The world is still buzzing about the Apple iPhone despite its initial bugs and high price. For those people who shelled out $499 for their iPhones, the biggest shock was yet to come.
Imagine receiving a bill from AT&T for your iPhone service that arrives in a box and tops 300 pages! That's what happened to Justine Ezarik whose bill surprise is speeding across the web thanks to her YouTube video.
AT&T is admitting that itemized bills might be a bit cumbersome and overwhelming to their customers, not to mention detrimental to the environment and the world's tree population! They sent a text message to iPhone users on Friday stating they would only send summarized bills going forward. That doesn't stop this from being one more notch in the negative publicity belt for AT&T (NYSE: T) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Will it hurt iPhone sales overall? I doubt it, but it does exemplify another reason why AT&T may not have been the best partner for the Apple iPhone launch.
Thanks to Jeanne Bliss at MarketingProfs Daily Fix for the video link!
I read about this bill from hell on another website and was glad to see it mentioned here. I don't think this is much of a publicity problem, but am waiting to see what the fallout from the two reported "cracks" that can make the iPhone usable on other GSM networks, which breaks the AT&T provider monopoly. One was a software update that some eurohackers were going to make available for purchase (GSM is the primary in the EU) and another was a hardware/software mod that some kid here in the U.S. devised. I'm sure AT&T's legal team is already preparing the suits...
Posted by: Scott | August 27, 2007 10:10 AM | Permalink to Comment