AT&T Gives users more data with out them asking! Oh and they are gonna charge them for it… Wait WTF?

So AT&T is in the news AGAIN! This time they are fucking over long time customers on older plans by giving them 15gb of data extra per month but then charging them for it. AT&T is claiming that these customers have the option to change plans if they would like and its a small number of customers that are still on older legacy plans.

Ok so now for my opinion (I am very good at giving it!)

Fuck that if I have been a customer on the same plan for “X” years I should be able to maintain that plan. Don’t tack on additional charges and fees just because you want me to switch to a newer more profitable plan that you offer. This ties into my previous post about deceptive marketing with the “unlimited” plans that were offered that were not unlimited. All the big phone providers are just screwing over customers where ever and when ever possible. The only thing we can do as consumers is find a provider that screws you over as little as possible that you can tolerate.

Fail!

-Tracker

Source[Gizmodo]

At&T has a new “Unlimited” plan

Ok so here we go with some info about AT&T and a opinion of the big 4.

At&T released info on its new “Unlimited” plans (or not so unlimited) they are giving users the following choices for single lines

$65 for Unlimited data. What they failed to mention in the press release was that data throttling would be possible at ANY TIME down from a soft cap and throttling after 22gb. What does this mean? Well if you are in a congested area your speeds are going to suffer extensively.

They are also offering a plan for $65 that includes 15gb of hotspot usage and a 50gb soft cap (Throttled after 50gb) a long with a $85 plan that includes a 50gb of hotspot and a 100gb soft cap along with HBO Go (Does anyone really care about that?)

So they are saying its unlimited but hiding in the fine print that its not really unlimited and after you use a certain amount on some plans its throttled and on the lowest tier it’s ALWAYS possible to be throttled.

Now for the opinion portion of this…

If your going to advertise something then deliver on it. I have said for years on the web hosting forums I use to be a part of as well as well as on my own hosting website when I ran that company that “Unlimited” simply can not exist there will always be a limit. Companies bury those limits in the fine print and expect the average customer to not be smart enough or care enough to notice it. Don’t get me wrong AT&T is not the only one to do this. The provider I use (T-Mobile) has a 20gb hotspot limit and a 50gb high speed limit with the plan that I am on or lower if you have a different plan. However if you look at any of the promotional info online in big bold letters it always states “Unlimited”. Sprint and Verizon use a very similar strategy and don’t get me started on the smaller providers like simple mobile, h20, trackphone, boost…ect…ect.. as all of these guys are using tower time leased form the big 4 providers and are subject to being throttled at any time in favor of the priority customers from the provider itself.

This is not a issue centered around cell phones either. Look at any major web hosting site and they will offer unlimited storage and transfer. Cloud backup sites do the same thing. Now I have spent countless hours on different websites and have yet to see an “Unlimited” hard drive. While storage media is extremely cheap these days the simple economics of it is that no provider is going to let you store 4tb of data on their cloud for $5 a month. Again if you read in the terms of service there are limits just perhaps not clear ones.

I wish that some of these providers across all the industries would practice more fair and reasonable tactics when it comes to the services they offer as well as be more up front about what it is you are actually paying for instead of trying to hide it in the fine print where most every user wont be able to see it.

Seems I may have rambled on a bit but I feel I made my point.

Remember, Always read the fine print when you sign up for a service. You never know what little tricks are hidden in there

-Tracker

VPN Fail?

So in the news recently was a breach of a VPN server owned by Nord VPN. Media outlets keep covering it like its the biggest thing since Experian leaked the personal info of a lot of people. In reality the server that was accessed did not store any user data nor did it contain any logs. The only thing the hackers obtained was a key that would allow them to set up a spoof server.

Theoretically they could set up a server and direct Nord VPN users to it and then harvest data of the users from there. The problem here is that it would require them to send out tens of millions of spam phishing emails to people in hopes that someone uses Nord VPN and clicks it thus directing them to the spoofed server. In reality the chances of a exploit of this nature would not be as rewarding as some of the other schemes that hackers are using these days.

As to why Nord VPN took so long to release the info about the breach. From what I have seen on various news sources I have seen it claimed that they were investigating, among other things. My thought? They didn’t see it as being important. Considering that they did not leak any user data and no other servers were compromised it would seem that the best corse of action would be to audit the security of all the other servers in the network and make sure they are secure. From there its just a matter of damage control. Why would you release that you have been hacked when the hackers got essentially nothing out of it.

The reality of this just shows that anything is able to be exploited given the right set of circumstances and that you need to do what ever you can to protect your personal info and data to the best of your ability. Probably be a good idea to have a plan to mitigate the effects of a breach on your personal data should it ever happen.

You may look for other VPN providers at BrownCoupon.

This is just my opinion on the matter but hey we all have one right?

-Tracker

*Side note: Look 2 posts in 2 days! I’m on roll!*

Fail Of The Day: Verizon, Auto Bill Pay, Bank Of America! [3 fails for the price of 1]

verizon-sucks

Fail of the day time and yes we have a epic sale for you! 3 fails for the price of 1!!!!! Ok lets get to the story shall we?

Guy goes and gets a Verizon contract [no thats not one of the fails even tho it could be] and uses it pays close to $200/month for the phones. Now here is the first fail…he setup auto bill pay on the account so that he didnt have to spend a few moments of his life each month paying for that bill. Yes that is a fail right there and shortly you will see why. He wakes up one morning to see that Verizon has charged his account for close to $10k. Bank Of America does not put it through rather contacts the man and tells him what they are charging. He contacts verizon and asks them what the hell is going on. The rep he talks to laughs and says yes it must be a mistake. Apparently they assumed he downloaded nearly 45gb of data via his phone that month. [Note: The guy is 56 years old and probbly does not even use 1gb/month on anything as it is] So the rep states that she will take care of it and have the charges dropped. Happy ending right? Oh but wait there is more…

A couple days a verizon rep calls him and says that the charges still stand and he will have to pay up. They use the Auto Bill Pay [see how it fails now?] to deduct the near $10000 from his Bank OF America account and put towards the bill. Now this time Bank Of America pays Verizon and overdrafts the account. [FAIL ALERT] Why the fuck would a bank pay out that much in an overdraft charge? Anyway after a few calls and bank of america calling verizon they agreed that the charges were an error on there part and are going to put the money back into the account.

Moral of the story? Verizon Sucks Auto Bill Pay is band and Bank Of America has a drug use problem [or so it would seem]

[Source: MCall]

-Tracker

Fail Of The Day: Craigslist Poster…

Ok this falls under the epic fail section of my scale of fails.

A New York man posted an ad on craigslist offering to sell a computer! Hell of a deal too he paid $700 for it and is only asking $500 here is the post…

For sale – IBM PC-compatible computer.

486/33MHz custom-build computer running Phoenix BIOS, 80MB hard disk-drive, 640K of base RAM and 384K of extended RAM installed. Comes with DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.11 For Workgroups and a two-button mouse. Turbo feature still working 100% functional. Great for when you need speed boost. Upgraded graphics to a SVGA 800×600 card that is VESA-compliant and can display 16.7 million colors!!! New-ish 14″ monitor.

Windows 3.11 has MS Paint, Notepad text editing app, and Norton Desktop. Also, 14.4 modem and a trial subscription to both CompuServe and AOL (2.5 software pre-installed). 5.25″/3.5″ dual drive with an open bay in the case if you want to put in a CD-ROM disk drive too. Have plenty of diskettes of shareware including Netscape Navigator, Mosaic browser, and Castle Wolfenstein 3-D! Already has Sim City, SimEarth, Sim Ant, and Sim Tower and Front Page Sports Football.

Canon BubbleJet printer with spare cartridge. Will print all Post-Script and TrueType fonts.

Need to make room in my den for a new Pentium computer that I’m getting.

I built this computer for over $700 so it’s a great deal.

Hell of a deal right? Well one of the readers over at Gizmodo managed to get an email out to the poster before the ad was taken off of craigslist here is the response.

Sorry for delay. My Eudora setting was messed up.

No. Is real sale. I need money to buy new Pentium computer that will run the new Windows 95 program. Is supposed to be better than Windows 3 but I don’t know. Am too used to finding things in Program Manager. The modem is real fast (by US Robotics) and is much faster than 9600 baud. Even though is 14.4, I got it to run at 28.8 with a program i downloaded.

Am willing to lower ask to $300 for if you have a Apple Mackintosh Quadra (850 preferable).

I REALLLLLY hope this is just a joke and the guy is not serious…Oh well its a fail either way.

[Source: Gizmodo]

-Tracker

Also, don’t worry if you don’t like Eudora. I have Netscape Communicator Gold although I just use the browser on it because it reads GIF images and JPG images.

Fail Of The Day: AT&T

fridgenastyfreebeermaggots

Ok so I know there has not been a FOTD for a while but this is the first epic fail that I have came across.

Apparently someone thought it wise to move a fridge full of food and who the hell knows what else into a conference room at AT&T’s San Jose office. Leaving said fridge unplugged [Smart right?].

Now I don’t know if you have ever left a EMPTY fridge unplugged but after a while even an empty one gets a nice oder to it. I can only imagine what this thing smelled like.

Moving along after the smell got to bad someone decided they would try and kill it with some spray. However this spray was not febreze or anything like that it was a cleaner. This combined with the other smells and chemicals that were around at the time presented a nice [possibly] toxic aroma.

In the end there were people that were feeling very sick and made for a fun day at the office.

[Source: Yahoo]

-Tracker

State Farm Spam….[Not email spam]

[svgallery name=”statefarm”]

Ok so I check the mail the other day and there are 4 envolopes that are exactly the same except for the return address. Open them up and it is 4 different letters from 4 different agents all 4 working for state farm. WTF Why are they sending me 4 letters all on the same day? Anyone else ever seen something like this? Post in the comments if you have.

Fail Of The Day: BestBuy

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Ok so here is the story. Guy goes in to his local best buy. Buys a Mac Book Pro for somewhere around $2000.00. Leaves best buy heads home gets there and opens the box and what does he realize? He just spent $2k on a paving stone….Now you may be thinking that this is his own fault or maybe he is trying to scam someone out of money but I don’t think that is what happened. What I think is a best buy employee swapped it out so they could get a free mac book. As of right now best buy is blaming apple and apple is blaming best buy and the consumer is fucked out of his $2k. So at this point I am going to say that best buy fails due to there process of checkouts. When the item is something of this much value they should open the box before the customer leaves the store to make sure every thing is in there and its not replaced with a brick.

[Source: consumerist]

-Tracker