Users of cellular phones have unfortunately grown accustomed to seeing a series of seemingly small, and inexplicable, "surcharges" on their monthly bill. These add up, and over the life of a contract, can total significant sums.
Rather than explain — or better, remove — these fees, AT&T is now charging consumers a surcharge to protect against false charges imposed by AT&T!
Many of these surcharges relate to fees for data usage. While a consumer readily can assess how many minutes are used by a phone call, knowing how many megabytes of data are being transferred is substantially harder to limit and control. Consumers regularly receive monthly bills showing data charges in the hundreds of dollars for unknowing, or unwitting, use. In many cases, an application was running in the background without the consumer’s knowledge and, often, without the consumer obtaining any benefit. Or a simple text message, attaching a picture, is charged once for the text message and yet again for the data transfer of the picture. In still other cases, the data charges are entirely wrong. Many consumers insist they do not send or receive any data and simply use their phone as, well, a phone.
So, the simplest solution may be to just block data usage on your phone. Unless, of course, you are an AT&T customer.
AT&T charges its customers a $10 monthly surcharge to block data usage. AT&T knows that it is nearly impossible for most customers to track their data usage and this is the easiest way for them to generate huge fees. So, they are unwilling to permit consumers to prevent any data related charges by simply blocking data from their phones — unless, of course, consumers are willing to pay $10 for the privilege of not using a service.
If you or someone you know has suffered false or inflated data charges from AT&T, or have been unable to block data use without paying an additional surcharge, please contact us to discuss your legal options.