AT&T wrongly charged man $6,196, reversed bill after hearing from Ars

If you're a FirstNet user with AT&T and receive an unexpected charge of around $6,200, take heart—it's likely a billing mistake that can be rectified. However, navigating the correction process may not be straightforward. This situation has arisen at least twice recently. In December 2024, a police officer from Texas faced a staggering $6,223 bill, which included a $6,194 charge for using just 3.1GB of data. The officer, who believed he was on an unlimited data plan, encountered this erroneous charge after transitioning a line to AT&T's FirstNet service designed for first responders. Despite his efforts to resolve the issue through customer service and an in-store visit, the bill was ultimately corrected only after he reached out to the office of AT&T’s president. An AT&T representative indicated that they were investigating the cause of this billing error, though no further details were provided. Fast forward to this week, and another FirstNet user, an active-duty military member from Florida, reported experiencing a strikingly similar problem. He contacted us to share that he had received a bill for $6,196 for approximately 3.1GB of data usage. His bill indicated that he had FirstNet Unlimited service during the billing period from January 19 to February 14. It also included a charge for “FN Data PPU 3,098MB at $2.00 per MB,” mirroring the previous case almost identically. We reached out to AT&T for clarification on this recurring billing issue, seeking information on any findings from the earlier case and whether measures had been implemented to prevent future occurrences. While AT&T did not address our specific inquiries, they resolved the Florida military member's billing issue within hours of our contact. "This was a huge relief," he expressed, noting that AT&T promptly removed the erroneous charge from his bill.