Yikes..$406.00 phone bill

[262Runnr]

I called AT&T to ask for an explaination - and there's alway a myriad of avenues that they take you down to explain the bill but basically it was $406. - WOW
I'm wondering if I should take out a home equity loan to pay it.
No wonder this business is such a cash cow...

That includes 2 iPHones and 1 Blackberry Curve...next month should be around $200.00 -

[iParis]

I called AT&T to ask for an explaination - and there's alway a myriad of avenues that they take you down to explain the bill but basically it was $406. - WOW
I'm wondering if I should take out a home equity loan to pay it.
No wonder this business is such a cash cow...

That includes 2 iPHones and 1 Blackberry Curve...next month should be around $200.00 -

Well it's not like it doesn't make sense, especially if you went over on all three phones.
I would feel worse if it was like just one iPhone with a bill of $406.

[mkrishnan]

Well it's not like it doesn't make sense, especially if you went over on all three phones.
I would feel worse if it was like just one iPhone with a bill of $406.

Yeah. I think you (OP) saw too many threads of people being mischarged for data services and the like. You have three smartphones, presumably all of which have data plans. You presumably knew that your monthly plan would be around $200... and as has been explained, AT&T charges a partial month plus the first full postpaid month on their first bill as their SOP.

So... this thread title is false advertising. :p

[cellocello]

Ya honesty ... three smart phones and your bill's $400? Big deal.

And next month is going to be two hundred bucks?? For 3 data phones? What are you complaining about?

[cyclingplatypus]

First month bill I assume? If so, nothing unusual about that, activation fees, pro-rated month and full month service for the devices.

[aneftp]

3 "smartphone phones" assuming $30 data for each so that makes it at least $90 for the data per month. Add at least around $100 for your family talk plan (assuming you got the 89.99 1400 minute plan plus added the third line). That's $190 right off the bat. I'm not even including text messaging plans.

Now add in activation fees and pro-rated charges for being a new customer and than add the pesky 10-20% cell phones misc. taxes.

So $400 for the first month's bill sounds just about right.

[vilasgn]

I'm wondering if I should take out a home equity loan to pay it.


This is the reason why there is credit crunch, housing collapse in America. Think before your buy, not think after buying.

[munckee]

I was pretty shocked to find that my first bill was $200. But reading through it revealed that it was for 6 weeks of service (2 weeks prorated and the upcoming month) plus activation, etc. Seemed to make sense after reading it, but still more than I expected.

[mcflirty99]

First month bill I assume? If so, nothing unusual about that, activation fees, pro-rated month and full month service for the devices.

please someonebody explain more about these fees and if there are more

[PNutts]

That's nothing. This family got hit with a $20,000 bill:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/06/2125224

:eek::eek::eek:

It was later discovered it was a billing error.

[PNutts]

please someonebody explain more about these fees and if there are more

They are probably the same fees that AT&T described to me in detail when I purchased/activated my phone. You might want to call your carrier to get clarification specific to your bill (or just as an FYI if you don't have a contract).

[halo211]

for those who transferred to AT&T shortly after the launch date, pay careful attention to your second billing statement. my first bill was accurate and what i expected. the second bill immediately raised red flags when i saw it. for some unknown reason (according to the rep i spoke to), there were roughly 750 messages from the last billing period that were carried over to the current period. as a result, my text msgs exceeded the 1500 limit and overage charges were applied. i called at&t and they quickly credited my account without any hassles. just wanted to throw this out there ...

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

Ya honesty ... three smart phones and your bill's $400? Big deal.



And next month is going to be two hundred bucks?? For 3 data phones? What are you complaining about?

Seriously. I got $200-300 /month bills for YEARS - and that was just for ONE phone, not even a smartphone at that. Now I'm down to about $100 a month for my iPhone 3G (that doesn't include any calling time, or nights/weekends) but I'm thrilled - at this price, it's a steal! :)



You guys back in the States are pretty spoiled, I'd say.

[Cynicalone]

My normal AT&T bill is $190 a month for an iPhone 3G and a Laptop connect card. For three smart phones your first bill being a little over four hundred doesn't seem to bad imo.

[cyclingplatypus]

please someonebody explain more about these fees and if there are more

The fees are (in addition to service and data):

Activation
Text Package (if you have any)
Taxes

Usually your first bill is any time you had before the new billing cycle started (prorated) plus the first full month of complete service. Where as subsequent bills are just for the next month of service.