Bill Shock

Are you being ripped off...By your phone company!

They construct a maze a mine field an obstacle course of tricks. They promise the world and hand you an atlas. They create a convoluted and deceptive system of differing cost rates and give each different rate concept a different optimistic name to make it sound like a good deal even though its a loss leader or a carrot to lead the consumer into a cage of higher cost use. Each different rate with its different 'fun' name is dependent on a factor or several factors, usually the factor is time or date. Ie 'super text Monday' where texts are allegedly cheaper on that specific day. Its sound good until you read the fine print and further having to remember the Monday rule is a chance to stuff up - when taken in context that the Monday rule is just one of perhaps 15 or 20 other rules and clauses that must be observed or else one pays a kings ransom for use of the phone - and this during the supposedly cheaper period! Ie This Monday example may be for your benefit only if you are texting nationally or only nationally and at the same time to a phone of the same 'carrier' and often only between certain hours and hey your with the same 'carrier' but often you don't get the special rate unless you are actually on the same 'plan' as your friend your communicating with via text message.

So - and that was a small insight into this massive ice berg of a rip-off situation so basically right now phone companies are acting like tricksters. The opaque availability of the crucial missing pieces of information that would otherwise add coherence to informed choice is usually skillfully missing from presentation and one only finds out the true cost when one views one's phone bill. Seriously is this acceptable? I mean they say 'you get $300 'value' for only $30 recharge'. But you cant use your credit if and when you like, because they pressure you into using it within 30 days and if you want a 60 day expiry then you pay a higher rate for everything. Further its SO deceptive of them to describe 'value' because they jack up the per MB data costs and the minute rate for calls and the flag falls as well. So the presentation to you the consumer of 300$ 'value' is dubious at best They then hide in the small print that flag fall is 37Cents Calls are 89 Cents a minute and get this - Data is charged at $2 per MB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rip-off. Data is at fair value at say 10Cents per MB and here they are charging you a discrete stab-in-the-back $2/MB. Do you see the rip off? Do you get it? So if we look at it objectively and reduce by the common denominator and reduce the 'value' amount down by the factor you have been overcharged for say Data in this case (Let alone all else such as flag fall and minute rate etc) and then see how much 'value' you actually get! Id say that $300 would evaporate and when the smoke clears the shrinkage left over would amount to a value of something in the order of the original amount you paid ie $30. But still the idea that you should be forced to consume is unfair because its not based on a technical requirement like with the consumption of food and drink but on a un legislated unfairness that allows the phone company to just arbitrarily say to the consumer "you will consume all your credit within 30 days or else we confiscate it" This is based on unjust opportunism and is therefore wrong.

It should be that if I want to keep my phone credit preserved for a reasonable time then I should be allowed this right. So they disguise inflated costs by giving finite time date windows of opportunity where true value fleetingly exists and then give these momentary returns to value some fun names to make it seem like your getting a great deal where savvy consumers can save big, but really the average consumer will be initially offered a single slice of chocolate cake for only 50 Cents, but then when you say 'yes' and buy your good deal cake slice, you are given an entire chocolate cake and when you have consumer your 1 slice you are tempted to consume more and its there and its presented to you for you and you eat the rest of the cake and you expect the other 7 slices to cost another $1 each per slice like your first initial slice and then you find out you have been charged $20 per slice for the additional 7 slices of chocolate cake and so it goes with phone companies and their methods of deception.

"My Time" "My talk" "My Text" "Always Win" "My Bonus" "My Prize" "IOU Credit" "Unlimited Access *(1)" "Rollover Credit*" "Massive Caps" "Free Text" "Free Talk" "Things you should Know" - All these allude to the fine print by there asterixes and powered numbers at the end of slogans like "Free Talk*1" Where *1 in the small print turns out it means you get free talk for the first10 minutes when phoning the same network the same plan at a certain time with a eligible handset only and after that 10minutes the rate returns to its higher level...They don't make their money fairly; they make money out of you by advertising trickery to make a bad deal concealed as possible and to seem as though it were a good opportunity.

Am I the only one or does anyone else see something totally lovely wrong with the conduct of phone companies? And don't get me started on the iPhone! Its such a tragedy that such a beautiful and exciting device is sullied by the usual slavery to a '24 month plan' which totally negates the excitement that one should be entitled to feel when they have purchased an iPhone.

They say "Recharge now and spend 30$ and we give you $45 of credit! But really because they have upped the rate. they have only given you $30 of value. Deception. Imagine if the petrol station said to you "We will sell you a tank of fuel for half the normal price" You'd be like "Yeah lets do it!" But then they continue "But you must consume the fuel in 1 day or else we will come and siphon any remaining fuel out of your tank." Sound fair? Course not'. Its a method of psychological sales trickery to describe a fixed price as the terms of the trade, but then secretly water it down to no value by artificially increasing the rate of consumption of the commodity or by this and by raising the cost per unit of the commodity over and above its fair value. You'd be like "But I don't use a tank of fuel in 1 day; it takes me 1 week to go through that much."

So the phone companies are forcing people to consume more than they need, by artificially raising prices for rates if consumption is normal level and by offering apparent discounts to these inflated prices if people agree to buy huge amounts of credit and consume those amounts quickly. They offer even further discounts to the inflated low consumption price upon the person agreeing to not only consume more than they need in a 30 day period, but to also sign a contract that locks them and their phone in a marriage with that phone company for a 2 year period of time pressured high consumption. Comment