Complaint Review: AT&T Go Phone - 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.

(http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/legal/index.jsp?q_termsKey=prepaidPlanTerms&q_termsName=GoPhone+Plan+Terms&subSection=PYG).

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.