AT&T Wireless "View Minutes" Feature a SCAM Internet Internet
The ATT Wireless website (WWW.ATTWS.com) offers a service to subscribers called ATT "View Minutes." It is a service that is supposed to tell you how many minutes of your plan that you have used up so that you can keep track of your minutes and don't go over.
If you go over you have to pay a high $$$ per minute. The service claims to be accurate to 45 minutes (may have a 45 minute delay). After a few months of unexpected high bills that I disregarded I decided to check the system. I determined that not only was the system over 45 minutes off as I suspected but it was a whole week off! I checked and printed out a "View Minutes" on May 14, 2003 which showed that I had 230 minutes left for the month but when
I received my actual bill it showed that on that date I was already over my limit of included minutes and was being charged $$$ per minute. Upon inspection of my actual bill I determined that I had 230 minutes left not on May 14th but on May 8th.
By May 14th I was already out of minutes according to my actual bill. "View Minutes" is advertised as being a tool for the consumer to help monitor minute usage but actually I think that ATT uses it to give consumers a false reading so that we will go over our minutes and they can charge the high $$ per minute charge.
Allison
Castro Valley, California
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Allison
Castro Valley,California,
U.S.A.
Misleading Disclaimer is a Scam
#3Author of original report
Sun, June 01, 2003
AT&T Wireless "View minutes" claims to be accurate within 45 minutes in the AT&T network. It is understandable that AT&T cannot keep track of minutes accrued under other companies' networks while consumers are roaming. This is clearly stated in the disclaimer. However, I have observed that minutes have been up to a week late in reporting WITHIN the AT&T network when they should be only up to 45 minutes late. I know this because I have not left my AT&T "Home Area" during my billing cycle. I do not go out of my area where my phone would need to roam. I have not been charged any roaming charges so why is AT&T not keeping track of the calls as stated in the disclaimer? Perhaps AT&T does not let the consumer know when they are roaming by sending out an incorrect signal reading "AT&T" instead of "roaming" on purpose??? The AT&T disclaimer is misleading and leads consumers to believe they can monitor their minute usage to an accuracy of 45 minutes as long as they are within the AT&T network. If AT&T will not allow consumers to know whether or not they are in the AT&T network by sending out incorrect signals then how are people to know which minutes are being counted and which are ignored??? AT&T should not be offering this service if it does not serve the purpose in which it was intended for which is to help consumers monitor their minutes. This is completely misleading and false advertising of a service.
Latecia
Los Angeles,California,
U.S.A.
Read the disclaimer
#3UPDATE Employee
Fri, May 30, 2003
There is a very important disclaimer that tells you about the accuracy of the information. There are situations where AT&T Wireless won't have access to your call records "real time"... i.e. when you're roaming in an area where AW doesn't have coverage but they do have a roaming agreement with the carrier in that area that allows your phone to work there. It takes some time for the call/billing records to be sent from that carrier to AW; this delay means that the figures that you see on-line may not be 100% of your minutes used.
This is ALL explained in the disclaimer, but of course, consumers just don't have time to read these things.