AT&T IS RIDICULOUS!!! I need advice please!?

Question

Ok, I searched online for the charges for an international call to the UK, and everywhere I looked, it was either 9 cents a minute, or 33 cents a minute. I was okay with the rates, and I called my friend in England. I talked for 34 minutes, and when my mom got the bill today, it was for $112! I mean, SERIOUSLY! Now she says the money's coming out of my pocket, and that I should've researched the price before calling! I DID! But she didn't believe me.....

Now I'm afraid that if we call AT&T, they'll throw a fit and that'll make them not do a thing about the price!

I want to talk to my friend again, and I don't want to be charged this much EVER!

I was thinking of Vonage, since we have DSL, and calls to the UK are free, but I'm not sure. My mom's not too fond of the idea, because she thinks it'll be a ripoff!

I need help, guys...please, only serious answers, and not "AT&T sucks!" or "Too bad for you!".....I already know these things...

Answer 1

Yahoo has a voice chat service that is $.01 per minute. I don't know a whole lot about it, but it does exist.  Check that out.  You don't actually have to subscribe to a monthly recurring charge; you can pay as you use it.  That person will have to have the service too though.

As for AT&T, if you pay $3.99 per month for the world connect feature, the call is in fact $.08 per minute (to a landline).  If you don't have the feature in place, the call is $1.49 per minute.  

Call AT&T customer support and see if they will help you out a bit if you add the world connect feature to your account.  They are usually pretty decent to deal with, but they don't know you have a problem if you don't bring it to their attention.

Hope this helps,

Nick

Answer 2

Yes, I would call AT&T and ask them if they can change your international long distance plan and make it a better plan and don't forget this part... BACKDATE the plan all the way to the beginning of the cycle of when you ran up the bill.

And if you're considering vonage, I HAVE VONAGE.

Trust me Vonage is amazing and only 24.99 a month for our house number and 9.99 a month for our fax number. We call Canada, Puerto Rico UK, Ireland, Italy France, and Spain all the time and it's free! (but for UK, Ireland, Italy, France and Spain, you can only call house phones for free. not cellphones)

Answer 3

Yeah, AT&T is notorious for this type of racket. I dumped them many years ago after similar incident.

I suggest to call them and threaten to cancel their service if they don't cooperate - that's what they're afraid of. If that doesn't help, still switch your long-distance provider. Greediness must be punished.

The normal price for calls from the US to UK landlines is about 2-3 cents per minute. However it is more expensive to call UK cell phones - around 25 cents.

I've been using United World Telecom service and can definitely recommend it - it allows me to call at good rates anywhere in the world from even my cell phone without any PIN codes.

http://uwtel.com/globalcallconnect.htm

Also, you can always use one of those 10-10 services like 10-10-220 from your residential phone - it surely will be cheaper than AT&T. Any IP telephony will work too - we generally have very good connections to the UK.

Good luck.

Answer 4

no matter who you choose the VoIP is still the cheapest there is!! I get 40 free countries with my VoIP provider for 25 dollars a month...I pay by the year, so its cheaper...it usually cost 29.99 a month, but its worth it!!

yes, with Vonage you get it free, and its not a rip-off!!

Answer 5

Can I suggest that you get your mom to get in touch with me, although I live in the UK, the phone company I use over here is actually an American one and they are excellent. Their ethics, integrity and honesty are second to none.

From all accounts some of the service providers in the US are somewhat less than trustworthy, but I can assure you that ACN is brilliant, they even now have a voip service which can use a video phone, this service will be available in the UK soon so if your friend also got onto the service you would be able to see each other as well as talk to them. The voip service in the US allows free calling between USA, Canada, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, and I feel that trans atlantic calling will be very reasonable.

If you or your mom can get back to me, I will send you on the web site address for the company where you will be able to see all the information, remember it costs nothing to look and find out.

Answer 6

Here are AT&Ts rates with no calling plan.  It looks like you got the $3.17/minute rate

http://www.att.com/public_affairs/long_d...