I need one person that can answer questions and resolve problems that relate to multiple services. The wireless people can't tell me why their charges were billed under a home phone account. The home phone people just want money and can't see that the payment was already made under the wireless account. And the combined billing department doesn't have a clue as to why charges are being shifted between the two, since the home phone account was already closed.
Up until recently, I had three different accounts with AT&T. I had a land line home phone (not U-Verse), a cell phone account, and a U-Verse account. I was told that I could not have combined billing because the land line was not a U-Verse land line. We have moved away from Houston and sold the house where these services were being used, so we called to cancel the land line and the U-Verse account. We opted to keep the cell phone service, and even added an additional cell phone line to the account. For some unknown reason, once the U-Verse account was closed, someone at AT&T decided it would be a good idea to do combined billing on the land line and the cell service. This in spite of the fact that the land line was also cancelled.
Best I can tell, the U-Verse account has been closed completely and accurately. However, once the remaining two accounts were set up under combined billing, you started moving payments and balances back and forth between them at your whim. A payment of $133.90 which was intended for the cell phone account was applied to the land line account. Then, since there was an over payment on the land line account, in order to close the account as I requested, you sent me a refund check in the amount of $93.42. Then I was told that I had not paid my most recent cell phone bill ($133.90), and you added that amount to the next month’s charge of $236.58 and claimed that I owed $370.48.
Before I could get the cell phone bill corrected, for some unknown reason, you transferred the entire $370.48 balance on my cell phone to the now cancelled land line account. So when I called and went on line to find out what I owed on the cell phone, I was told I didn’t owe anything. I did not understand why, but since I had received the check for $93.42 on the land line account, and my most recent statement on the land line indicated that I did not owe anything, I made the false assumption that nothing more needed to be done on that account.
Up to this point, my response has just been one of frustration. It seems that the largest communications company in the world has no idea how to communicate. But then I got a letter from your collections department. It starts off with “You have ignored our previous attempts to collect payment on your former AT&T account, ******, in the amount of $133.90. We extend to you this final opportunity to resolve this matter voluntarily by August 22, 2014.” Now you are just wanting to make me mad.
Two things. First, I have ignored nothing. Since all this has started, I have wasted over 6 hours of my life either on the phone or on chat sessions with your people, trying to get this all sorted out and to pay what I owe. If you have your phone calls recorded or your chat sessions saved, I invite you to confirm or deny the accuracy of the 6 hour time frame. When talking to a land line rep, they can’t tell me why cell phone charges are on the bill, or what cell phone charges have been paid, because they don’t have access to cell phone accounts. So I get transferred to someone else. When talking to cell phone reps, they insist that I don’t owe anything (this is not true, as at that point I had not paid the current month charge of $236.58), and can’t seem to figure out how balances were transferred to the land line account. Your combined billing people don’t have a clue why the two accounts were combined, but insist that I owe $370.48 (this isn’t true either, because I had already paid the initial charge of $133.90 which made up the other part of the $370.48.
Second, the only bill I ever received from any of the AT&T companies for $133.90 was the original cell phone bill, which I paid in a timely fashion, but you incorrectly applied to a closed account.
Your incompetence is bad enough, but to threaten me with collection activity on top of everything you screwed up is inexcusable. My credit score has been in the +800 range for years. I have worked hard to keep it that way. Please do your part.
In order to keep my credit score intact, I scheduled a payment of $133.90 to the land line account to arrive within your stated deadline, even though I don’t think I owe the entire amount. Today, I decided to go back on line and see what is says I owe now, and there is a credit balance of $25.01.
I do not want my cell phones to be cancelled, and I do not want my credit report to be negatively impacted. Please find someone that has access to both my cell phone and my land line accounts and figure out what in the world you did. Once you receive the payment of #133.90, I am quite certain that you will once again owe me a refund. I just hope you have someone smart enough to figure it out.
[edited for privacy-please do not post personal information]