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40 dollars for a upgrade Fee.... AT&T is nuts.
- Thread starter hcho3
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Well yes, but next would be really of no benefit to you under that plan as you pay a subsidized rate every month... meaning your bill is inflated every month to offset the subsidy ATT provides every 2 years...
The upgrade fee only comes into play if you take the subsidized pricing. Buy it outright and there is no fee.
Lol.. Time to switch
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Never paid a upgrade fee I was att for 11yrs until this year I went with tmobile
I got the upgrade fee waived for our phones last time. I'm not so sure they are going to do it this time since it is a perk of NEXT. They are probably going to play hardball and say change to NEXT and you don't pay it.
But I guess we'll see after people get their phones and start calling then reporting here.
But I guess we'll see after people get their phones and start calling then reporting here.
I hate this kind of policy. If you're a nice guy you basically get screwed. But if you whine and bitch and take up the rep's time, you get rewarded. Not right.
lol'in hard at this. $40 fee causing such an uproar.
if it hurts that bad, move to another carrier. this privileged society bs is beyond comical. you choose your carrier and whether or not you have a wireless phone; either accept what they charge or don't. bitching about it won't change anything. cellphones are a choice, not a privilege.
if it hurts that bad, move to another carrier. this privileged society bs is beyond comical. you choose your carrier and whether or not you have a wireless phone; either accept what they charge or don't. bitching about it won't change anything. cellphones are a choice, not a privilege.
When carriers essentially have an oligopoly and collude to set their prices, there isn't much we can do asides for complain. Switching to Sprint or T-mobile isn't an option for many of us simply because their service sucks outside of major metropolitan areas.
I always call and get them waved.... They say it's because I choose to subsidize my phone. I tell them well I sign a new 2 year agreement THAT'S why you subsidize my phone so basically YOU (att) want 2 things for me signing that 2 year contract...... They take it off. I spend over $200 a month so I think they can suck it up and eat the "upgrade" fee.
blame the duopoly/"market competition" and the big 2 keeping pricing very similar. complaining accomplishes nothing; speak with your wallet. either there is personal/business value with your carrier and cellphones or not. if there is, prepare to pay for the service offered to you at market rate.
How can I vote with my wallet when there is no real choice? I am within my rights to complain about the fee and I will do so. Might not accomplish anything, but neither will "voting" with my wallet.
Government is supposed to look out for its citizens on things like this, but nowadays they're just in the pockets of these mega corporations.
the fact you don't realize there is another choice screams being naive. you could not have a cellphone- that is one of the choices.
To suggest that he shouldn't have a cell phone is ridiculous ... The upgrade fee is a ludicrous fee and more people should be complaining about it. The fact that AT&T isn't being transparent about what the upgrade fee is even for should make all of us even madder.
I would be angrier if they weren't up front about the fee being there. I am not sure why or how some people would feel better if they understood where every penny of the $40 is going. The fact that they tell me there is a $40 fee is, frankly, enough for me.
I We are talking about buying a phone that costs 1/4-1/3 of what I am paying for it to produce. Yeah, R&D, etc. The point is that nothing is really upfront about why they charge exactly what they charge for it. Apple said my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB would retail $850. They were up front about the cost, but not why. I don't see this as any different, frankly.
I We are talking about buying a phone that costs 1/4-1/3 of what I am paying for it to produce. Yeah, R&D, etc. The point is that nothing is really upfront about why they charge exactly what they charge for it. Apple said my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB would retail $850. They were up front about the cost, but not why. I don't see this as any different, frankly.
That's not a real choice. A cell phone is practically an essential utility nowadays.
Suggesting I go without a cell phone today is just as ludicrous as suggesting one go without a landline 30 years ago. Possible? Sure. Practical? Absolutely not.
You realize that the reason why you're paying 1/4 of the cost up front is because your carrier is charging you an extra ~$20 a month in your plan to subsidize your smartphone ... You probably don't question it because its the norm in America, but in Europe and Asia, cell phone plans are drastically cheaper.
If Apple charged you an unexplained extra +$40 fee on top of the $199 for the iPhone 6, you would be okay with that?
My biggest issue with the activation fee is that as far as I can tell, AT&T does absolutely nothing to earn it, especially when we don't buy the phones through their stores. If there really were costs associated with activating a new device, then we should be paying the same $40 whenever we change SIMs between devices. The whole point of GSM was to allow devices to be changed without requiring changes at the carrier end.
Activation fee for a brand new line makes sense. And when the upgrade fee used to be half the price of the activation fee, at least they acknowledged that an upgrade isn't as big of a deal to their system. Now it just seems like a thinly veiled attempt to reduce the subsidy amount.
I don't disagree that they do nothing to earn it. But really, all fees are arbitrary and based on what people are willing to pay. An AT&T store will give you a sim for free. Every other store that sells their products they charge an exorbitant amount (something like $10). That includes authorized resellers, Best Buy, Target, atc. Why? Who knows? Because they can? Because they would rather you get new sims from them I guess? IDK.
I am not convinced Apple does enough to double their investment on each iPhone produced (rough estimate by the end of the generation), but people are willing to pay, just like people swallow the upgrade fee. Don;t fret though. If they ever get rid of the upgrade fee they will just roll it ito their other services somehow. I can guarantee you that.
The reason 5S @ the end was $350 was you were still in the middle of your 2 yr contract... to "upgrade" yearly via 2 yr way they slap a fee of $250 on top of the phone subsidized price ... 250 is to cover current phone plan..