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Penny. Wise?
This is an image from our most recent wireless bill from AT&T.
Yes, that’s right, friends: “Usage Charges,” one friggin’ cent.
So what does this usage charge refer to, specifically? I’m embarrassed to admit that in my considerable irritation over this, I forgot to read the rest of the bill. It’s not for some fraction of a calling minute or bit of data downloaded; rather, it’s likely for some cryptic charge such as you see in this example. (I like “Federal Universal Service Charge.”) But how did this charge accrue after we paid the previous bill in full? Did they just forget to mention it before?
And then, of course, there’s the big question: Why in the world would AT&T bother to waste several times the amount of the bill on postage for this?
It would be funny if it weren’t deeply weird.
Add weird: Rather than duplicating the phone company’s foolishness, we decided to pay the one cent electronically. We’re such smarties!
…except that our bank chokes on the very idea of handling a transaction that small over the web.
We wound up having to pay instead a whole dollar online. So I guess we’ll have a credit of ninety-nine cents on the next bill.
On the bright side, that should cover eight-point-two-five years’ worth of one cent usage charges.
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Penny foolish
“You are hereby summoned”
Skin as biography
Fetch a tourniquet, please
Ruffled mind, restless pillow
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Dear God, at least they didn’t assess a late fee!!!!!!!
There’s more! I have yet to post it.
Many years ago, a friend of mine working as a bookkeeper for a small company discovered a few cents error on the phone company bill. She calculated how much money the company could make each year given that (whoops) for X number of customers.
At that time, the profits went into the millions.
So she fought the few cents error on the company tab and they “won”.
That story inspired me. So that, even though sometimes it’s not worth it to me, on other occasions, I pursue the mistake, thinking about those millions my bookkeeper friend figured out.
And the millions they shouldn’t be making.
[...] that bill for one bright shiny penny that we got in the mail from AT&T a while back? The usage charge assessed after we had paid our [...]
[...] that bill for one bright shiny penny that we got in the mail from AT&T a while back? The usage charge assessed after we had paid our [...]