Here is what the issue is from my perspective.
Back in July we upgraded a phone to ATT Next. We were aware of new billing for that device, but it was not disclosed that it was going to change the access fee for the other three devices on the account at the time to $40/month (from $30/month).
At the time I had been traveling quite a bit for work and I had been going over on my data plan. Rather than spot the discrepancy right away I assumed the higher bills were me going over on my data.
Fast forward a couple of months (to September) and we add two additional devices to the plan. At the store we asked to do a plan that kept us at $300 (no more) due to budgetary reasons. We were told that was the case. So we had six devices and we upgraded to a 20Gb/month plan.
The first month the bill was higher than I anticipated so I contacted customer service via the online chat. The support rep shared with me that the first month was getting all of the one-time fees (minus the taxes that were paid at the AT&T store when the two new phones were purchased and added to the account). I asked what the bill would be on a monthly basis moving forward once the one-time fees were paid. I was told ~$300.
I looked at my bill today and noticed that the monthly bill was $413. That is way higher than $300 so I contacted support via the online chat. The support rep told me that I had been misinformed by the people at the store and by the previous online support rep because my bill was always going to be $413/month, never $300/month. And that they were communicating the monthly bill pre-taxes and installation/access fees). She told me I would need to go to the store to inform the manager that we were provided misinformation.
In order to reduce the bill I removed insurance on two devices and reduce the data plan from 20Gb to 15Gb.
I then started to look thru my billing history and noticed that in July, 2015 the access fee for three devices got upgraded from $30/month to $40/month. But these devices hadn't any changes to them. The only change at the time was that a fourth device was upgraded to ATT Next plan.
I asked the support rep about the increase and she communicated that it was a glitch in ATT's system that was corrected, so really before July 2015 I was getting better pricing that I shouldn't have. I asked why I wasn't informed and I was told that the $40/month was the correct access fee.
I asked to talk to her supervisor and she happily connected me to him. I described the situation to the supervisor and after reviewing my bill he said that when the one phone was upgraded to ATT Next it also migrated the Mobile Share plan to the Mobile Share Value plan, and that they were two distinct plans . And that the Mobile Share Value plan had a $40 access charge for devices under contract.
Since the other three devices on the account (the ones that were not upgraded to ATT Next) were under contract it automatically increased the monthly access fee from $30/month to $40/month. I asked why weren't disclosed this information and he said it was strange that I wasn't.
I asked that the access fee be reverted to $30/month for the three devices that didn't receive upgrades in July 2015 since it was a price increase we were unaware of and had we known we may have made a different decision on the upgrade.
The supervisor told me that the old Mobile Share plans no longer existed in ATT's system so he could not do that.
This seems very odd.
Just got off the phone with AT&T social media support (they gave me call back). The support rep was very calming, empathetic, and helpful. She was able to quickly understand what had happened and why I was frustrated. She was able to resolve the issue within a few minutes.
While it was frustrating to spend so much time dealing with this today I am glad it was able to be resolved. I really didn't want to switch carriers and I'm glad I don't need to now.