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Is AT&T stealing your data?

Evil Joker

Newbie
Oct 6, 2010
23
3
OK, so I decided to get a new phone. Ended up getting the Captivate because I liked the design and features. I played around a little at first to see what kind of stuff it had. After a couple of weeks, a friend that also had an android phone said that I should go in and make sure that stuff that used data by default were turned off, so I went through all the setting and turned off auto this and that and a few other things. I was looking over data usage and noticed it still used a little bit of data even with turning that stuff off. I decided to do an experiment, so I uninstalled the 2 or 3 apps I downloaded and again made sure that all other setting were off. After a couple of weeks on the new billing cycle, the phone had already used 2MB of data. This just didnt make sense. I ended up finding out through contacting AT&T and Samsung, that certain apps that use data CANNOT be shut off, disabled, or uninstalled. SO, basically you get a phone that is setup to use data that you are paying for, and uses it without your permission, with no way to stop it, unless you hack your phone. I have already filed complaints with the Federal Trade commission, the Better Business Bureau, and the Texas Attornet Generals office, and this could possibly lead to a class action lawsuit against AT&T. I realize that 4MB per month is not much, but none the less, that is still crooked. Its like me selling you a pizza and eating 1 piece myself.
 
I didnt send any MMS, but those use from your text package anyways. AT&Ts head office called me after they got the notification from the BBB and she just tried to play it off saying that I wasnt being charged because I hadnt gone over on my data. She just didnt see the fact that them using MY data, was wrong. I have had 40 people email me in the last week after posting this story on other forums, and some of them are testing their phones to see if they are getting the "screw job" too. Lets say for instance 4000 people in Texas go over their data by just 3MB(Thats the 3MB that AT&T consumed). AT&T automatically charges another $15 for 200MB more. That means AT&T could make $60,000 from screwing people, and just think how many people in the entire US are using a smart phone with AT&T service.
 
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I didnt send any MMS, but those use from your text package anyways.

No, for some reason MMS does indeed draw from your data. It's not just a straight text with this device. The same with the 3 different Palm Treos I've had. I had Palm for many years and for some reason it was the same on those, although I don't believe it's like that on Blackberrys.
 
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This actually might be happening. Our phones comes loaded with all kinds of Att crap that you cannot delete and will probably never use. When i was investigating my battery issue i did discover that these apps.where randomly restarting themselves in the background and updating... There was no.way for.me to.stop.them from.doing it. Another interesting thing to note is the stock.setting for wifi sleep. It is set to turn off wifi when the phone sleeps, meaning that any autoupdating is being done over 3g while you and your phone are sleeping. Yes, you can change that part.. But why is it the default? Why would you even want to use 3g if you had wifi available?
 
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When i was investigating my battery issue i did discover that these apps.where randomly restarting themselves in the background and updating... There was no.way for.me to.stop.them from.doing it.?

Yeah I noticed this back when I used a task killer. I wished I could have told ATK to immediately kill certain apps right when they start...as in the daily briefing app that takes like 30megs of ram and restarts itself every minute. Kind of ridiculous. They not only pre-installed unremovable shit they also programmed them to act like malicious software. As if they knew people would be task killing them and thought oh no we can't let that happen, how dare they close our daily briefing app!!! Stupid customers.
 
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I'm going to file a complaint to the BBB because my car uses gas even when it's not moving! Can you imagine that?! Think of all the money they're soaking us for while sitting at a red light!

Look, if you don't like it, get a dumb phone and stop crying. Do you unplug your appliances whe you're not using them? Think of all the money you'd save on electricity!
 
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I see where you're coming from, but this is a bit over the top. If you don't want data leakage use Juice Defender or SMODA Widget or some such to turn off your data connection when you don't need it, problem solved. There are apps on the market that use data when they aren't supposed to, it's not really a surprise that AT&T's bloatware does as well.

Then again, if you really have the time, energy, and money to spend fighting AT&T over 4mb a month, go for it. I certainly don't.
 
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The thing for me was battery usage more that data. The damn apps would.restart themselves all.the time, even if they were being killed by task killers every hour or so. They would reopen themselves within minuts and begin eating juice.

So my solution wash flashing.cognition 2.2beta3. All bloatware is gone, i have froyo, and i can actually.control what apps do what and when.

That one dude was talking.about your car using gas as a red light.. At least you DO have the.option to turn off the engine if you wanted to. You could unplug you appliances or put kill switches on them if you wanted, you have the option.
 
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The same unauthorized data usage happened to me a few days ago, and this was not a few KB or 4 MB extra. If that was the case I would have ignored it. It used about 25 MB at 2:52 AM when I was fast asleep. It used another 30 MB at 8:47 AM when I'm sure I did not download or send anything such huge. Due to these couple of transactions my 200 MB for the month is almost used up :mad:
I called up ATT and listen to this, she asks me to upgrade my plan to unlimited or the 2 GB plan since I'm using a lot of data. I had told her that this was not used up by me, so why the heck should I upgrade my data plan. I don't intend on using more than 200 MB per month. Since I got my captivate in July, every month the usage is about 120 MB. I really don't understand what these transactions might be of 25MB-30 MB? She finally gave me a $15 credit if it exceeded 200 MB quota this billing cycle.

Anyone have any thoughts what these might be?
Also, does use of Google Navigation, or Google Maps use up so much of data? I was using Navigation (yes, my GPS works) at times but not at 2:52 AM and 8:47 AM for sure!


10ende1.jpg
 
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The same unauthorized data usage happened to me a few days ago, and this was not a few KB or 4 MB extra. If that was the case I would have ignored it. It used about 25 MB at 2:52 AM when I was fast asleep. It used another 30 MB at 8:47 AM when I'm sure I did not download or send anything such huge. Due to these couple of transactions my 200 MB for the month is almost used up :mad:
I called up ATT and listen to this, she asks me to upgrade my plan to unlimited or the 2 GB plan since I'm using a lot of data. I had told her that this was not used up by me, so why the heck should I upgrade my data plan. I don't intend on using more than 200 MB per month. Since I got my captivate in July, every month the usage is about 120 MB. I really don't understand what these transactions might be of 25MB-30 MB? She finally gave me a $15 credit if it exceeded 200 MB quota this billing cycle.

Anyone have any thoughts what these might be?
Also, does use of Google Navigation, or Google Maps use up so much of data? I was using Navigation (yes, my GPS works) at times but not at 2:52 AM and 8:47 AM for sure!

this is common for people to see, at&t dosent want to overload the servers during the day so they apply some of the data used during the day late at night

this is simply some of the data you used that previous day being posted at a weird time,
 
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I'm going to file a complaint to the BBB because my car uses gas even when it's not moving! Can you imagine that?! Think of all the money they're soaking us for while sitting at a red light!

Look, if you don't like it, get a dumb phone and stop crying. Do you unplug your appliances whe you're not using them? Think of all the money you'd save on electricity!

This post hurts the brain. This is the very reason companies get away with crap. Then when it goes from test the suckers to charge the suckers you will be the one with rage and drool screaming at customer support. The man is paying for data and it should not be sneaked away from the same company that he is handing his hard earned cash to.

and wtf were you thinking posting that first sentence?
 
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This post hurts the brain. This is the very reason companies get away with crap. Then when it goes from test the suckers to charge the suckers you will be the one with rage and drool screaming at customer support. The man is paying for data and it should not be sneaked away from the same company that he is handing his hard earned cash to.

and wtf were you thinking posting that first sentence?

Its no big deal. I was expecting a few negative comments when I posted. And like I said before, 4MB isnt much, but the fact that they are doing it is wrong. PERIOD.
 
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This post hurts the brain. This is the very reason companies get away with crap. Then when it goes from test the suckers to charge the suckers you will be the one with rage and drool screaming at customer support. The man is paying for data and it should not be sneaked away from the same company that he is handing his hard earned cash to.

and wtf were you thinking posting that first sentence?

Same concept. If someone is going to complain about a few MB of unauthorized data being used every month by a device that's designed to use data, they might as well complain about a few drops of gas being burned when sitting at a red light. Or the few watts of electricity being used by a television even when it's off.

Every smartphone uses data when idle. I don't care if it's an Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, whatever. If it's on, it's going to use data. Don't like it? Get a phone that doesn't use it.
 
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