand cuts" charges, I'll be happier with them?
NMM
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And what did the banks do?
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Let's not forget telling the customer that their out-of-country charges are 1/100th of what they really are because they don't understand the difference between cents and dollars. (And again.)
So they're used to either hiding information from the customer or lying to them, and getting away with it. This new-fangled idea of being transparent, honest, and responsible? It could bankrupt the phone companies!
I'm surprised they didn't try to stall further by claiming that the technology isn't up to automating the notification feature. Though there's still time for that. Next they'll be splitting hairs about what "sufficient notice" is.
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Forget fees, the advertized pricing shocks me!
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Good
Lee Bergeron
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Good for users
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