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From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Don't change your Reach Out America plan in mid-month
Message-ID: <8706162114.AA05440@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 17:14:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.8706162114.AA05440
Posted: Tue Jun 16 17:14:43 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jun-87 05:13:19 EDT
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I have been using the AT&T Reach Out America plan which is a night
distance-insensitive billing plan.  You pay $8.40/mo and get an hour's
calling, and are billed $7.55/hr for time over an hour.  Coupled with
the plan is an option for an extra $1.10/mo which gives you a 15%
discount on evening calls, but does not make them distance-insensitive.

We originally got it with the evening plan but it became clear that we
weren't using the evening discount.  I called up to cancel the evening
part and got the plan changed.  Unfortunately, AT&T treated it as if
I had canceled the whole plan and then subscribed to the $7.55 plan.

For the first or last month of your plan, they pro-rate the hour's worth
of calling and the monthly charge.  In this case I got ".77 hours" on
the old plan and ".23 hours" on the new plan.  However, I had made all
of my night calls in the first part of the month, so the ".23 hours"
allotment on the new plan was unused, and I had to pay extra for .23 hours
of my usage in the first part of the month.

AT&T was nice enough to check the situation and decided that it really was
billed correctly but they also gave me a credit for the difference.

I recommend that when you change calling plans, that you tell them to
have it take effect at the end of your billing period to avoid this
lunacy.