Anyone else have AT&T billing issues?

[WindingRoad]

Me and my BF put our cell plans together about a year ago now and I swear everytime we get the bill they have tacked on all these random a$$ed charges. It is driving me insane?!?!?! There is this Navigator GPS function that I have cancelled atleast 5 times at this point. What is a person supposed to do! They keep charging us for data access which we both know we haven't used, the charges are completely random too! I have to go to their store AGAIN today and try to clear this mess up! AT&T is pi$$ing of my soul at this point Sorry girls I just needed to rant.

[kermit]

I'm with ya! My husband had AT & T and after the new contract and the first couple months the bill skyrocketed. We tried to find a solution but in the end, went with Verizon which has better coverage for us anyway.

[malkin]

Decades ago, I had the recurrent bill for $0.00 that could only be solved by sending a check for the same amount, but nothing since then.

[Cataboo]

My parents had them for long distance from like 1976 to 1999. I cancelled it in 1999 when my sister had made a bunch of overseas phone calls that went through at like $2.50 a minute... because apparently, my dad had signed up for a long distance plan in 1976 and despite paying $6 a month or whatever for thsi plan... when modern plans came out... they didn't upgrade to the modern plan.

So I called a few times and the AT&T people were saying things like... yeah, well, if you were on our current plan, it would only be 50 cents a minute... but you're not. the current plan was something like $5 a month.

So anyways. For some reason I cancelled long distance with AT&T... And switched to verizon or some other company.

About 4 years ago, my Mom starts getting AT&T long distance charges (monthly fees) on her verizon telephone bill, in addition to the monthly long distance charges from verizon.

So I call up AT&T multiple times and tell them, right. We haven't have AT&T long distance in 7 years... What the hell is wrong with you? And they start swearing up and down that we're at&t customers and they sent us a letter X months ago and since we didn't respond, that meant they could bill us. So we go back and forth over various phone calls where it comes down to me accusing them of switching the long distance and whoever I'm talking to is getting progressively more & more nasty at AT&T (multiple people).

So I give up and call verizon and do the... Right, we don't have at&T long distance. And the verizon people are like, "oh yes ma'am, I see you've been a verizon long distance customer since 2001" and I say "yes... so why are you letting at&t charge us for long distance... it's clearly on the bill that you guys are charging us and I never authorized at&t... so it takes a few calls and verizon manages to stop at&t from billing us further... but we've still got 3-4 months of at&t monthly charges still on the bill.

And I go back to at&t where they're still nasty.

So whatever. It's 4 years later and I still haven't paid those stupid at&t monthly charges.

And I'd already wasted several hours of my life bickering with them... so I stopped bothering.


Of course... verizon fios bills are now like that, random charges that I can't get taken off.

[NoNo]

I never had AT&T for phone service, but in the few months I had them for internet, they never got my bill right! It was one of those deals where if you signed up for internet and satellite tv, you'd get a gift card and x-months at this rate. Well I never got my card, and they never came to the apartment to put the dish up, and yet tried to charge me the install fee. There were always issues with the internet bill, and I was forever on the phone with them resolving things. Comcast is no saint, but at least my bill is consistent.

[OakLeaf]

Oh man, Catriona, you reminded me of problems they gave me with my business phone bill back in the '90s.

But I don't think we can hold 15-year-old billing problems against them now... they'll be at least 7 generations of software down the road from there by now.

No problems with our AT&T landline bundled with DH's wireless.

[uforgot]

I didn't wade through all of the posts, but I never go to the store. Call the 611 number. Those guys know so much more than the store employees. I never deal with the store any more and things are great now. I have had a few random charges a time or two, but they fixed it and no other probs since I started dealing directly.

[OakLeaf]

Again, this has been years ago and when it was Cingular, but my experience was just the opposite. I could spend frustrating hours on the phone with *611, or I could drive into town and have my problem solved in ten minutes by friendly, knowledgeable store employees. So I guess WindingRoad, whoever you've been talking with, you might try the other...

[WindingRoad]

I been talking to both actually, I went to the store today and once again they cancelled the subscriptions and I had them block any subscriptions from here on out. Geez, is it really that hard to charge people what you are supposed to?

[Karma007]

Yup. My husband added me a few months ago, and I STILL can't figure out where extra charges are coming from.

[Trek420]

sigh::: ok let's just go there. I wasn't going to "out" myself but "hi, I'm Trek, how can I help you?" Yep, I'm AT&T customer service rep and a d@mn good one.

Sounds like some of you got slammed, some crammed and sometimes weird stuff just happens. What will follow may be a detailed explanation of the differences between: slamming, cramming and .... weird stuff.

Now here's the disclosure thingy I'm supposed to say before blogging, posting, twittering .... anything about telco sevices online that the following is the humble oppinion of an AT&T employee and not policy or any of that stuff just the oppinion of a very tiny cog in a big company.

[lunacycles]

Hmmmm. I've been with AT&T for about 5 years as they are the only company that actually allows a signal "here and there" in the suburban foothills of Boulder, CO, where I used to live. No issues, and I am pretty anal with my oversight of my bill.... I kept them when I got an iPhone, after having moved back to NM. Coverage not as good as some others here, but works at home and works at work, so I am reasonably happy.
I also work (in my spare time) for a nonprofit that chose AT&T for long distance on the land line. A sweet Israeli made some calls to the homeland on our line, unaware of our long distance plan (no international calls!!), and we were charged a ridiculous amount. I can't remember, but it was at least $3 minute. However, the charming rabbi talked with AT&T and got the majority of the bill reduced. I don't know if this was due to his charm or the customer service of AT&T. However, I can say: I have had NO issues with AT&T. As long as you are clear on the service they are providing, including fine print, they have been fine by me.

[WindingRoad]

Trek what's the deal with when you merge a couple of plans that all this 'stuff' shows up on your bill? It's been a good 5 months we've been trying to get things sorted out. I hate to even imagine how much we overpaid in the beginning when I wasn't watching the bill that closely. I didn't really think I needed to b/c when my plan was by itself I didn't have ANY problems. We both upgraded to new phones so I don't know if the phones cause the issues or what? So frustrating. I'd like to hear some of the inside scoop on what the deal is? How does ATT generally deal with this sort of thing?

[sgtiger]

Just for a balanced view, I've had AT&T mobile for years and have been very happy with my service and plan. Dh goes backpacking in the mountains and he's gotten reception when his other friends have not and they've had to borrow his phone to check in. And seeing some of the difficulties that my friends and family have with the other service providers has made me really happy that I stayed with AT&T.

Verizon was our local landline provider in Washington and I didn't care for them one bit. All kinds of billing issues and our phone service would be out for no reason.

On the customer service side, I used to work at an inbound call center (everything from shopping catalogs to mortgages) and do customer service for a couple of cell companies. One of the things I learned at the time is that most big cellular companies are split into regions and that Xcompany Southeast may operate differently than Xcompany Midwest. Depending on which region you've opened your account, you get routed to that regions customer service center and may be the reason why there's such a discrepancy in the service of the carrier.

[Trek420]

I don't know if this was due to his charm or the customer service of AT&T.

Sounds like a couple of you encountered the dreaded "basic tarrif rate" on international calls aka "I could have flown there for less"

Again, not policy, speaking for myself, my training/philosophy is get that rerated to the cost with a plan. I'd do that for a charming rabbi or for the customer who was just cursing at me and then flushing, ewww

Next up maybe the dreaded prorated charges or maybe cramming (weird stuff that appears on any bill but was not ordered by you).