Removing "You transaction cost.." Message w/ Pre Paid iPhone?

[GTiPhone]

I have been enjoying my iPhone with the gophone plan for a while now, but im wondering if there is in fact a way that At&t can turn off the oh so annoying message that pops up on the screen everytime you send or receive a text, end a call, or end EDGE usage session?

Has anyone tried with or without luck to accomplish this? Ideally i would like to have it turned off for my unlimited features (texting and EDGE) and left on for calls, but that seems like wishful thinking.

Experienced opinions would be greatly appeciated.

 

[Navintar]

At this moment, there is no way to turn off this balance notification as it is included as a "feature" in all AT&T GoPhone out there.

Far far as I know, there is ONLY one person who claimed to have turned this message off by calling AT&T. The rest of us didn't seem to be able to resolve this issue like she did.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/323036/ Look for Cybergypsy's posts.

Some of us switched to post-paid plan just because of this. I decided to stay with it hoping that they will fix it somehow. Here are some links.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....44203&#4844203
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....48904&#4848904
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....26400&#4826400

So let it be heard that there are some of us out here that's been affected by this issue.

 

[DeathChill]

I would not be surprised if the idea behind the messages was to get people to go to the standard contract method. It'd be something that would quickly become annoying and something I've never seen implemented on any pre-paid phones I've ever seen (though my knowledge in this area is quite limited). I assume it's all to annoy the customer enough to just sign up for a plan to help make AT&T and Apple more money from overages (AT&T) and signing up new customers (Apple) and all that jazz.

 

[GTiPhone]

I would not be surprised if the idea behind the messages was to get people to go to the standard contract method. It'd be something that would quickly become annoying and something I've never seen implemented on any pre-paid phones I've ever seen (though my knowledge in this area is quite limited). I assume it's all to annoy the customer enough to just sign up for a plan to help make AT&T and Apple more money from overages (AT&T) and signing up new customers (Apple) and all that jazz.

Um, no, the purpose of it is to keep track of your balance. If you don't have unlimited features, like some might or would certainly with other At&t phones, then it would be a useful message. When 90% of what i do on the phone doesn't affect my balance, I don't need a constant reminder.

 

[GTiPhone]

At this moment, there is no way to turn off this balance notification as it is included as a "feature" in all AT&T GoPhone out there.

Far far as I know, there is ONLY one person who claimed to have turned this message off by calling AT&T. The rest of us didn't seem to be able to resolve this issue like she did.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/323036/ Look for Cybergypsy's posts.

Some of us switched to post-paid plan just because of this. I decided to stay with it hoping that they will fix it somehow. Here are some links.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....44203&#4844203
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....48904&#4848904
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....26400&#4826400

So let it be heard that there are some of us out here that's been affected by this issue.

Thanks for the input. I called and spoke to some miserable woman today at At&t and was of course told again by her and a manager that there was no way to turn it off. Apparently it is also for sending ADVERTISEMENTS from "Cingular", thank god I haven't had that happen or I'd be REAL pissed.

 

[Navintar]

I would not be surprised if the idea behind the messages was to get people to go to the standard contract method. It'd be something that would quickly become annoying and something I've never seen implemented on any pre-paid phones I've ever seen (though my knowledge in this area is quite limited). I assume it's all to annoy the customer enough to just sign up for a plan to help make AT&T and Apple more money from overages (AT&T) and signing up new customers (Apple) and all that jazz.

That sounds like a bad business practice to me. Before my iPhone purchase, I was also an AT&T customer with post-paid plan. Since my contract was expired a year ago, I did not feel like renewing it only because of a new subsidized phone. My only reason for not getting an iPhone in the first place was this 2 year contract.

In fact, I do like this reminding feature IF it actually tells me USEFUL information. Repeating for thousand times a message that I have unlimited data allowance is not informative, it is obnoxious.

I aware that AT&T includes this feature for all of their GoPhones. Since the non-iPhone prepaid AT&T customers do not have the unlimited data plan like we do, I don't think their complaints would apply to our case here.

 

[Navintar]

Thanks for the input. I called and spoke to some miserable woman today at At&t and was of course told again by her and a manager that there was no way to turn it off. Apparently it is also for sending ADVERTISEMENTS from "Cingular", thank god I haven't had that happen or I'd be REAL pissed.

In fact I've called them couple time to post my complaint on both Apple and AT&T side. Each time though, I've never get any consistent information from them, especially AT&T. the first CSR told me this issue was well known and they're trying to come up with a fix, the other however said that he never heard of it and didn't think they will be able to change the system anytime soon.

on my second call, I got transfered to an higher-level supervisor. She told me that they are not able to turn it off because it is not possible to do it for one person only and "a majority of AT&T customers wants to have this feature." I was a little pissed and asked her if this is how a "minority" can be overlooked. I was told that I'll be called back after she speak to other department or whatever. She didn't call me back and I realized this could possibly be how they get the trouble out of their way.

 

[DeathChill]

Um, no, the purpose of it is to keep track of your balance. If you don't have unlimited features, like some might or would certainly with other At&t phones, then it would be a useful message. When 90% of what i do on the phone doesn't affect my balance, I don't need a constant reminder.

Yes, but couldn't they have easily implemented a button to allow you to check your remaining balance or a little note on the screen? That'd probably be much better as it wouldn't pop up and require your input after you've just used the phone. Personally, I find it a bit ridiculous.

 

[drater]

Yes, but couldn't they have easily implemented a button to allow you to check your remaining balance or a little note on the screen? That'd probably be much better as it wouldn't pop up and require your input after you've just used the phone. Personally, I find it a bit ridiculous.

with how technologically advance the iphone is they should have made this so it would just go off when you spend money. Like if the dollar amount is going to read 0.00 usd used, then the message wouldn't pop up. like for those people who have unlimited data and what not. Oh well, hopefully they will fix it sooner rather than later.

also, you can check your balance by dialing *777# and then call.

 

[Navintar]

There is good amount of folk at the AT&T forum.
http://forums.cingular.com/cng/board/message?board.id=apple&thread.id=2116&page=2

It seems the the main functionality that would trigger data activity is Yahoo push email. The alert message could be somewhat less random if you turn off the Yahoo account on top of disabling the mail auto check feature. Of course this is still far from a workaround since you will get the lovely $0.00 message for every edge session on safari, mail, youtube, google map, etc.

To me the issue here is not whether AT&T could provide the reminding message as an option rather than a mandatory implementation, but it is for us with unlimited data plan to be able to turn off a completely useless and utterly annoying message that confirms that our data usage is free.

 

[Navintar]

It's been couple days since I removed yahoo mail account and forwarded all mails to my .mac address. I'd say it has helped quite a bit with random pop up problem. At least, I don't see 50 transaction messages in the morning anymore. The only downfall would be that i'm not having a push service and need to manually check my email as needed. I'd suggest you do the same, if you really get annoyed by the nagging messages.

 

[jeffmac16]

How to turn the AT&T transaction cost messages off

If you have Sprint coverage in your area(s), switch to Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go. I used them for years, and their UI is excellent. No annoying transaction messages, just a plain text screen that allows you to easily check your balance and expiration date when ever you want, twice per day. Sadly, where I live now, we have no Sprint/Virgin Mobile coverage.

 

[Interstella5555]

I would not be surprised if the idea behind the messages was to get people to go to the standard contract method. It'd be something that would quickly become annoying and something I've never seen implemented on any pre-paid phones I've ever seen (though my knowledge in this area is quite limited). I assume it's all to annoy the customer enough to just sign up for a plan to help make AT&T and Apple more money from overages (AT&T) and signing up new customers (Apple) and all that jazz.

Sorry, you're totally incorrect there. Also you think only iPhone users are getting this message?

 

[Mrbobb]

If you have Sprint coverage in your area(s), switch to Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go. I used them for years, and their UI is excellent. No annoying transaction messages

U people sign up just to answer 6 years old posts? IT'S OUTDATED. AT&T fixed this problem long ago.

 

[coldstaryb]

U people sign up just to answer 6 years old posts? IT'S OUTDATED. AT&T fixed this problem long ago.

I'm afraid that's not true. I signed up, to reply to you that this annoying problem never got fixed. I'm new to ATT prepaid and that message is annoying like hell. It will pop up even when I didn't using anything. It will pop up out of nowhere when I'm sleeping in the middle of the night. If it wasn't that ATT is the only one that I can get signal in my apartment, there is NO WAY I would use ATT prepaid. I've used T-mobile prepaid before when I was living on campus and it was muuuuuch better.

 

[JackieInCo]

Hahahaha This was way back when you could go prepaid in the original iPhone if you failed the credit check.

 

[Mrbobb]

I'm afraid that's not true. I signed up, to reply to you that this annoying problem never got fixed

If you sign on to you account, under User Settings or Profile, there is a notification you can turn off. Of course it's been 6 month since I left them so my info maybe outdated.

Moot point, I left AT&T prepaid, they are just the most expensive, inflexible, and if smartphone, forces you to buy a data package.

Gone, bye-bye AT&T PayGo. Sayonata. Hasta La Vista Baby. So long.

 

[Brainiac107]

If you sign on to you account, under User Settings or Profile, there is a notification you can turn off. Of course it's been 6 month since I left them so my info maybe outdated.

You were right! I'm so happy! This was driving me nuts. Everytime I sent or received or ended a call I got a notification which especially sucked while trying to be quiet at night because it kept buzzing. (Ugh.) Anyways, just to clarify for anyone else, you sign into your AT&T account. You may have to create an account but it's worth it! Then go to "Account summary" and the towards the bottom if the list there is the " end of call notification" switch and you can turn it off and viola!!!! Thanks amazing human being who saved my life by telling me this!!!^^