Complaint Review: AT&T - New York New York

My father and I had Verizon phone service for years, cheap but effective. We never had a lot of fancy calling add-ons such as Call Waiting, 3-way calling, etc because we would never use them if we did. All we needed was phone service, period.

Enter AT&T. One day they called my then-80 year old father and offered to sign him up for thier plan. At this point we had AT&T long-distance and equipment rental from AT&T so we got 3 different bills - pain in the neck. For some reason Dad thought that by signing up with AT&T for all phone services we would get just one bill and it would be easier. The sales rep had him on the phone for well over 1/2 hour and I knew she was doing a numbr on him and asked to speak to her. I could hear her tell dad she would not speak to me since the account was in his name so we continued.

The first bill came - more than twice what we paid with Verizon, even adding in long-distance service plus we still got two bills for phone service and for equipment. I tried to get dad to call and change back to Verizon but being a typical Yankee, he never did. He died last year. I called AT&T on Dec 27th to get to the bottom of the high prices, etc and found out that for over 30 months we had paid for 3 way calls call forwarding, call waiting, call blocking on certain numbers - the whole enchilada. Nowhere did our bill say we had all that crap. I hate Call Waiting and my father would never have known how to use it anyway.

Since neither of us were prone to talking on the phone for hours that stuff was way above what we needed. I told the rep when I got her that I wanted all that stuff cancelled and a cheaper calling plan. All she could give me was one $3 less/month than we had before - I told her I would probably dumpy AT&T and she said that since we had been charged hundreds for services we did not use she would put a $25 credit on the account.

At about that time I signed up online for automatic payment. NOWHERE on the web site or the welcome e-mail did it say that it takes them a month to process the rwuest or that the current bill still needed to be paid the traditional way. NOWHERE. They have not deducted a payment yet from ym checking, have added late charges and threatend to cut off my service, When I call or e-mail them I get slick, patronizing repsonses that refuse to acknowledge the level of deceit they employed.

I also never got the credit and the stock respone is "we have no such promotions going right now." I tried to deal with the credit/collections department and got nowhere - what a bunch of rude, imcompetent idiots they have. One woman asked to speak to my mother who has been dead since 1992. I told each and everyone that my father was deceased and THEY STILL ASKED to talk to him! The woman yesterday told me my service will be cut off automatically now that they know both my parents are gone because there is no surviving spouse - my mother was long dead before Dad entered into this ridiculous company's clutches so they nevr had a contract with her.

I do not want AT&T anymore but I want some apology for their incompetence and deceit and I want my credit that i was promised. They take no blame at all for what happened but bascially the clerk of two years ago was dishonest when signing Dad up for the deluxe call plan - she deliberately sold him the high price package without letting him know how much frivolous junk it had but for which we would be paying. I should have harassed him more to get us off of AT&T but he was always "when i get around to it." Even he admitted it was a mistake to let them lure him in and dad did not do that readily.

Donna

North Kingstown, Rhode Island
U.S.A.