AT&T is screwing you over!

Real Americans! The big corporations are screwing you over, over and over again. You need to know how the competition on the free market is not working in America! Let me tell you a story. The other day I went to ad another number to my AT&T mobile plan for my girlfriend. Since I have 900 minutes I rarely use and it's only ten dollars a month, it sounded like a good deal. We only needed a number for a duration of 4 months because we will leave for Europe again. The nice people working there who I hold no grudge against, since they are only minions striving to make a living then informed us the following. Not only would it be the extra $10 a month but a further $10 a month to be able to share minutes, which also lowered the amount of minutes from 900 to 700. The logic behind 700 minutes costing $20 dollars when 900 is $10 is apparently "that it is a completely different thing". My argument that it would still mean less minutes of traffic in AT&T's network didn't bite. Of course they also offered a free phone, which would only be an extra $30 (of which I had to pay $80 now???). Also, there would be a termination fee which meant that I should keep the plan for 6 months even though I only needed 4, and then pay the cheaper termination fee of  "only" $126. When they finally asked me if I also wanted to be able to send text messages and informed me that it would be another $5 a month it was to much. I grabbed the salespersons calculator and made a pretty detailed estimate of the final average monthly cost of this "cheap deal". It was just above $70... from 10 to 70. But hey, I would get a phone i didn't even need. I left the store empty handed.

Ok ok, I know what you think! Stupid European. What did you expect? To get a plan for something like $20 a month? My answer is: YES! Simply because that is how it works in the small "socialist" European country I live in, where competition on the free market is actually healthy and leads to lowers end prices for the customers. I would like to prove this through a little comparison  of prepaid plans. Supposedly a good option for the person that does not use their phone to much. To make it easier I have converted all numbers to American dollars.

AT&T Prepaid and versus European alternative, loading the card with $25.

With AT&T you pay: 20 cents a minute for both incoming and outgoing calls, except to AT&T which is free. On top of that you pay $1 for every day you use your phone. You also need to purchase 200 text messages for $5 of the $25 you loaded the card with. Otherwise you are paying 20 cents for every outgoing and incoming text message, which would up to $40 after 200 messages. With the European alternative you pay: a 13 cent starting cost for the call and 3,5 cents a minute after that. 5000 text messages are included for free. You never pay for anything incoming, phone calls or text messages, never.

So, assuming that we use our phone only 15 days a month making shorter phone calls of five minutes. With AT&T we get:

20 minutes of calling time, incoming and outgoing.
200 incoming and outgoing text messages.

and the European alternative gives us:
80 minutes outgoing phone calls and unlimited incoming.
5000 outgoing text messages and unlimited incoming.

Do you see the difference? Do you think the AT&T has higher costs for their network that the European company? No, but upper management in AT&T have bigger houses in the Hamptons and their speedboats consume way more gas. This is not all. With they European alternative, the money you add to your card stays for at least 6 months whereas with AT&T the text messages expire after 30 days and the calling time after 90.

Have you ever thought about why you pay for incoming minutes and phone calls? What would you say if you had to pay for postage on the mail you receive in your postbox? Well, you are doing it everyday on your phone that shit is wicked. Why competition is not existent in America I do not understand. Maybe they are involved in price cartel formation, or maybe the costs of the battalions of lawyers the need to write the fine print screwing you over forces them to charge these absurd amounts of money. Regardless, you, as a normal American are being screwed over everyday by your phone company.