Nights & Weekends Free! DEAL!
Or no deal. Last night I signed on to the Mario Kart Wii Channel to play my friends Josh (Pleasant Grove, UT) and Chris (Nixa, MI) in some friends VS racing. Sadly, Wii doesn’t do any kind of VoIP so you either play in silence, or use the phone. I bite the minute bullet and call them both for a 3 way conversation. I started the call at 8:25pm.
As we are all very aware of, cell phone providers are always keen to point out ‘Free Nights and Weekends!’ as one of their perks. For most companies that starts at 9pm. So let’s do some Math here.
8:25pm – 9:00pm = 35 minutes. Then multiply that by 2 (that is the catch to 3+ way calling, each person counts as a minute) and I would have used 70 minutes of cell time. After 9pm, I would have changed into my Free Minutes, right?
Wrong. When I made the call, I checked my minutes. I had 700 minutes remaining for the month. Now, subtract the 70 I used during normal hours and I should have 630 minutes remaining. However, I checked this morning and I have 553 (the call was about 75 minutes, or 150 for both). Therefore, ATT did NOT use my unlimited night minutes after 9pm.
So I figure it must be in the fine print that calls need to be made after 9pm. Let’s check the fine print:
“Nights and Weekends: Nights are 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Weekends are 9:00 p.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Monday (based on time of day at switch providing your service). Included long distance calls can be made from the 50 United States, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands to the 50 United States, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. Roaming charges do not apply when roaming within the service area of land-based networks of the 50 United States, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. International long distance rates vary. Additional charges apply to services used outside the land borders of the U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.” Link
Do you see it in there? I don’t. I did a ‘Find’ for “Nights” in the entire Plans and Terms document and found that same paragraph 3 times verbatim. No where did I find mention that the call had to be placed after 9pm.
I get a little bit more irritated by cell phone companies every day. Before text messages were all the rage (circa 2001) incoming text messages were free and didn’t count against your plan. Now they do. When I bought my iPhone in December 2006 my data plan was $20 for unlimited usage. Now, because the new iPhones have the faster 3G cards, access to the same information via the same network costs $30, for the same unlimited usage. That’s odd, don’t you think? One unlimited plan is $20, while the other is $30, on the same network. Rock. On.
Thankfully, I have more rollover minutes then I can shake a stick at, so using 150 minutes for nothing but sheer pleasure is not really a big deal for me. The iPhone and rollover minutes are the only things I like about ATT. Since they bought out Cingular service and customer service has just degraded to absolute annoyance.
Don’t you remember I used to work for cell phone customer service call center? I could have told you they say it in commercials, “Nights and weekends free for all calls made after 9pm.” You are right that they don’t say it anywhere in their contracts because it’s the same as most companies, if anyone actually reads the contract, they wouldn’t sign up.
Tricky places, part of the reason I quit.