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Magico

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 2, 2008
23
0
:mad:

I was sent an email that my bill was ready to review online and when I reviewed it it had additional charges. No FAN discount. I called AT&T and was told part of my additional charges was the $36 activation fee. I told the rep that I was told that the activation fee would be waive, she checked and removed the $36 charge plus the tax. She then went on in telling me that they bill 1 month in advance and since the billing cycle was on the 12th and I got my IPhone on the 11th, I was being charge for one day, that I can understand. However, when I asked about the FAN discount she is now telling me it takes up to 2 months to see it on my bill and it is not proactive. She then states that the FAN discount only applies to the voice plan and not the data plan. I told her that is not what I was told at the store where I bought my phone. She stated the Apple is not allowing the discounts to be taken off the data plan. She asked if I wanted to speak to someone else and I said yes. I was on hold for about 20 minutes. I hung up and got another rep who told me the computers were down but could answer general questions. She also told me that the FAN discount does not apply to the data plan and if I was told it would, I needed to go back to the store and speak to them I asked to speak to a manager and she stated the same thing.

:mad:
 
thats bull sh*t. dont accept that answer. If they try that with me I will drop ATT like a bad habit.
lulz.

IIRC, each company/school has a different agreement with AT&T and thus, the discounts will vary. Some offer a discount off the voice plan, some voice + data, some activation, etc. So it's possible your FAN only offers a discount off the voice plan. But if where you bought it at said you'd be getting data as well I'd go back and ask the what's up.
 
lulz.

IIRC, each company/school has a different agreement with AT&T and thus, the discounts will vary. Some offer a discount off the voice plan, some voice + data, some activation, etc. So it's possible your FAN only offers a discount off the voice plan. But if where you bought it at said you'd be getting data as well I'd go back and ask the what's up.

correct. it's not up to Apple what the discount applies to, its the agreement your institution has. just because a clueless rep told you it would apply to everything doesn't make it true.
don't get me wrong, I do wish it applied to data as well, but I actually read the quick description of my FAN discount and saw that it stated it only applied to the voice portion.
 
My FAN discount applies to both.

Before I went to get the IPhone 3G, I went onto the ATT link thru my work computer, since the Iphone 3G was not out yet. I plugged in a Palm Centro. I choose the 450 Nation Voice Plan for 39.99 and a 30.00 Personal Data Plan.

The final tally showed I was going to get $6 off the voice plan, $4.50 off the data plan and there would be no activation fee. I get 15% off thru my employer.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A345 Safari/525.20)

have FAN and was told it was only for voice. However the suprise of the bill is AT&T charges from June 12 to July 11. A whole month before I became a customer. I guess when you leave you don't have to pay your last month? I don't know but I think this is an unsavory tactic.
 
Agree with others, it depends on what the agreement covers. I suppose if they don't discount your data and you know for a fact that your agreement covers it (and I'm not sure I'd consider a web wizard a reliable source), you have a case to take back to them.

Here's what nailed me: I simply changed my FAN from one company to another (new company is a sort of subsidiary of the old company) and they immediately took the old FAN off my account, yet it will take up to 2 billing cycles to add the new one on.

I have to give props to AT&T ...the sheer efficiency at which they milk their customers out of every dollar possible is legendary.
 
Just got my first bill and they charged for the activation fee even though it's supposed to be waived. Called up and actually gotten it taken off painlessly.

First month's bill for one month plus three days: $70.57 with discount. (450, 3G data, 200SMS)
 
Why don't you WAIT until you get a bill that shows the discount and then complain. No one seems to know what they are doing right now, I'm sure that will change in time.
 
I have the discount on my account already and it is only on the voice plan for line 1 - line 2 has nothing on it and data is full price.

There is also a note on the discount mentioning iphone related expenses are not covered - not sure if it is referring to just hardware or if the data plan is off limits (hope its not the voice portion!).
 
:mad:

I was sent an email that my bill was ready to review online and when I reviewed it it had additional charges. No FAN discount. I called AT&T and was told part of my additional charges was the $36 activation fee. I told the rep that I was told that the activation fee would be waive, she checked and removed the $36 charge plus the tax. She then went on in telling me that they bill 1 month in advance and since the billing cycle was on the 12th and I got my IPhone on the 11th, I was being charge for one day, that I can understand. However, when I asked about the FAN discount she is now telling me it takes up to 2 months to see it on my bill and it is not proactive. She then states that the FAN discount only applies to the voice plan and not the data plan. I told her that is not what I was told at the store where I bought my phone. She stated the Apple is not allowing the discounts to be taken off the data plan. She asked if I wanted to speak to someone else and I said yes. I was on hold for about 20 minutes. I hung up and got another rep who told me the computers were down but could answer general questions. She also told me that the FAN discount does not apply to the data plan and if I was told it would, I needed to go back to the store and speak to them I asked to speak to a manager and she stated the same thing.

:mad:


This is what I was told as well. Didn't like it, but it isn't that bad really, not worth the hassle of cancelling for sure.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A345 Safari/525.20)

have FAN and was told it was only for voice. However the suprise of the bill is AT&T charges from June 12 to July 11. A whole month before I became a customer. I guess when you leave you don't have to pay your last month? I don't know but I think this is an unsavory tactic.

What the hell? I would be pissed since I just became an ATT customer as of 07/11/08. I cant wait til my bill comes. Im gonna have to look at everything.

And I was told that it would take 2 billing cycles for the discount to take effect. Stupid. I hope I can get the activation fee waived. Thats $36 for my gas tank :)
 
I was told the same thing as the OP. FAN discounts wouldn't be applied for 2 months, and it would ONLY apply towards voice not data.

Needless to say, I was a bit ticked off myself. I'm waiting for my bill(s) to arrive, then I'll complain.
 
I guess when you leave you don't have to pay your last month? I don't know but I think this is an unsavory tactic.[/QUOTE]

No, incorrect assumption here!

Becareful, this is one of the cell phone companies other method of generating more revenue when you leave them.

I canceled my Sprint PCS contract on January 26 2004 and ported over to Cingular. However, my monthly billing cycle started January 24 2004-February 23 2004. Since you are essentially prepaying for the entire month before hand, they have your money and will not refund you the prorated amount. This is the exact opposite when you start up a new contract where to prorate this current months bill and than tact on next month's bill (so your initial first month's bill is very high).

This is where I actually like my cable company. Comcast/Brighthouse/Cox/Time Warner always refund you your prorated monthly portion when you cancel but cell phone companies eat your month and never give it back at the end.
 
I heard that its really hard to get ATT to waive your activation fee? Is this true?

Not really. Once again, it depends on the type of FAN discount you have. For new customers, it's not really waived, but you'll get 75% of it back through the $25 discount. But depending on what your FAN discount does, you could have all of it waived. So check to see what you have in your account, as it should tell you there.

Mine has it waived.

BL.
 
Does at&t maintain certain hours for customer support over the phone? I'm wondering since I'm planning on going to the Apple store tomorrow morning and trying my luck but I need to remove my FAN discount first. I'm wondering if I should do it tonight or if I can just leave it for tomorrow morning and call while I'm on line around 7-9 am.

Is there any benefit to having the discount removed from your account for the shortest time possible or is it better to be safe than sorry and remove it tonight to give it adequate time to clear from the system for my trip to the Apple store tomorrow?
 
Update

I went to the AT&T store and spoke to the manager that helped me before and he stated that the contract that my company has with AT&T does apply to voice and data which should apply to the new IPhone. He told me that when I get my first bill that shows the FAN discount and if the data plan is not discounted he would give me a store credit in the amount of what my savings would be over the two years.
 
How's this for something I've never heard before...

I just came back from the mall where I had been going back and forth between the Apple store and the at&t store.

In the Apple store, I explained my situation to the sales rep regarding my FAN discount and that I understood I needed to remove it before purchasing an iPhone there. He gave me a special number to call and said that I should give it 48 hours to be certain that the discount is off before heading into the Apple store to buy the iPhone.

Later in the at&t store, I mentioned what the Apple employee had told me and they said I actually had two options. Either I or Apple could call the number I received and have the FAN/IRU code temporarily deactivated for a period of 12 hours. This would allow me to purchase the phone and not have to go through the hassle of removing the discount and going two months without it. Or, the other option, was to have at&t remove the discount right there for me, go the the Apple store and purchase the iPhone and then have the discount put back onto my account at at&t but with the understanding that it would take two billing cycles for the discount to kick back in.

It seems like a no brainer to try option one first, but when I heard this today, I was wondering if it was too good to be true. I have not heard reports of this before online. Perhaps this is a new workaround for FAN discount holders wishing to purchase an iPhone in an Apple store? Thoughts?...
 
Yikes I just looked at my bill online it was for $134… I couldn't get the activation waived and my employee discount is shown… You dont' get the FAN discount on the TMS4…
 
What if you already have an ATT bundle discount, 20%, for having DSL, Phone, Longdistance, etc. I have my FAN and password for my company, gives 20%, would it be pointless to add it when I already have 20% off my account, not like they are combined, right?

Also, my company e-mail doesn't work online to find my discounts, any way online to add my FAN manually?
 
Apparently I'm being charged for a full month of iPhone 3G data service, even though my billing cycle ended on July 11th (launch day)......
 
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