Bad experience with cancelling AT&T's iPad data plan

(This post has nothing to do with photo gear)

The short version: I called AT&T to cancel the data plan last month, and today when I checked my credit card bill and the $25 charge was still there. I called AT&T again today, talked to 4 customer supports, and was told that I cannot get the refund because there was data usage on my account (many days after I called to cancel the plan).

The long version

I ordered AT&T’s data plan for my ipad 2 in July (on the 10^th). On August 9^th, I received an email at work saying that the data plan has been automatically renewed. After reading the fine prints,

“…SHOULD YOU CANCEL AUTOMATIC RENEWAL AFTER WE HAVE CHARGED YOUR CARD BUT BEFORE THE AUTOMATIC RENEWAL PERIOD IS SET TO BEGIN (E.G. WE CHARGED YOUR CREDIT CARD FOR THE RENEWAL AT 7 AM ET FOR A 9 AM ET AUTO RENEWAL AND YOU NOTIFIED US TO CANCEL THE AUTOMATIC RENEWAL AT 8 AM ET), PLEASE CONTACT AT&T CUSTOMER SERVICE TO PROCESS A CREDIT FOR THE AUTOMATIC RENEWAL.”

I realized that AT&T has already charged me. If I cancel my plan, I need to contact customer service to get a refund (that is how I understood it). I have wifi at home and work and did not see the data plan too useful, so I canceled the plan when I got home and called AT&T’s customer service right away.  A guy helped me over the phone. He didn’t seem to know stuff. I had to explain to him what’s going on. Finally, he said he has cancelled the data plan and I will get the refund (I don’t remember what he said exactly, but those were what I asked, he seemed to understand and said he has done those). The same day, I received a confirmation email saying that “AT&T Plan Automatic Renewal Cancelled”.

That’s a month ago. Today I received another email from AT&T saying that AT&T plan expires soon. I was puzzled, since I had asked to cancel the plan and shouldn’t still have a plan expiring. I went online to check my credit card statement and found no refund. So I was unhappy and called AT&T again. That started a frustrating experience.

The first CS doesn’t seem to know stuff. After a long while, he said there was a 25 dollar credit on my account and I have a new bill yesterday (to my surprise!). I asked them why AT&T cannot refund me 25 dollars and he just said because there is a bill on my account. I asked him why there is a new bill and he couldn’t explain. After a long while, he gave up and transferred me to another department.

This time the CS explained to me, they cannot gave me refund because there is data usage (after I called to cancel the plan). I said how could there be more data usage if I called to cancel the plan. Then he said I canceled the “Automatic Renewal” but not the data plan. This is like a trap! I said I stopped the plan on my ipad and called AT&T to cancel the data plan, what more can I do to cancel a plan. If I did all those and the plan was not canceled, it is obviously AT&T’s fault! He just kept repeating the same thing “we cannot refund you because there was data usage” and was not interested in my complaints.

So I said I wanted to talk to a manager. After a while, I was transferred to a manager. She just repeated what the second CS said. I asked her when I used the data, she mentioned a few dates, like August 27^th. At this point, I was very unhappy. I said I called to cancel the plan on August 9^th, why there was data usage on August 27^th. She repeated that I cancelled the “automatic renewal” but not the data plan, and my account is still not closed. I said, “No. I called to cancel the data plan and I was told the plan was cancelled by the CS and I stopped the plan on my iPad.”

To be honest, I don’t remember what that CS said exactly on the day I first called. I don’t know whether he really understood my question. But an ordinary customer has to assume the CS knows what they are doing, right? Now the AT&T CSs kept blaming me for not doing my part.

I asked the third CS “How should a customer cancel a data plan then? If I ordered the service through my iPad, I should be able to stop it from the iPad, right?” She said she can cancel my account for me. I asked her to do that, but I was not satisfied. Why I have to call to get my plan cancelled when I can order the service from the ipad.  And I insist that we still need to discuss the refund. I was very confused at this point. You have an account and a plan and automatic renewal thing, it seems you have to cancel all of these to get the plan canceled? Why AT&T wants to make things so complicated? Does it intentionally set traps for customers?

Finally, I was transferred to a 4^th CS. He tried to repeat what the 2^nd and 3^rd CS said. He said it is like you go into a restaurant, if you order some food and take a bite then you have to pay. I said no, it is like you are trying to deliver pizza (or milk) to my doorstep every day and keep sending me bills. And I cannot cancel your service because the rules are so sophisticated that they are impossible to follow. I then said, this is what spammers do, AT&T is a big company and shouldn’t do such things to make money. I said when I cancelled Comcast’s service; I don’t need to worry about this. Comcast computed the partial credit and sent it my new address. He then just said something like “I understand, but I cannot refund your money”. I said, ah, it is just like AT&T just robbed me 25 dollars and now it says I will not give it back to you, what can you do?

Finally, he suggested that I file a dispute with my bank. I probably will do that. At the end, I just asked him, “Do you use any cable services or phone services or anything? Do you ever have to cancel a service? What you will do in such situations?” To give him credit, he did ask whether I have other AT&T accounts and mentioned he probably can credit me to those accounts. But fortunately, I have no other AT&T accounts and would not like to have one.

I know it is not really worth my time to spend an hour on the phone (and more time writing this blog) for this 25 dollars, but I just couldn’t believe AT&T is so arrogant and rude to their customers. I admitted that there might things that I did not follow correctly, but I believe my understanding of the tech stuff is “above average”, if I couldn’t figure it out how to cancel the plan correctly, probably there are many more out there having the similar troubles. We customers sometimes do naughty things, such buying stuff when there is price error, but other companies (such as Dell, Amazon) handled things gracefully. I cannot image AT&T can get away with such terrible policies and support.

More generally, there are a few things that are just not right:

For example, this whole automatic renewal thing (not limited to AT&T) is simply a spam. The only reason for it to exist to give companies legal rights to spam their customers. Otherwise, a company could ask their customers whether they want to get their service renewed when they actually attempt to use it.

I guess I could also blame Apple (if I dare) for not making cancel a data plan possible or straightforward directly from the iPad.