AT&T Rep Talks About Lengthy iPhone Bills
- August 16th, 2007
- 5 Comments
With all these 300-page iPhone bills being mailed out to AT&T customers, it was only a matter of time before someone started wondering how many trees would die a day. Now an AT&T rep is commenting on the issue and says that the company encourages paperless billing and is no longer giving customers detailed statements.
Says the rep:
Hey, I just saw your post about AT&T’s paper bills being enormous today through a link on Digg.
I actually work for an AT&T call center, and while I’m not defending AT&T, I thought the following should be known:
1. AT&T is aware they are killing a lot of trees and is just starting to prevent it by going to “summary billing”–meaning no more call/data details for every phone on the account, just basic charges. This happens by default for every new customer as of August 10th.
2. We are told to encourage customers to use ATT.com to view their detailed bill online rather than looking at all the specifics on their physical bill. We’re also told to encourage paperless billing altogether; an option offered to customers when they sign up their phone number online. All of this is offered free on their website and is available to them 24 hours a day. There are a few exceptions where they wouldn’t be able to view their latest bill for a while, but I am still new there, so I don’t know all the specific factors that will cause this.
3. Also, any customer that changes their rate plan (which, trust me, is about half the calls I get every day) as of August 10th will automatically be put on the summary billing. They have to actually pay an extra $1.99 per month per line to view their call details now. This is where we are trying to push for the customer to view their bill online in hopes that they eventually just sign up for paperless billing. While this method of charging can be taken as two ways, A) ATT just wants to make an extra buck, or B) ATT really does care about trees and is just trying to sway customers away from viewing their bill on paper, I like to think that they are doing the latter. Though, it’s probably the former. ATT doesn’t have the greatest scruples in the world.
If you have an iPhone, e-billing should be default. Makes sense, does it not?
mission accomplished: at&t mending its tree-killing ways [Muhammad Saleem]
Alex (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Sounds more like “some guy working at a call center for AT&T” rather than “an AT&T rep”.
Fred (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I’m as e-centric as the next geek, and pay my bills electronically, but I still get paper bills. If I don’t, I have a hard time paying on time. With a paper bill, I can stick it in a file, and then before payday, pull out the stack and see what’s due. If the bill comes via email or I have to go to the vendor’s web site to see/pay it, I don’t always remember. When I did get e-bills, I had to print out the emails to have a paper trail, so what was the point? If you are more organized than me (which, frankly, isn’t setting the bar very high), then good for you. But there’s no reason I should be punished by AT&T because I don’t want e-billing. Summary statements should be the default, and I shouldn’t have to call customer service to get off the novella-sized billing plan.
Guest (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I agree with Alex. I personally don’t care about the length of the bills and the people who do can call AT&T to switch to e-billing or to receive summarized reports.
http://www.iphailure.com
Rob (Who am I?)
1 year ago
All AT&T Call Center employees are AT&T Reps.
And they will be “more than happy to help you with that issue today.”
(brainwashing works)
Bozo Clown (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Like a lot of other posts that mention the iPhone this one has absolutely nothing to do with that particular phone … whatever phone you have, if you text a lot, AT&T will kill a tree on your behalf.