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AT&T raises prices 7% by making its customers pay AT&T's property taxes
Source: Ars Technica
AT&T BEING AT&T —
AT&T raises prices 7% by making its customers pay AT&T’s property taxes
AT&T tacks on fee after locking customer into contract, raises it from 3% to 7%.
JON BRODKIN - 10/11/2019, 2:35 PM
Telecom companies like AT&T love creating new fees to tack on customer bills, and they really love raising those fees after customers sign contracts that are supposed to lock in a consistent price.
It's a win-win for the company, but not the customer: AT&T gets to advertise a lower price than it actually charges and has a mechanism for raising customer bills whenever it wants to. Customers who are angry enough to cancel service would have to pay early termination fees.
This story about AT&T thus isn't likely to surprise anyone, but it's possible you haven't heard about the particular fee we've been looking into this week. AT&T has been charging business Internet customers a "property tax" fee, claiming it needs to charge this to recover AT&T's own property taxes. AT&T has been charging the fee for at least a couple of years and just hit customers in California with an increase that more doubled the fee.
A first-bill surprise
Scott Phillips, owner of a small business called Valley View Media in Santa Clarita, California, signed up for AT&T fiber Internet service and a block of static IP addresses, agreeing to an all-in price of $95 a month. His order summary, which he shared with us, specifically says that the $95 ongoing monthly price includes taxes and fees. The document makes no mention of property taxes.
-snip-
AT&T raises prices 7% by making its customers pay AT&T’s property taxes
AT&T tacks on fee after locking customer into contract, raises it from 3% to 7%.
JON BRODKIN - 10/11/2019, 2:35 PM
Telecom companies like AT&T love creating new fees to tack on customer bills, and they really love raising those fees after customers sign contracts that are supposed to lock in a consistent price.
It's a win-win for the company, but not the customer: AT&T gets to advertise a lower price than it actually charges and has a mechanism for raising customer bills whenever it wants to. Customers who are angry enough to cancel service would have to pay early termination fees.
This story about AT&T thus isn't likely to surprise anyone, but it's possible you haven't heard about the particular fee we've been looking into this week. AT&T has been charging business Internet customers a "property tax" fee, claiming it needs to charge this to recover AT&T's own property taxes. AT&T has been charging the fee for at least a couple of years and just hit customers in California with an increase that more doubled the fee.
A first-bill surprise
Scott Phillips, owner of a small business called Valley View Media in Santa Clarita, California, signed up for AT&T fiber Internet service and a block of static IP addresses, agreeing to an all-in price of $95 a month. His order summary, which he shared with us, specifically says that the $95 ongoing monthly price includes taxes and fees. The document makes no mention of property taxes.
-snip-
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/att-raises-prices-7-by-making-its-customers-pay-atts-property-taxes/
