To Whom It May Concern,
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my email. I am currently having a very bad experience trying to communicate with AT & T. I have a technical problem(s) with my phone that has unfairly triggered thousands of dollars in charges. Tens of hours have been spent trying to resolve this problem. I would be extremely grateful if this could be escalated to someone who would please consider the following sequence of events..
- I have a phone that has never worked properly. Since purchase it has been slow and there are “dead spots” on the phone that do not respond to touch.
- I brought the phone back to the store about 45 days later; but their only solution was trying to sell me a new phone.
- The big problems really started in Nov 2014 when I began to receive a rapid fire succession of data overage charges.
- These data overage charges were triggered by emails.
- The emails would process using unusually high amounts of data.
- The emails that were being received at an exceptionally high data rate were actually default warning emails from AT & T.
- For example one email would arrive at 1:20 stating I was approaching 15% left on my data plan, however that email was received at such a high data rate that it would trigger another email at 1:21, stating I had crossed my data limit and would now be billed at a higher rate. And that email would trigger another warning email.. and so on..
- The above scenario often happened a dozen times in a matter of minutes, causing hundreds of dollars in data charges.
- At first I assumed that it was the AT & T emails that were causing the high data use.
- Immediately I contacted AT & T to stop sending me emails. I replied to the email asking them to stop and contacted customer service. Unfortunately the emails received from AT & T cannot be replied to, and even worse the customer service did not believe me.
- I was then connected to technical service. By examining the date use they confirmed it was actually the emails that were causing the data overages -but passed the cause of the problem on to the Yahoo! Mail application.
- Even if the fault was the application it was still AT & T’s default emails that triggered the data use. If AT & T had stopped the emails as requested then the data charges would not have been received.
- I also asked if the data plan could be shut off if it exceeded the limit.
- The representative compromised with me and agreed to up my data plan and backdating the plan to cover the charges. At first this seemed like an improvement but in fact caused my monthly plan to increase and did not solve the problem.
- A month later the problem happened again and then again. This time engaging over a thousand dollars in data charges.
- The data plan did not automatically shut off. I requested again to have the data stopped.
- I reported the problem to customer service all over again, and this time was connected to Chris.
- I explained to Chris the hardware and software issues and he informed me that AT & T replaces defective phones for free.
- He sent me a new phone and I returned the old phone via mail.
- I was grateful for his help but at the same time very disappointed that no one from AT & T suggested to have the phone returned until now.
- The yahoo Mail application did not malfunction at all on the new phone.
- If a new phone had been sent out to me the first time this happened then I would not have incurred the massive amounts of data charges that happened again.
- I explained these points to Chris and he promised that he would call me back with a resolve. He also said my phone would remain in service until then; and I was directed to a postponed payment plan in the interim.
- Unfortunately I never heard back from Chris and the phone has since been disconnected.
- On Feb 21 I received an email from AT & T stating that a payment was due March 12, 2015. However my phone was disconnected almost 2 weeks ago.
- I have left several messages with Chris asking for an email.
- I am now in London and it is becoming far more difficult and expensive to handle this problem. I have spent over a hundred dollars in long distance fees calling AT & T.
- I have tried to call customer service many times but they are unable to escalate the call because they cannot call me back.
- I was directed to the international department but they directed me back to customer service.
I respectfully request that a representative of AT & T lower my data plan, and adjust my bill for the data overages.
I no longer need the increased expensive data plan as a work around solution for a defective phone.
I believe it would be very fair to adjust my bill because AT & T missed 3 opportunities to fix the problem. First when AT & T was notified to stop the emails they did not. Secondly, when AT & T was requested to shut the data plan automatically but did not. And third, had AT & T offered to replace the defective phone at any point earlier, this would have also solved the problem.
Thank you again for looking into my situation. Please feel free to contact me any time. The best method is email.
ILLAN
[Edited for privacy-please do not post personal or unique information such as but not limited to full names, employee ID numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, etc.]