As I walked in to the AT&T store this past Saturday in hopes of renewing my contract, and upgrading to a phone from this century, it wasn’t long before my hopes were crushed. Although I came in to by the ever popular, Blackberry Bold, I ended up walking out with my old school Nokia cell phone that I had been using for the past two years. Why? An overrated marketing scheme.
According to the AT&T salesman and customer service as well, any “smart phone” such as the Blackberry’s, the iPhone, and many of the other sleek phones,require customers to sign up for the Data Plan that charges you up to $30 every month to access the Internet along with other applications. Several customers, such as myself, don’t have an interest in having Internet on our cell phones, so why should I pay $30 a month for a feature I would never use?
My dilemma: every phone I laid my hands on “required” a data plan, and all the others just weren’t fullfilling my expectations.
As I left the store, I began thinking of ways to escape the system. My plan was simply to purchase the phone, and not renew my contract, that way AT&T would never know what phone I bought, therefore, no required data plan. Little did I know, I was not far from being caught.
The first day with my Blackberry Bold, AT&T sent me a text message saying, “did you know a data plan is required for your Smartphone? For convenience, we have added a minimum plan to your phone.” Boom, caught red-handed.
Now I have to take the phone back, and purchase a less desired phone that doesn’t come close to fullfilling the expectations the Bold had. All because of an overrated marketing sccheme.
It’s not as though the phone isn’t functioning if I don’t purchase the Data Plan, it’s just that AT&T wants to make $720 off of me for the next two years, aside from my regular charges. Service providers such as T-Mobile and Sprint do not “require” their customers to have a Data Plan when purchasing a Smartphone, which is why this entire incident has reached my ultimate tolerance level. Sadly, I am not winning this battle.
For more information regarding the refined policy, visit this website.
