AT&T Service Start Date on Backordered Phone

[BruiserB]

I posted this within the thread on when AT&T phones are shipping that have been ordered since they started taking orders again, but am afraid that it will just be buried there....anyone else see this on their account?? They starting billing me for service before I even had (or they even shipped) a phone! (I ordered on 6/29, it was shipped on 7/6, and I received it on 7/7)

I downloaded the ATT app that let's you view your account usage etc. and found something interesting.... Seems ATT created my account and started my billing month on 6/29. Therefore I effectively pay for a week of service when I didn't even have a phone. The phone line and data plan seem to be billed this way. Interestingly, the text plan was prorated to the day the phone shipped, therefore it shows that I have only about 75% of the text messages, but I assume I was only charged for 75% of the fee.

So they charge for the things I'm not likely to overuse from day 1 and then prorate the item I may end up going over on and that could generate more revenue for them! This almost seems like a conscious effort on ATT's part to generate more revenue. They know which day the phone ships.....seems to me they should turn on the account the day they know you will receive the phone. I could even understand it going on when the " shipped" notice was generated, but a week before on a backordered item seems fraudulent.

Anyone else have this experience? I'm probably going to try to call ATT but I'm skeptical of having any human interaction with them. I've been a satisfied T-mobile customer for years and am afraid of dealing with the ATT beast! If anyone has confronted this issue I'd like to know how it was handled. I didn't port my old number or anything so I can't see how they could claim that they provided any type of service to me before my phone shipped.

 

[SpaceKitty]

AT&T tells you when you order the phone online, that your service can start before you even get the phone.

I ordered a 3GS on Wednesday and that is also the date of my upgrade date now in 18 months. I got the phone on Friday even though I ordered it on Wednesday which is my new contract start date. Didn't you read anything when you ordered?

 

[BruiserB]

I thought I read everything pretty carefully.....I suppose if it was buried in the minute details of "I have read and understood and agree to the 17 pages of small print I just scrolled through" then I probably missed it.

In any case, if their system is smart enough to prorate my text plan, it should be smart enough to know when to start the service. Like I said, I guess I could understand it starting when they ship the phone and send out the message saying your new number is... But I don't understand it starting when they hadn't even assigned me a number or had the phone in stock, regardless of what their website says.

In your case, you moved from one phone to another, so you're talking about your "contract" date....not your "service" date. I don't care a few days one way or the other when my contract takes effect....but paying for service that was impossible to use I have a problem with.

 

[BruiserB]

And when you consider the hundreds of thousands of phones that were probably ordered since ATT started taking orders again, each one generating an extra 7-10 days of service fees to ATT when they haven't even shipped the phone, it's a sizable amount of revenue to them.