AT&T Go Phone Go Phone All Go Phone Accounts Deactivate Automatically 60 days after last minutes expire Slidell, Louisiana
AT&T Go Phone prepaid phone service systematically rips off consumers. They aggressively promote the prepaid service as featuring no contract and keep your number capability.They claim you can pay-as-you-go without being obligated to continuously pay AT&T for minutes which you have no intention of using. For instance, a typical consumer would include a person who seldom, if ever, uses a cell phone for any purpose, but who wants to have one handy or keep one in the car for emergencies. Obviously customers understand this offer to mean you can buy a phone, keep it forever, and only purchase minutes when you feel like it, such as, once every year, or even less often.
The problem with this is AT&Ts secret fine print, which was not disclosed prior to purchase and is also not included in the user guide or any other written materials (all of which I retained and reviewed again today) included inside the phone packaging with the phone sold at Wal-Mart in February 2010. I could only find this stipulation in the fine print posted online as of 1/10/11:Pay As You Go accounts will be canceled 60 days after expiration. A service activation fee and new wireless phone number will be required to reactivate service.
This rule is abusive, unfair, and results in unexpected, non-disclosed fees and costs for consumers everywhere. For this clause to be effective, and for it to be fair to consumers, AT&T should be required to prominently disclose this clause on all Go Phone product packaging and Go Phone Minutes Cards. Go Phone packaging and Go Phone cards should state Notice:Cell phone account will be permanently deactivated 60 days after last minutes expire.
I seriously doubt many customers would be interested in purchasing an occasional-use supposedly no contract phone if they knew they would have to throw it away if they ever let it sit unused for over 60 days. Basically, the implied "contract" is that you WILL pay AT&T at least once every 2 months, or you no longer have a relationship or a usable phone! That isdeceptive and aripoff!
In my research online, I find that many, many consumers have been surprised by this discovery. For a $20 cell phone, they are shocked to discover that to reactivate it they would need to personally visit a (primarily non-existent) customer service center, and purchase a $25 SIM card, in addition to purchasing an additional $20 (or more) worth of minutes. In other words, the prepaid phones should be considered disposable, and if you ever accidentally let one deactivate, you may as well throw it away and get another one for $20, as the phone with SIM card included is less expensive than a replacement SIM card.
I called 1-800-331-0500 to verify this, and they advised that yes, in order to reactivate the phone, I would be required to purchase more minutes and a new SIM card, and that yes, it would be cheaper to just throw the phone away and buy a new phone with a SIM card included.
AT&T has not disclosed to its consumers the logic behind deactivating seldom-used SIM cards, but it seems very likely that the sole motivation is profit:They make more money when their customers are forced to frequently replace phones, and their sales show artificially high numbers of new customers.
They should be required by regulators to prominently disclose all surprise fees prior to purchase.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
dada
St. louis,Missouri,
United States of America
Cancled 60 days after expiration of funds
#2Consumer Comment
Thu, April 14, 2011
The fact that a gophone accout cancels in 60 days after the airtime expires is true. What is not true is the accusation it is not revealed in the user guide.
It states in the Q&A section of the gophone user guide that if you do not use the funds by the expiration date they will be forfieted and the account will begin a 60 day count down to disconnect.
Seems pretty simple to understand to me.Most retailers won't know the complete terms and conditions of any provider. It is up to the consumer to research and ask questions.
I would suggest going to a cor location of any carrier and ask to see the terms and conditions and ask to see a user manual for the service you wish to join with.
ALL services have terms, especially perpaid. The terms are offered online, in the manuals, by calling customer service. The information is out there for all to see and for all to learn. One just has to have enough gumption to actually research.
If all the terms and conditions were disclosed on the packaging, the packaging would be comparable to a refirgerator with a stick of butter inside.
Most people on prepaid do not have it because they need emergancy phones. The usual reason folks are on prepaid is because they cannot get on a contract service without paying a deposit due to a poor credit rating. ALL cell phones, wheter activated or not, if they are charged, will call 911.
I am a contract and prepaid user. My youngest has a prepaid phone and that child read all the terms and conditions and knows exactly how and when to refill her account. She knows all about expiration, disconnect, refilling, charges for data and even knows if she will have coverage when she travels because prepaid doesn't roam. She also knows not to use her SIM in a smartphone because she will be charged for the updates. She is 14. She read her manual and called customer care to ask questions. She even knows if you activate a new prepaid line and don't refill it within 26 days, the account will cancel. She learned that the hard way, but she learned and moved on.