AT&T sits comfortably among the largest telecommunications company in the U.S. and maybe in the whole world. Their outstanding services on all fronts make the company a hallmark in its market segment.
Delivering bundles of Internet, IPTV, Telephony and Mobile, AT&T has over 200 million customers spread throughout the whole coverage area.
Just like any other mobile carrier, AT&T also offers text messages with their mobile service. SMS messages are nothing new in the world of mobile phones, but rather a format that is slowly falling into disuse.
However, many still recur to texting when needing to communicate with someone that cannot take a call at that moment. Companies also deliver information regarding services, features, or even new products and discounts through SMS messages.
Those can get to be a bit annoying, but simply remove your number from their list and you should no longer get contacted.
But what if I don’t want my text messages to appear on my AT&T bill? Is it possible to hide them?
How To Hide Text Messages On AT&T Bill
First things first, you are probably still wondering if it’s possible to hide your text messages from the mobile bill. The answer, unfortunately, is no, you cannot.
Any standard AT&T mobile bill will show a descriptive list of numbers called and texted during the billing period. This is because it is their job to let you know all the numbers you called and texted as transparency is the best control policy they can offer.
Now imagine if your AT&T mobile bill never showed the descriptive list of numbers called and texted.
How would you be sure you’re paying only for the calls you made and text messages you sent? Thinking from that perspective, it’s easy to understand why the register of calls and text messages appears on the bill.
That doesn’t mean, though, that you cannot keep your messages away from your AT&T mobile bill. There are other ways for you to keep your mobile bill from showing whom you texted, when and what time the message was sent. In the same way, messages received won’t show up on the descriptive list either.
I Don’t Want My Text Messages Appearing On My AT&T Mobile Bills. What Can I Do?
As mentioned before, there is no way to send or receive text messages through your AT&T mobile and not have it appear on the descriptive list of the bill. Due to security and transparency reasons, AT&T simply cannot hide your text messages.
There are, however, other ways. Furthermore, due to the almost infinite number of options, you might as well choose the one that suits you better.
We are talking about messaging applications and, in case that doesn’t ring a bell, how about Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Instagram, TikTok, etc.? We are pretty sure you heard about them at some point, even if you aren’t one to interact with people online.
These apps will surely help you keep your messages away from your AT&T mobile bill, so stay with us and we’ll tell you all about it.
As it goes, when using messaging apps, text messages are not sent through the same mobile signal transmission system as SMS messages. Since these apps work online, when the messages are sent or received, they are done so through your mobile data or wi-fi network.
These are internet signals, not mobile signals, and that is why AT&T cannot track them. So, using messaging apps will prevent the numbers from appearing on the descriptive list. In the end, no one will be able to tell whom you exchanged messages with.
What will appear on your bill, however, is the amount of data used during the billing period, which bears no indication of what was done in your browsing time.
This means, no information concerning the people you messaged or the ones that message you will appear as AT&T cannot get that info. Even if they were able to, that level of information would probably be deemed invasive and would totally defeat the purpose of their transparency policy.
Therefore, if you want to keep your text messages to yourself, use any of the messaging apps available online. There are so many options, you won’t even know where to begin.
A good idea is to check which app the people you message the most are using. These apps are developed by different companies, which means the messages you sent through one of them will not appear on the others.
So, make sure to get one that will allow you to keep in touch with everyone you want to message. Most people nowadays have at least three or four of them, so it shouldn’t be a hard task to find the ones through which you can reach everyone you want to.
Why Don’t My iPhone Text Messages Show On My AT&T Mobile Bill?
If you have an Android-based device, you are probably used to seeing the registry of numbers you messaged or got messages from. On the contrary, if you have an iPhone, you might have never seen your text messages registry on the AT&T mobile bill.
Now, if you have recently changed from one to the other, you will probably notice the change in your bill. That is because iPhone text messages are sent through its native app, which prevents mobile carriers from obtaining the detailed information.
This means the text messages you send through your iPhone native app won’t show up on the bill with the description of the number, time, date, etc. This can be another efficient way of keeping your text messages from appearing in the bill.
However, your AT&T mobile data will show the number of SMS messages sent during the billing period, so that may not be the safest way to hide the text messages from the bill.
I Still Want To Prevent My Text Messages From Appearing In My AT&T Mobile Bill. What Can I Do?
AT&T offers its subscribers the option of hiding the descriptive part of the text messages and having the bill show only the number of messages sent or received.
There is even the possibility of hiding the entirety of your text message information, but this might go against the whole purpose of keeping track of the messaging activity.
If you are still interested in keeping the text messages list away from your AT&T mobile bill, simply contact their customer service department and have one of their representatives help you with that.
Bear in mind, though, that, since this procedure goes against the transparency and usage control policies of AT&T, you will be asked to confirm if you really want to go through with it.
Lastly, if you are wondering if there is anything you can do on your own to hide the text messages from the bill, unfortunately, there isn’t. You will have to go through AT&T customer support to do the procedure.
In A Nutshell
There is a way to keep your text messages from appearing on the AT&T mobile bill, but they involve either messaging through third-party apps or contacting the company’s customer support. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to change the information that appears on the bill on your own.
Finally, if you find out about other relevant information that may help AT&T subscribers get their text message registry from appearing on their mobile bills, don’t keep them to yourself.
You may be helping others by sharing that extra piece of knowledge all the while you aid us in building a stronger and more united community. So, don’t be shy and tell us all about what you found out!