AT&T is giving customers a $5 credit for the big service outage, and its pissing customers off

AT&T is sorry for the recent outrage that left some customers without service for up to 12 hours. To make up for it, the company will give those affected a $5 credit that will count toward their next bill.

The company announced its intentions to “make it right” with customers affected by the outage in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, over the weekend. According to its support page, the $5 credit is on a per-account basis, meaning that customers with multiple lines on one account will still only receive that amount. Furthermore, AT&T said that AT&T Business, AT&T Prepaid, and Cricket customers do not qualify for the credit.

“We recognize the frustration this outage has caused and know we let many of our customers down. We understand this may have impacted their ability to connect with family, friends, and others,” AT&T said on its support page. “Small business owners may have been impacted, potentially disrupting an essential way they connect with customers.”

While a $5 credit may seem paltry at first glance, AT&T said that the credit is based on the “average cost of a full day of service.”

Some angry customers on social media said that $5 wasn’t nearly enough to help compensate people who had missed out on work during the outage. Others wondered why it would take up two months to be credited such a small amount.

Y’all could’ve kept this idea cause this “credit” is only pissing customers off . https://t.co/yaNLL9eBtv

— Kai ??♉️??‍? (@Kai_09) February 25, 2024

Given that AT&T provides mobile and broadband service to more than 100 million people in the U.S., the service outage last week quickly became a national news story. It also prompted widespread conspiracy theories. Some speculated that China or Russia were behind the outage. Others stated that this was “predictive programming” — a term used by some conspiracy theorists to explain how speculative fiction accurately predicts events in the real world — from the Netflix movie Leave the World Behind.

AT&T brought in $118 billion in revenue in 2023.

“I don’t know whether to be angry or just offended, truthfully,” the user @saylilirose wrote in response to AT&T’s credit on X.