AT&T Wireless is trying to milk me

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the old American Telephone & Telegraph company (aka AT&T, Cingular, Ma Bell) is treating me like a farm animal; only I yield monthly amounts of cash rather than a warm lactate every morning. Lately, they've been trying to squeeze even more out of me.

My most recent trouble with them has been over this month's bill. I finally noticed a few things have changed. For one, text messages are $0.15 to send, rather than $0.10. I don't have a text message plan- frankly, it's ridiculous that I should have to pay extra to send messages that use less bandwidth than a fraction of a second of voice traffic; but that is an entirely separate argument.

The real issue this month is a change in policy about when nighttime billing starts. I got my first mobile phone back in college- long before the Cingular merger. Money was really tight back then, so I made sure to know the rules on when my nighttime minutes began. 9pm is my starting time, and if I placed a call at 8:59pm and talked for an hour, I would only be billed for 1 minute. According to my bill, this is no longer the case. I placed a call at 8:28PM and spoke for 117 minutes. Unbeknownst to me (as usual), I had already used up my monthly plan minutes, so this was a $0.35/minute call! According to the normal system, I should have been billed for 32 minutes, or $11.20. I was actually billed $16.80, the equivalent of 48 minutes. Time to call 611!

I explained the situation to Angelina at AT&T customer service...

Angelina: <in a southern accent> "Well sir, we had a big meeting about this, and if you place a call before your nighttime minutes begin, you will be billed for the full time of that particular call."
Me: "If that's true, why was I billed for 48 minutes instead of 117?"
Angelina: "uhh, lucky glitch?"
Me: "You mean to tell me that I and millions of other AT&T customers have our personal information in a system with 'billing glitches?' Are you going to fix this glitch so that it doesn't happen again?"
Angelina: "Sir, I don't know how to fix it, but I can remove that charge."
Me: "Well, that's a start."

In the end she removed the $16.80 charge, but I really shouldn't have to run a fine-toothed comb over my bill every month. Their website reminds customers: "Paying your wireless bill has never been easier! Sign up for Auto Pay." Thanks, I'll pass...