AT&T has responded. See bold text below.
Oh AT&T you love to give us a reason to hate you. You’ve done some pretty good stuff for us and I’m still not convinced it’s the AT&T network that makes the iPhone so crappy but whatever, I’m over that and won’t complain about it on this blog.
The Red Cross setup a terrific system that allows anyone in the US and possibly the entire world to send a text message to 90999 with the text “HAITI” which will add $10 to your next month’s phone bill. This money will go to the Red Cross to support those who have lost their homes, loved ones and much more in the earthquake that occurred there. I think this mobile payments platform that works very well for so many organizations is a great way to get people do donate effortlessly. Yes, it will be a success.
I was excited when I saw AT&T put a press release online that shows their support for the cause. By “support” and “PR”, I assumed AT&T took the stance of waving the text messaging fees instead of actually donating money to the cause. So what if AT&T loves 1/8th of a penny of profits on the 100,000 people who decide to donate this money to a worthy cause. AT&T isn’t really put out as we already know that SMS rates are completely blown out of the water.
From gthing.net:
Cost to transfer 2560 songs:
From my ISP: $1
Via SMS messaging: $15,339,212.80
Whatever, so we know that AT&T’s rates are bullshit but let’s thank AT&T for waving the “fees” as their support for this noble cause to benefit those in need. Except, they don’t wave the fees. Here’s the press release from AT&T’s Press Room:
In response to the horrific earthquake in Haiti, wireless customers of AT&T* (NYSE:T) can send $10 donations to the Red Cross International Relief Fund by sending a text message from their mobile device. Standard text messaging rates may apply.
A customer simply types the word HAITI and sends it to 90999. A confirmation message will arrive within a few minutes, to which the customer replies “yes” to finalize the donation.
100 percent of all money donated will be passed on to the Red Cross.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
Yes, they said, “Standard text messaging rates may apply.” Those are the same lines uttered at the bottom of those 2AM “sex line” advertisements you see on comedy central. “Text Single to 41145. Standard text messaging rates may apply.”
So AT&T puts up a press release to show their support for this amazing effort to save lives in Haiti NOT because they actually give a shit about anyone affected by this but because the process will earn them 80 cents from anyone that doesn’t have a text messaging plan. If you pay $9.99 – $19.99 a month for their messaging plan then you should be okay because you already paid but if you don’t and just pay for text messages as you go, that’s 20 cents per text.
I found this screengrab from a loyal AT&T user who did the donation.
It looks like they spent 80 cents right into AT&T’s pockets. That’s 80 cents that could have gone to victims in Haiti. If my math is correct, that’s 8% of the donation tacked right on top of the money the user donated that AT&T takes. It’s bullshit.
Now, I’m not saying AT&T is the only evil corporation in the world, nor am I saying that they’re the only evil telecommunications company. My point is, their support for this program, if successful, will yield them a huge additional profit this week over what they would have made otherwise. So, of course they want to promote the hell out of it. The company looks good and makes money.
AT&T, would it have killed you to waive these fees to this number if only for 48 hours? The SMS infrastructure was paid for 15 years ago, it’s a cash cow now and yet you still are making serious dough through this program. I’m surprised that you didn’t give money, support or even waive fees for this program and yet find a reason to put it out as a press release.
Utter Bullshit.
UPDATED: John Britton of AT&T Corporate Communications contacted me via telephone to clear things up. He provided this statement.
I wanted to let you know that
your information on AT&T’s texting support to help the relief effort in
Haiti is incorrect. All AT&T text donations to support the relief
effort in Haiti are free. The vast majority of our customers are on
texting plans, but for those who use pay per use, we want to make it as
easy as possible to make donations to this worthy cause. The entire
amount of the money donated goes to the relief effort.
Well, I guess that clears things up. Just so you guys know, AT&T’s press release from yesterday still says “. Standard text messaging rates may apply.” so it’s clear or maybe unclear that their original intentions or possibly oversight was to charge the normal rates and then they now realize that the users don’t like that very much. Good on AT&T for changing but I still think it should have been that way from the beginning.