Consumerist reader Aaron wrote in to share his experience of attempting to get a service credit from AT&T Wireless after experience a data outage on his iPhone. On one hand, he was successful in getting some money back. On the other hand, he probably spent more money getting the credit than he received.

Here’s the story. After he noticed that he’d gone a few hours without data service on his iPhone, Aaron contacted AT&T customer service. And after about 15 minutes of troubleshooting, everything was back up and running again. That’s when he asked for the service credit.

We’ll let Aaron tell you the rest himself:

I assumed it’d be a couple bucks (at most) as my previous carrier, Sprint, would issue a day’s credit back onto my account during similar circumstances.
 
The rep I talked with however told me he would only credit my account for the last 2 hours, meaning that of the $30 a month I pay for the data plan, he would only credit me approximately $.08!
 
I didn’t even bother to finish the conversation at that point as it was actually COSTING me money to be on the phone and taking the time to call in and report the issue.
 
Again I wasn’t expecting much, but I really felt $.08 was a bit insulting. Pretty bad customer service for someone that uses their phone for business. I also might add that I have 2 different phones through AT&T wireless for work and personal usage each with their own data plans… I have a feeling this might change soon.

What do you think — Did Aaron deserve a bigger credit for the outage? Or is AT&T correct in pro-rating the amount the way they did?

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