AT&T says adding more data to a mobile plan for $10 extra is a 'bonus' for you

If you’re an AT&T customer who subscribes to the Mobile Share Value plan, congratulations: you are now getting an extra 15GB of data on your plan each month! Awesome, right?

Well, it would be awesome if AT&T didn’t add a new charge related to this “bonus” data. That charge is an extra $10 on top of your usual monthly bill, so this isn’t a bonus at all. However, no one seemed to notify AT&T that you can’t call something a “bonus” if you charge additional money for it.

But hey, AT&T gonna AT&T, right?

The news of this extra charge comes via The Verge, which was notified by a reader of the alteration to the Mobile Share Value plan. Here’s an image of the email this customer received from the company:

If you head to the support page for this update, you can read the verbiage where AT&T refers to this extra charge as a “bonus.” Here’s the exact text:

Enjoy more data. Starting with your October 2019 bill, you’ll get an additional 15GB of data on your Mobile Share plan. This bonus data comes with a $10 price increase.

In a statement to The Verge, AT&T confirmed that there is no way for customers to decline the extra data “bonus” and keep their plan price the same. However, in true soulless corporate greed fashion, the company does suggest that customers can switch plans “at any time,” which of course means people dropping the cheaper Mobile Share Value plan for one of the more expensive unlimited plans. My, how nice.

This news comes right on the heels of the FTC fining AT&T for misrepresenting its “unlimited” plans since they didn’t actually come with unlimited data. Isn’t that just a nice bit of serendipity?

If you’re thinking about leaving AT&T, you might want to think twice about switching to the other major wireless network, Verizon, as our own Eric Zeman recently went through hell to do just that.