The problem is that everybody and their brother calls in and claims "I never use the internet"  and frankly, AT&T has to assume the charges are valid unless you can prove otherwise.  It's a sad fact, but leaving AT&T isn't going to save you from it.  All carriers operate this way.  Also, most other carriers won't even hear you out when you can suggest that the charges are not valid.  With Verizon, you get the bill, you pay the bill, or they shut you off.  They won't offer payment arrangements NEARLY as easily as AT&T does. 

AT&T offers ways to control these "accidental" data access charges, and if a customer isn't going to take advantage of them, why should anyone feel sorry for them?  Want to keep it from happening?  Put a block on the line.  Worried about not being able to send/receive MMS messages?  News flash:  MMS messages over a certain file size charge you for data transferred, it's a fact.

Rules:

• Any Multimedia message less than 1KB in size will be rated as an SMS and therefore will be charged as such (whether taken out of the SMS bucket or charged the pay-per-use/overage fee).
• All messages are charged, whether the message was sent, received, read, unread, solicited or unsolicited (including international text messages).
• When sending a single picture or video message to multiple recipients, customers will be charged one message for each recipient.
• The phone must be turned on and in a digital coverage area to receive the message. If the phone is off or out of the coverage area, the message will be stored for up to 72 hours and delivered when the phone becomes available.
• Applicable taxes and surcharges apply.
• For Multimedia Messaging, customers must be on a GSM network supporting GPRS transport and be provisioned with MEdia Net and AT&T Messaging.
• Customers can visit www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/services/ to change their Messaging plan at any time.
• Note: GoPhone/Prepaid customers can go online at http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/go-phones/.

These are the terms and conditions of MMS, read them, learn them, love them.