  graysonfPremium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL | They do this on DSL too My last AT&T DSL bill had an unannounced price increase. That actually was my last AT&T bill - I cancelled the service. | |
|
 | | | Re: They do this on DSL too Good for you! I cancelled my Verizon FiOS TV last year because my TV pkg was going up. Not sure if DirecTV, TWC, VZ, or ATT will learn. | |
|
| | | | Re: They do this on DSL too said by sphinxguy18:Good for you! I cancelled my Verizon FiOS TV last year because my TV pkg was going up. Not sure if DirecTV, TWC, VZ, or ATT will learn.
Verizon FIOS increased the price of your TV package? Wow! No TV provider has ever increased prices before.  | |
|
| | | 
ATT Message of DSL Rate Hike |
From: AT&T High Speed Internet Customer Care
Subject: Important Change to your AT&T Internet Service
To: "AT&T High Speed Internet Customer"
Date: Thursday, January 31, 2013, 1:18 PM | |
|
| |  VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | Re: They do this on DSL too I have UVerse and never got any such email or piece of mail
I had to look on my bill and find it. | |
|
| | | | After going through all my previous bills, back to July, 2011, and not finding one notice regarding a $ equipment fee I gave AT&T a call this month and was told that I had received prior notice. I never received prior notice regarding an "equipment fee."  | |
|
| | |
| | Reviews:
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| My slower than advertised, slower than ordered and they can't (won't) fix it DSL went from $14.95 to $43.00 I called and complained and they won't budge.
ATT wants to get rid of their DSL subscribers so they can get everyone on wireless and charge those overages. I guess most of the old time wireline carriers who also have wireless are doing this. | |
|
| |  OlegBellsouth FastaccessPremium
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL
kudos:2 | I am glad i have cancelled my DSL service. Funny thing was i got a bill for DSL the next month after i have cancelled my service. So i have called AT&T, and the rep. has told me "I am showing here your DSL service was cancelled." I have asked him again the reply was "hold on..." when he came back the answer was "Sorry for keeping you waiting. Your DSL service is cancelled now. My next question was "How about a credit for the unwanted DSL service? Ones again "hold on i'll ask my super.". Finally the rep. has came back again with the answer "I have spoke with my Super, and she has credited your account for the unused service.". | |
|
| OlegBellsouth FastaccessPremium
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL
kudos:2 | I have cancelled my DSL service so the next month i have looked at my bill, and they have charged me a full rate again. OK i have given a ring to the AT&T, and their answer was " I am showing here your DSL service was cancelled. So i have told the rep. that i have just checked, and it DSL is still active. After speaking with his Super he has apologized, and has credited my account for the full amount. | |
|
| | networks need to change not the video providers companies are in the business to make money. When broad cast fees go up they are more than likely not going to eat it. They will pass it on.. it sucks, but a hard reality. networks not the video providers will eventually have to give in as more and more subscribers drop and MSO and other video providers eventually stop giving in to the insane contract requirements....
ESPN for example basically ask 5 dollars a subscriber for a video provider who say has 500000 vid subscribers, but only 100000 watch ESPN.. guess what ESPN gets 5 bucks for every single one of those 500000 | |
|
| Reviews:
 ·Insight Communic..
| Re: networks need to change not the video providers Not exactly, ESPN gets that $5.00 from each 500,000 because the demand that ESPN is offered in the lowest package on basic cable to carry any other Disney property. ESPN's model would fail if they started to let MSOs package their networks in a Sports Tier as only true sports fans will sub, but then ESPN couldn't demand the $5.00 because their threats of withholding other Disney/CBS Networks would fail.
Case in point NFL Network was demanding the same placement at about 50% ESPN rates. While MSOs like TWC wanted to stik it in a sports tier where those that wanted it would be subsidizing the cost to offer it directly. And look how long it took to get NFL Network on TWC...... | |
|
| | | Reason I gaveup pay tv 10 years ago. Not worth the expense, with so much free tv online. | |
|
| | U-Go, at&t ...welcome to the Revolution! (of mystery charges having nothing to do with any service you're actually using)
People, people, people... can't you find better uses for your money than to give it up for "cable TV"? Internet access I can understand... but the other stuff? | |
|
KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | These fees should be illegal. If you are going to charge people for something it should be in the price of the product.
When I buy a steak at the supermarket there is no "slicing fee" "refrigeration fee" "Checkout scanning fee". No all of that is simply a cost of their operation and is in one way or another part of the list price. The only additional charge is sales tax on non food items and odds are state law requires that to be listed separately rather than rolled into price.
If the telecom industry ran a food store, steaks would be 39 cents a pound and your receipt would be 10ft long listing the various fees that in the end make it cost the same as any other store.
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
|
| PaxioPremium
join:2011-02-23
Santa Clara, CA
kudos:1 | Re: These fees should be illegal. It's worse than you think!
Most of the "fees" have nothing whatever to do with actual government taxes. They are just pure profit added "below the line" to claim a lower "advertised price".
We separate the actual taxes on our bills because it's not fair to make people in one city pay the city broadband tax for another. But the telecom taxes account for only a tiny percentage of the bill -- less than 2-3% in most of our territory.
Our openness puts us at a marketing disadvantage when someone calls and demands we match price with one of the "biggies" -- because they compare their advertised price (without the extra profit) with our actual price (which includes all profit).
Bottom line: there is a huge push in our industry to price services deceptively, like the big guys, because otherwise you lose the business of low-information customers who make uninformed price comparisons.
It sucks, but there it is. Because the big guys get away with it on their customers, more and more small providers have to play the same game. | |
|
| | Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: These fees should be illegal. I agree... at some point, it will be 'free TV' service - requires at $69/month equipment charge as well as last mile service charge (local MSO) of $35/month.
Kind of like how Socal Edison breaks down their bill between 'power generation' and 'power transmission' - TV providers should perform a breakout of their utilities. | |
|
| | | | | Re: These fees should be illegal. Some of these fees ARE illegal.
"US FTC regulations state that unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce are unlawful. (15 USC § 45 (a)) In relevant part, they state that contingent conditions and obligations of an offer must be set forth clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer, and that disclosure of the terms of the offer set forth in a footnote of an advertisement to which reference is made by an asterisk or other symbol placed next to the offer, is not regarded as making disclosure at the outset. (16 CFR 251.1)" | |
|
| |
| | U-verse 24Mbps package The price is pretty low for that kind of bandwidth in the Miami area. | |
|
 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | Great! An out for unhappy subs with no ETF
--
Despises any post with strings. | |
|
| | price us into stoneage I gave up my car, my TV, my moto and soon my internet and lastly my dumb mobile. These companies try to price us into the stone age... but I will never give up my guns | |
|
| | I have u-verse tv with internet and pay $11.33 in Government Fees and Taxes + $2.80 in surcharges. | |
|
PaxioPremium
join:2011-02-23
Santa Clara, CA
kudos:1
1 edit | Oops Wrong thread! | |
|
 skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2
·Cox HSI
 ·Clear Wireless
| This is all fine... ...but turning around and advertising a $39/mo price is fraud when the actual price is $49/mo or whatever the real price with all the B.S. fees turns out to be.
The advertised price should be the O.T.D. price and if that can't be determined the "up to" price, the price in the most expensive jurisdiction is the one advertised. So in this example the advertised price is "$49 or less" not $39 and always more. | |
|
| | | Re: This is all fine... Or, at the very least, the price minus taxes. I have no problem with a store advertising a price before sales tax, since I know what the tax is in my area and can figure it out for myself, but adding so-called fees is out and out fraud.
In fact, if adding these fees below the line is OK, why not just take it a step further and move just about all the cost down there? Advertise the service for $1.99/month, plus fees and taxes. Man, won't the customers be surprised when they still are paying $140! | |
|
| | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | Re: This is all fine... Taxes perhaps, IFF 100% of that tax is handed over to the greedy thugs in government, but the bullshit "regulatory recovery fees", no.
No more itemizing overhead. | |
|
| | | | | Re: This is all fine... Agreed. Unless the fee is mandated by law, and the company doesn't retain any of it, it's part of the price and needs to be included in the price.
Actually, I think that what the feds did with airline tickets was a good idea. Basically, they required that sites selling them must prominently show you the final price. If they want to show you a breakdown of what went into that calculation, they can, but the number in the biggest font must be the price you are charged.
You know, now that I think about it, maybe the cable and telecom companies should also be required to do the same thing. While their national and regional ads wouldn't be able to do this because of different taxes on the local level, there's absolutely no reason their Web sites can't. After all, the companies know what the final price will be in a given jurisdiction, since they have to bill their customers, so there's no reason that, if you enter your location, they can't tell you what the total monthly bill will be. | |
|
| | | | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | Re: This is all fine... Everyone should do it, telcos to the airlines; itemizing overhead prohibited. The price they advertise is the price customers pay. | |
|
| | | | | | | Re: This is all fine... Not with deregulation. They will say the extra ink on the paper would raise costs across the board and break the free (rape) market. | |
|
| | | | | | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Cox HSI
·Clear Wireless
2 edits | Re: This is all fine... Deregulation? The FTC is alive and well with a budget 25% larger than it was in 2009. It's bigger and more "regulatory" that ever. In the case of the airlines, it's actually the DOT that regulates their advertising claims, and the DOT hasn't gone anywhere either. The DOT fines airlines for deceptive pricing and can do more. Instead of requiring they disclose the price (always in tiny print), the airlines must roll those costs into the big print price, advertising the maximum price, incl. 2 bags, instead of the "from" price. | |
|
Reviews:
 ·ooma
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| wow... takes the cake equipment fee for piece of s*it DSL!?!!?!? Gotta be kidding..
outrageous.. tell everyone to start writing their congress people and the FCC/FTC over this one.. deploy a cheap, slow and anti-competitive network and expect to gouge consumers on top of it... the time has come to lynchmob these companies every which way you can to get them to change their behavior... and those which have done VIRTUALLY NOTHING for high speed internet.. hint, hint, Centurytel/Qwest should be taken over by the local municipal governments as eminent domain and throw the company of their states altogether! | |
|
| Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·MegaPath
| Re: wow... takes the cake yah good luck. CentLink would sue the local states, There is nothing wrong and they follow the laws. It would take more than the state to take over. Especially since eminent domain does NOT have anything to do with private assets such as a business. Only land.
And if you're not aware, the fee also applies for U-Verse FTTH customers as well. | |
|
| | Best game in town Around here, anyway, U-Verse is still the best game in town (Lawrence, KS... home of Sunflower Broadband and the original 'Bandwith cap'). If someone wants to compete (no caps), I'll be happy to shop around. | |
|
| | Shit fees like this are why I dumped their phone service Now my U-Verse Internet only bill shows a $6 'equipment fee' which seems like it started back in the December bill when I look at my records. | |
|
| | | Re: Shit fees like this are why I dumped their phone service First I dumped u-verse and went antenna (free HD) and online streaming (also free HD) Then I dumped att internet and got Charter internet (30MB for 29.95). ATT doesn't even offer that speed at ANY price. Then I dumped landline phone for Charter phone. Bottom line, I now pay $63.00/mo for streaming, internet and phone. I do miss the DVR but I'm working on that too. After 40+ years adios ATT. | |
|
| | Nickled and dimed Broadcast retrans fees went up by $1.99 per month. I was already getting hit with the "high-speed internet fee." I have my mental 'line in the sand' for how much I will spend. No ETF after May 31. We'll see after that. | |
|
WhatNowPremium
join:2009-05-06
Charlotte, NC | They are sneaky TWC did the same thing and AT&T seems like they have to copy every other company in their field. TWC wanted to charge for the internet cable modem. I my case it was built into the VoIP modem that I had since 2007. I could pay $100 for one of two Motorola cable modems for around $100. I went that route and also dropped the VoIP I seldom used. That had reached $50/month. They sent me an offer of a year free if I would sign up for VoIP for 2 years. They also raised the price of the TV and internet about $10 before I dropped the VoIP.
One thing I don't like about TWC is you can not find out what the price will be after the teaser first year price. Wish I had more then just TWC so I could threaten to leave if they raise the price.
I agree they should have to show the price after fees and before taxes that they have to give up to the government. | |
|
rayePremium
join:2000-08-14
Orange, CA Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Cable Companies are not airlines It is interesting to see the cable companies utilize the same method of price hikes as do the airlines. However unlike airlines these fees are unavoidable. I can choose not to check in bags, buy food on the plane, etc. but I doubt many will be able to avoid the "High Speed Internet Equipment Fee"
Unless they do without Internet of course. About as useful as avoiding airlines fees by not flying. | |
|
| |
| | VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | Re: Cable Companies are not airlines Agreed. I think many, many more people today are reaching that point. I know that I am as close to that point as I have ever been. | |
|
| | | | What are you talking about? I pay $30 for 30Mbps on cable. I'll bet you pay more than that for your 6Mbps plus a laundry list of "fees". | |
|
ndwbr
join:2003-07-10
Atlanta, GA | AT&T DSL I pay $47.95/mo for 6mbps DSL in Atlanta - my rate hasn't changed in years! | |
|
| | | Re: AT&T DSL said by ndwbr:I pay $47.95/mo for 6mbps DSL in Atlanta - my rate hasn't changed in years!
Thats deliberate of course to have you that much more ready, pen in hand, whem they offer to save you money with U-verse. I tell you what really pissed me off more than anything was when i had Bellsouth Fastaccess DSL & then just ATT DSL, it was supposed to be "bundled" with my DirecTV and my phone bill, theyd give me a small credit and fix it and then i would sign online again 6 months later to see if by some miracle they were offering q higher thqn 6mbps DSL tier, only to not just be dissapointed but infuriated that it didnt ever stick as "bundle" and offered me right on that page to "save money" by grouping my DSL with ATT phone service and DirecTV. I AM AND HAVE BEEN IDIOTS.
U-verse just sent a tech out today, an older gentlemen and the greatest employee i've met in the u-verse crew, he came to remove an extra bridge tap sucking life out my signal after begging them and he tells me no no no its all wrong, they did your whole install wrong they shouldnt have even installed this. They didnt even have my service coming on off a new twisted pair from the pole, they just assumed the existing run would suffice. This guy said no lie he spends 70 percent of his calls fixing screwed up installs by people who just either werent trained or dont care, damn shame, we spent the whole time discussing the ridiculous things his company does.
For Example, they kept running into this situation where installers were signing off on all the work being done and everything tested and then after cutomer calls someone would come out and say look this job was fucked up and fix it, Well corporate just couldnt figure out who was telling the truth and obviously they wanted so badly for the young in and out installers to be right so now this guy when he comes to my house for what someone already verified they saw as an issue on my line, he does his diagnostics and he then has to call in to "her" and make sure she see's the same thing to justify the work he is doing, which has already been verified remotely just for them to send a tech out without threatening to charge me, and then it was verified once again saturday because they sent a "line tech" out saturday to verify what the first guy verified that i verified before they would send out someone capable of verifying it so that he could fix it, albeit not before verifying that some lady in atlanta is verifying it in real time. and get this, once he's finished the work and see's everything is running properly and what he did fixed it and that the bridge tap indeed wasnt something inside my house or its lines causing it, he was told again he needed to connect it so she could remote in and verify everything, which at that point he said thats good because if i have any more issues theyve got all the documentation and verification they need that its on their end and not mine.
He was also especially furious about people lying about the wireless capabilities and especially people saying "its fiber to your house" or some version of that, which some punk kid in ATT wireless store tried to tell me once. Sad when you have to research a service to the point of knowing every detail and how it works not for enjoyment but to protect yourself.
As for equipment fee's, especially for the wireless, they can shove it because its the biggest POS, some exec. made an asshole decision to buy millions of those and committed to them and got a great price and we wont have a modern, or whats not considered modern 802.11n gateway until 803.11ac is not only the standard but has already started to overtake 802.11n routers household penetration wise. ugh | |
|
| | ndwbr
join:2003-07-10
Atlanta, GA | Re: AT&T DSL Not sure if you'll get this because it's after the fact - AT&T just emailed and said my DSL is going up from $47.95 to $51. I told them I'm switching to cable! | |
|
| | | Sorry to hear about that. I dumped u-verse internet for cable internet. 30M for$29.95. U-verse doesn't even offer that speed at ANY price. (StLouis) | |
|
| | If only we had faster deregulation! If only we had faster deregulation it would save the consumer SO much money in unneeded competition!
That money would go straight to the consumer and not to any shareholders! Then every provider would be free to agree together to give all Americans $5 off ALL internet service and a 5 GB cap across the board to help protect kids from porn!
Signal line quality should be reduced to increase line retransmission. Retrans counts against a users cap (fee for the chips in the modems wearing out faster you know) and it will help stop Netflix from spreading communism killing American cable/telco jobs or any greedy company that beats the odds to profit and refuses us a increased cut for the line repairs!
Last anyone who speaks against Red White & Blue America cable/telco companies should go straight to jail! Note: All judges get $50 cupcakes with company logo during a trial! Jury for the accused not permitted in customer TOS.
You any money lost from loose lips is the needed lifeblood of our companies caring heart. This heart provides what is the very most important human service to Americans! This most important internet service is never a utility. So just remember it will always be a ALL IMPORTANT luxury internet service. Talking against us is assault and battery on our company human status and that financial harm needs mandated criminal prosecution! Note: All friendly lawmakers get a $50 cupcake with company logo during important mandate votes! Yum!
Your terms of service agreed by all customers when you accept service includes "enhanced interrogation" (not legal torture) when deemed needed to correct our service.
Thank you for choosing the company of US! We appreciate your customer loyalty in choosing us over having absolutely nothing at all. It shows we care and we will strive to keep your service forever!
Ok... end sarcasm. But honestly how far off are we from this?
--
--
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the corporations discover that money can elect representatives to vote themselves a monopoly, buy media to blame 'The Godless' and forced price inflation on the public. | |
|
| | | Re: If only we had faster deregulation! It will be very hard to get rid of Jurys and you don't want the jokes in congress to touch the constitution | |
|
| | Business U-Verse I have business U-Verse and have not been charged the modem fee. Nothing from AT&T and when inquiring about it, not modem fee will be charged. The modem came from them brand new and all. $150 rebate for it. | |
|
| | "cable" TV I was sick this weekend while traveling on biz and spent one evening channel surfing all the "top" 25 cable channels for content. Basically it was sports, old tv repeats, "news" and god awful reality shows for every niche imaginable. My conclusion is I am not missing anything by not having "pay tv" and that really they should pay me to watch it
--
Lakewood Accountability Action Group | »www.LAAG.us | Demanding action and accountability from local government
| |
|
|
|
·