Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/28/monopolists-r-us.html
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Finding sleazy ways to separate customers from their money has gone from long established informal tradition to standard business practise for semi-monopolies in late stage capitalism (see also various bank fees).
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Exactly.
Why isn’t this already a deceptive practice and an FTC violation of advertising?
It’s one thing when it’s a government required fee, like taxes, that’s imposed by regulation. But, otherwise, everything else that’s not optional should just be part of the price.
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So are we going to be on a cycle of breaking AT&T up every 40 years? It’s reassembling itself like the T-1000.
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Maybe this was the result of Michael Cohen’s “consulting”!
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I was gonna reply, ‘It’s just like with banks. which charge customers monthly fees for basically doing next to nothing with these customers’ accounts (and if they were, it would be 80% automated, machine handled, routine stuff, that wouldn’t even ‘cost’ a penny on a dozen customers).
“But hey,” says the bank, “no one forces you to be our customer, maybe other banks are much better, in fact you don’t have to have a bank account at all”, “Yeah well that’s obviously not true, you loathsome monopolistic swine” ’
Fuck, I really dislike banks.
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I’ll just leave this right here…
There are well paying union [and non-union] jobs @ AT&T; along other companies in the communication sector. Those fees help keep the workers gainfully employed.
After examination, this seems more pricey than T-mobile for someone who uses the “middle ground” of data transfer. Their prices do not include things like “voice” and even “taxes”. But of course, YMMV.
When AT&T re-merged with PacBell, they upped the “unlisted number” fee by a factor of 5, from $0.25 / month to $1.25 / month. (Yes, the California Public Utilities Commission grants the phone company the right to charge you a monthly fee if you don’t want the aforementioned monopoly provider to dox you.)
Actually PacBell had two different rates depending on how unlisted you wanted to be. To be completely unlisted cost $0.25 / month. They also had a scheme were you’d be left out of the phone directories (and the reverse directories sold to telemarketers) but still be available via the 411 information service. That option cost $0.35 / month. When AT&T took over again, they said that second option was too difficult to support (even though PacBell had provided it for years).
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Fees are that thing that allows them to advertise competitive prices that bear no resemblance to what customers pay in the end. Time Warner jacked up their modem rental fees significantly (25%-100%) every year or so for a decade. Part of the Charter / Spectrum rebrand was to dump the modem rental fee. I feel the same way about “resort fees” which are now charged by hotels that are by no means “resorts.” They stick a “spa” sign on an empty room and put in a treadmill so they can tack another 25% onto the advertised internet price. Then they claim they can’t program keycards not to get into the spa or workout room and waive the spa fee. I’d like to see legislation to get rid of this stuff.
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Surprised we haven’t seen kids selling 25 cent cups of lemonade for $5 including the convenience fee.
Now wait a minute! ATT is charging me a fee but I don’t agree with its political lobbying? Didn’t we just have a SCOTUS ruling on this? I think they owe back my fee.
I know the fit between the SCOTUS ruling on paying union dues and ATT isn’t perfect, but I still thought I’d share.
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I’m very favorably impressed by the way they aren’t lying to me about coverage at my home.
Every other telco says “Oh yes we have coverage at your house” (until after you sign the contract) but Google’s map shows the island of cell phone misery pretty accurately!
I guess it shows just how sad the situation is when a major selling point for a communication service is “at least we aren’t lying about how bad it will suck”.
It’s like, what am I already paying for in each bill?
I love bullshit fees like this. I can’t help but think this is just a way to get around certain contractual obligations around how they charge for service.
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The big Vegas hotels have really upped their game there. The standard resort fee is now 42 bucks a night at all of them.
We’re going in October for a couple nights to see Widespread Panic and I got us a room at the Mirage. Looked on Expedia and was like sweet price! Oh, nice resort fee. Jesus.
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