AT&T wireless Free2Go prepaid cellular phone card is a rip off

Although the 90 days were cut to 45 days after a while, and I am sure many angry customers, ATT started a $10 card for 45 days which is about the same as the $25 card for 90 days. I had switched to Cingular, but when the cingular phone battery died, rather than spend the money on the new battery, I returned to ATT where I found that I could get the $10 card for 45 days. Recently I found out I can renew the $10 45 day service over the phone with a credit card.

When this customer cried about no $10 prepaid cards it was after the busy Christmas Holiday.

Unfortunately, this customer fails to realize that there are other customers in the world who don't find value in buying higher priced cards which include more minutes at a lower rate either.

However, if the customer was dead set on only spending ten dollars, they could have called customer care to have minutes added to their phone or visit attws.com (He wouldn't even be charged sales tax with those services).

AT&T is completely happy with customers buying ten dollars worth of minutes because it is more profitable to the company!

even if AT&T claims that there is also a $10 card, you won't be able to find it anywhere. A friend of mine is the Dept. manager for Electronics at Wal-Mart and he told me that there is no way for Wal-Mart to get these cards from AT&T, customers are asking all the time for it and AT&T just won't send them. (Wal-Mart sells the $ 100, $ 50 and $ 25 cards) It is the same at other locations where the "Free to go" cards are sold: Fry's, Seven-eleven, K-Mart...

AT&T does not want customers to get away with "only" $ 10.00 a month.

I just bought the "prepaid package" two days ago and studied the contract which was printed on a paper 5 X 2 inches big.

I placed 2 calls, at the 2nd call nobody answered. When I wanted to place my 3rd call I was surprised that I was charged 50 cents for the 2nd call, which was just an attempt to get a connection.

I called AT&Ts customer service and the lady who answered said that I must have gotten a voice mail or forgotten to disconnect. I told her that I would not complain if I had gotten a voice mail and asked for her supervisor. The supervisor explained that the contract says that the customer is charged one minute of talk time if he lets the phone ring longer than 30 seconds. I told him that this was not in the contract included in my package. My contract says: For calls placed in the US you will not be charged for busy or unconnected calles if you press "End" within a reasonable time.

The arrogant supervisor told me that it is my problem if my contract does not make the 30 sec. thing clear and that I could have called. I am going to use up my remaining 17 minutes and I am not going to buy any more AT&T cards from these arrogant assholes. They lost a customer about 50 cents.

I am sorry that you feel that you have been ripped off. As in the previous rebuttle I am merely a retail employee, who has faced this issue many times.

AT&T Wireless did not reach every Free2Go custmer by mail as many addresses were invalid. I feel that the retail rep from whom you have been purchasing your cards has failed you by not notifing you that the plan was changing.

Beginning late Oct or early Nov, we were to inform customers of the change. I am the first to admit when a business ecspecially AT&T Wireless as done an injustice to a customer. As I am a consumer also.

I think that alot AT&T Wireless is merely trying to stay competitve in the marketplace. We had the longest prepaid expiration with the 90 day policy.

Unfortunatly, change is inevitable. In order to remain profitable AND competitive, I honestly think this was a move that had to happen.

Hopfully you have not cancelled your service and are still an AT&T Wireless customer. Next month we will begin offering a $10 card. Maybe that will help solve our issue.

Belive it or not this is not AT&T ripping you off. It is unfortunate that AT&T was unable to communicate this effectivly to its customers but many off AT&T's prepaid customers were not setup with valid addresses in the system. But for two months prior to the December 4 switch date customers were notified when purchasing and adding time to their accounts. I am not a customer service rep or executive just a lowly retail salesperson who has been confronted with many unhappy customers about the new expiration policy. My response is this:

AT&T's prepaid is no worse than the other prepaid systems out there. Minutes have not increased in price and on the higher cards they have actually decreased. The prepaid is even better than the 19.99 plan because it has the same coverage plus voicemail and long distance and more minutes for about the same price. Verizon has the closest plan but their cheapest card is $30 and has an expiration date of 60 days. I could go on and on but i don't think it is all that necessary.

AT&T did spoil its customers with a reliable and cheap alternative to having a contract for your cell phone. Now that there is a push for profitability (how can service ever improve if no money is made from current customers) AT&T has made alot of changes that have made alot of people confused and unhappy. And no we don't plan everything out.

Many of the recent changes have been decided and implemented very quickly leave the salespeople to handle alot of complaints that we normally haven't had to deal with. AT&T has long been a pioneer in the cellular business and what is happening now is a clue as to how the industry will move.

I wish i had seen your post earlier and hope that you have not cancelled your service. There certainly was no plan to double your rate. There does need to some room on our part to adjust to market changes and cost changes.

This is a very expensive business to be in on our part and only way to make service any better is to be profitable and reinvest the money in network enhancements. I hope that this long winded explanation provides some clarification.