AT&T = King of Charges?

My mother recently got the new iPhone 3G S, making her the third person in the family with an iPhone.  My younger brother and I both have iPhone 3Gs and we decided to save some money by going into a family plan together (because, you know, “these days, we can’t afford to be wasteful”) .  Naturally, I called AT&T twice, chatted with one of their representatives online and visited an AT&T Wireless store, all to get details on how it would work.  My mom also visited an AT&T Wireless store to set up the account and we decided on the 700-shared minute plan with unlimited text messaging.  In order to get the family plan, my brother and I had to transfer our phones to my mom’s name, which was no problem for us.

According to the AT&T website, the 700-minute plan is $129.99 per month, which includes two phones.  Since there are three of us, we have to add $39.99 for an additional line.  Unlimited text messages are another $30.00, bringing us to a grand total of $199.98 all-in.

So what happens when we get our first bill?  Of course, it’s just short of $400.  It’s almost a joke at how many “Credits, Adjustments & Other Charges” and “Government Fees & Taxes” are on this bill, but naturally, everyone has these so I know I am not shocking anyone with this list:

Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge, County Gross Receipts Surcharge, Federal Universal Service Charge, MTA Telecom Surcharge, State Telecommunications Excise Surcharge, 9-1-1 Service Fee, Local Wireless 911 Surcharge, NY State Sales Tax, City Sales Tax

Again, I know these are probably on every bill so complaining about them is useless.  What I will complain about is that my brother and I EACH got charged a $36.00 “sponsorship fee” and an $18.00 “transfer of service responsibility” fee.  That is $108 extra on our bill that NO ONE FROM AT&T EVER MENTIONED TO US.  I communicated with four different people at AT&T and my mother another two and not a single one mentioned that they would charge us for changing our plan or transferring the names on our accounts.

This is absolutely outrageous and AT&T can rest assured that as soon as the iPhone becomes available on any other network, we’re gone.

And that will probably cost us another $500.