Phone "Upgrade Fee" for existing users

I am not familiar with ATT's policies but a recent upgrade that my daughter did with ATT raised a question.

She had an iPhone 3 for over 2 years and today upgraded it to an iPhone 4S at our local ATT company store in Woodbridge, VA. Unlike other companies, ATT didn't give her any upgrade credit or discount on the new phone which I suspect may be related to the fact that it was an iPhone.

However, she was also charged a $35 "Upgrade Fee" and told that it was for transferring her number and activating her phone.

She already had the number, completed more than 2 years on her existing ATT contract, and, if I am correct, the "Activation" basically consisted of switching the SIM card from the old to the new phone.

Anyway, was this fee correct? If so, it seems pretty much a rip off compared to my experience with other providers.

Thanks,

Brad

 

Thanks for the great information everyone. She was advised of the fee and it actually was $36. My gut reaction to charging a fee to an existing customer who is entering another 2 year contract after completing one is that it's sort of a cheap shot at making more money. I don't recall having to pay such a fee with either Sprint or TMobile.

However, the iPhone is nice, data coverage is good (they call it 4G but it's not LTE, however it's pretty fast enough at 10 mbps download). I am beginning to rethink iPhones myself. Unlike my Samsung Sidekick 4G, Apple keeps all of their products updated when a newer SW version comes out.