In wake of AT&T outage, consumer advocates say you should always ask for money back if there’s a blackout

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AT&T is reimbursing customers affected by a massive nationwide cellular outage with an $5 credit, which the company expects to apply automatically in the next one or two billing cycles.

But if faced with a future phone or internet blackout — whether AT&T or another provider — it behooves customers to proactively ask for a reimbursement since many companies don't give them automatically, consumer advocates said.

It's akin to class-action lawsuit settlements, for which consumers must often apply to receive any financial benefit.

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«It's rare a company just gives the money back,» said Susan Weinstock, CEO of the Consumer Federation of America.

«A lot of times, you have to apply for that, and of course a lot of people don't know about it or don't do it,» she said. «That's a huge problem.»

AT&T's outage on Thursday knocked out service for tens of thousands of customers, who were unable to use their phones without access to Wi-Fi. It was the result of an internal company error — not a cyberattack — as AT&T worked to expand its network, it said.

AT&T is crediting consumers and small business customers «most impacted by the outage» to «compensate them for the inconvenience they experienced,» company CEO John Stankey wrote in a letter Sunday.

«This is not our first network outage, and it won't be our last — unfortunately, it's the reality of our business,» he wrote.

AT&T is crediting the average cost of a full day of service, it said.

The credit doesn't apply to AT&T Business Enterprise and Platinum accounts, AT&T prepaid or