- Why automatic cell billing is a potentially bad idea
- You don’t notice when, after one month of 100% travel, you blow the top out of your cell plan
- What do you mean by “blow the top out of”?
- $325 instead of $160 for March.
- How we noticed.
- We really want one of these, but our carrier isn’t carrying it yet. We logged into the site to get their customer service address, and saw what the current bill is.
- And that was?
- $650
- HOLY CRAP!
- That’s what we said. Among other things. Actually, at first we thought it was some sort of auto-billing failure, and the amount represented several months. No such luck; thanks to the combination of a 100% travel job and some drama on the nonprofit side, we spent some 2900 minutes on the cell last month. Oops.
- So what did you do?
- Called them and begged for mercy.
- How’d they react?
- The first-line un-empowered drones were pretty unhelpful; they were willing to credit half the minute overage (i.e., $200 of about $400) on the April bill if we agreed to up the contract, but frankly we wanted more than that.
- Why? What are you, some kind of entitlement freak?
- In a word, yes. First, it’s absurd that the penalty for going over is so high — Cingular charges 45 cents per minute for any overage, versus less than a dime a minute for our plan minutes. While they clearly need to provide a disincentive for folks to constantly exceed their plan (i.e., for provisioning and bandwidth planning, it’s best to have a good idea how much Joe Blow is going to be on the phone in a given month), they’re just as clearly enjoying the financial ass-rape associated with plan overages. Furthermore, we’ve been with Cingular — nee Houston Cellular — for nearly 13 years, minus a year or two slumming with other carriers. We spend a decent amount a month normally, have two lines with them, and are — crucially, as it turns out — up for renewal now.
- Escalation Uber Alles
- At the next level, we got a guy who could only repeat the “half of the overage” mantra over and over, and we were about to give up when he mentioned the plan change would likely force a contract renewal. Uh, no thank you. We pushed and pushed, politely, on this point — and mentioned again that, since we’re not on contract now, and since we’re actively shopping for phones, it seems like this would be a great opportunity to reduce that bane of cell carriers, churn. Under no circumstances were we willing to take the coerced contract re-up for only $200. Getting in that situation would make us pretty certain, we noted, to look elsewhere in the coming weeks for our next wireless carrier
- Did it work?
- Yep. After a few more go-rounds on the party line, the second-level guy went away for a while to talk to his supervisor (as our request; it’s all about the escalation). When he came back, they were offering more than we’d overtly requested: complete April overage refund + a no-new-contract rate plan change.
- And so who are you likely to deal with at upgrade time?
- Whoever has the Nokia, unless that answer remains “no US carrier”.
Miscellaneous Heathen
Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.
