High-res
One of the best things about the iPad is the fact that, out of the box, you can enable and disable its wireless data plan on a whim. There’s no contract and no one to call. Going on a trip this week and want data? Flip it on. Get home and don’t need it anymore? Flip it off and pay a pro-rated amount for using a week’s worth of data according to whatever plan you chose. Then, don’t turn it on again for another five months, or ever. Knock yourself out.
Before AT&T and Verizon introduced “share everything” plans, AT&T gave you the option of linking your iPad data plan to your existing mobile phone account, mostly for the convenience of having one single monthly bill. I like one single monthly bill, so I linked both my and my wife’s iPads to our account alongside our two iPhones. The big thing that changes when you do this, however, is that you are no longer able to control your data plan from the iPad. If you want to turn your plan on or off, you have to call AT&T to do it. See the associated photo. But since we both use our iPad’s data every month, I didn’t mind.
After seven years of being a customer, I severed all ties with AT&T in May when I canceled our account and switched to Verizon. I told them to disconnect all devices and plans associated with it, then send me a final bill for our last couple weeks of service and the early termination fee I knew I would have to pay on my iPhone 4S. I got the bill, I paid it quickly.
Today I discovered AT&T has been charging me for data plans on both of our iPads every month since then, and they refuse to disconnect them or refund me for service we haven’t used. They claim I have to do it on device, even though the devices, as you can see in this post, clearly states otherwise. They do not believe me, barely acknowledge my offers of emailing this screenshot, and instead gave me a different number where I can waste my time pleading my case.
According to the AT&T reps I am on the phone with as I write this, our dead iPads’s data plans apparently must stumble along forever, like lucrative, digital zombies.
Months after I cut all ties and paid my final bill, AT&T still has its claws wrapped around my wallet and refuses to let go. This despicable, wretched leech of a company can die in a damn fire.
