An AT&T customer who switched to the company's FirstNet service for first responders got quite a shock when his bill came to $6,223.60, instead of the roughly $260 his four-line plan previously cost each month.
The Texas man detailed his experience three days ago in a now-deleted Reddit post, saying he was unable to reverse the apparently incorrect bill despite calling AT&T and going to an AT&T store in Dallas . The case attracted a lot of attention and the bill was eventually wiped out just days after the customer contacted the AT&T president's office.
The customer said he received the billing email on December 11. An automatic payment was scheduled for December 15, but he canceled the automatic payment before the money was charged. It took a week for the whole mess to be resolved.
“I've been with AT&T for over a decade and have always had unlimited plans, so I knew this was a mistake,” he wrote. “The only change I made to my account is that I moved my line to FirstNet last month. I am a first responder and I was told my price per month would actually drop a few dollars per month.”
“We have apologized for the inconvenience”
AT&T confirmed to Ars today that it has “settled the customer's invoice.”
'We understand how frustrating this must have been [the customer] and we have apologized for the inconvenience. We have resolved his billing concerns and are investigating the cause of this system error,” an AT&T spokesperson told Ars.
The customer posted screenshots of his bill, which clearly stated, “Your bill has increased $5,956.92” since the previous month. It included a “$5.73 first responder rating discount,” but that wasn't enough to get rid of a $6,194 line item stating “Pay per use data 3,097 MB at $2.00 per MB” to wipe.
