Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

My best friend works for Verizon Wireless so for many many years that's who we had for my wife's and my cell phones. We always had a pretty basic plan which generally cost us somewhere between $55 and $70 a month (I forget exactly) for our service including all the taxes and fees. We were always in "new every two" contracts.

Well I hardly ever use my cell phone period, and for a long time (I think it's better now) they didn't really work very well at our house. So the only reason we really had them was for emergencies or "honey, please stop and pick up ___ on your way home." That monthly fee was starting to seem pretty steep when were hardly using the phones at all each month. So about 2 years ago I began looking into pre-pay. I wanted to stay with VZW but their pre-pay plans sucked. They weren't really "pay-as-you-go" at all. They were just monthly plans with no contract and I think no credit check or something. So I looked into AT&T. There's were much better. They had 2 rate plans to choose from. $.10 a minute all the time but you paid a $1.00 a day fee for every day you used your phone, or $.25 a minute all the time with no daily access fee. We still didn't plan to use the phones much but we did figure we'd use them everyday for short calls so the $.25 a minute plan made most sense. This worked out well. If I don't use my phone, I can go up to 3 months on $25 (for each line). We've saved a ton of money over having a monthly plan. Occasionally my wife would have spurts of heavy usage which would cost me some bucks but it was still overall vastly cheaper than paying $60+ a month every month for the two phones.

This is where it gets weird. Today I went online to add some money to my wife's account and there on the sidebar of the web page they list their "new" plans. The now have 2 or 3 monthly unlimited plans and one "simple rate plan" which is $.10 a minute. I dig further and see NO mention of the previous $1.00 a day access fee for this rate plan. I call up AT&T and confirmed that this is indeed now the case. I switched both lines to this rate plan. To me this is unbelievably cheap. I'd have to use 600 minutes to spend as much as a regular monthly plan would cost.

It would seem to me that this would be an ideal setup for a much more VAST number of people than what they're probably paying for a monthly plan. Plus with AT&T's SIM cards, I can pick up phone off of ebay and Craigslist cheap and switch up easily if I break a phone, accidentally swim with it or just want a different one. I'm just blown away by how cheap this is.

I gotta admit though I'm a little perturbed because, according to a representative, they changed the plans a couple months ago. This means they've been charging me $.25 a minute for months when it could have been $.10. I know plans change all the time like that but this was pretty blatant as I was buying a pretty specific "product" at over double the going rate for no reason. This makes it, to me at least, a little different than you Comcast promotional plan ending or something like that.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

I always laugh when people pay 50 dollars a month for a cell phone to "only use for emergencies." If you're going to do that, buy ANY cheap phone, do not activate it, and charge the battery and keep it with you. It is required BY LAW to call 911 even without paid service.

So technically a cell phone for only emergencies is free, except for the cost of the phone itself, and there are some really cheap ones on ebay that are used, but would work fine for that reason.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

I agree. However, I meant a broader sense of "emergency". I'm not going to call 911 if my car breaks down. However, to your point, I believe I was once playing with an old VZW phone is it would also let you make a credit card call! That could be useful. I'm sure the rate would be horrendous.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

I have been AT&T a pay as you go customer for about 8 yrs.

I go threw $25 every 3 months or so. .
Some of my friends paid upto $89 a month to have a cell phone.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

I have no qualms with AT&T in my area, been a long time customer get there two year plan, free phone when my phone battery quits, about every four years, I always go beyond their 2 year plan. I pay 39.00 a month, add taxes etc: = 43.00 for 450 rollover minutes, also use as business phone and I'm not a chatterbox, suits me fine.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

There are a lot of relatively inexpensive pay as you go cell phone plans out there for those who don't use a lot of minutes a month. Just stop in at your local Wally World and see what they may offer. Coverage varies a lot by location and carrier.
It is true that you can use a de-activated cell phone to call 911, but in some locations it won't go over well if you call 911 for a non emergency.
A flat tire, running out of gas, and similar things are not considered emergencies.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

Trac phone from walmart is about the same if I remember right, but once you buy the minutes, they are yours for ever basically. I have a trac phone that I have not used in 9 months and still have 250ish mins on it that I can use. Every time yo buy mins you also extend the time you have to use them. I memory serves, they dont expire until like June of 2011.
It was always a real good option when I didnt need a smartphone.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

Thanks for the info, ez. I've been on the AT&T gophone for over 2 years. I took the $.10 plan because I can easily go 2 weeks or more without using the phone. Started with $100 worth and at the end of the first year still had about $48 left.

Definitely going to look into dropping the $1.00 per day of use even though it really won't affect me that much. I just added $100 about a month ago so maybe I can't change right now.

I think the trick is that people who text or surf a lot can burn through that pay as you go pretty fast.

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

bassman284 said:

Thanks for the info, ez. I've been on the AT&T gophone for over 2 years. I took the $.10 plan because I can easily go 2 weeks or more without using the phone. Started with $100 worth and at the end of the first year still had about $48 left.

Definitely going to look into dropping the $1.00 per day of use even though it really won't affect me that much. I just added $100 about a month ago so maybe I can't change right now.

I think the trick is that people who text or surf a lot can burn through that pay as you go pretty fast.

Click to expand...

You can change bassman. And if you don't, they will apparently keep charging you that dollar until you do! It only takes a minute on their customer service line to switch and it's all automated.

Yeah I think the popularity of texting and data caused them to need to create the new unlimited plans but hey, if it means cheaper plain old calling for me than yeah!

Re: Strange dealings with AT&T wireless

Thanks ezmobee. I just switched over to the simple plan for $.10 a minute with no $1.00 a day fee.