Here’s the gist of it.
I called AT&TSCAM and complained about my bill. (Context of billing issues here)
They put credit on my account for it.
I told them I didn’t want a credit. I wanted my auto-payment reversed back into my bank account b/c I was in danger of being subjected to an overdraft fee.
So, they took off the credit, then e-mailed a petition to some other department, requesting a reversal.
They promised me I’d hear from them in less than 48 hours.
A week went by and I heard nothing. In the meantime, the boyfriend made a donation to the Save Alienman Fund and protected me from an overdraft fee.
I called them back.
The reversal was refused because they did not see a credit (wtf?)
I told them there was no credit because they had taken off the credit for the specific purpose of requesting a reversal.
They then refused to reverse the payment AND refused to give me credit, saying there was nothing wrong with the bill.
They also told me I’d have to call the calling card company.
The calling card company was extremely eager to keep my call as brief as possible, giving me absolutely no aid then to give me call details that did not match with either the phone bill nor my own recollection of the calls.
Here’s the bottom line: AT&TSCAM stole from me, then they credited me. Then they took it back, but left me hanging for a week with the assumption that I would be refunded the amount in some form… and now they refuse to pay me back at all.
I’ve been on the phone with these people far too many times in the past several months, for far too many unpleasant reasons. I have thought of taking the matter to small claims court and requesting legal counseling from my school’s law department.
In the end, I’m just too tired to deal with this further and I’m pretty much leaning towards letting them keep the money they stole, along with the thousands of dollars they’ve stolen from me in the past. They’ll do everything in their power to find every loophole they can to funnel as much money from their customers as possible. This company has way too much power right now. So, thank you, America, for making your people feel small, powerless and insignificant. Thank you, AT&TSCAM, for making me feel like a second-rate citizen whose sole purpose is to be conned by the likes of you and just bleed myself dry to keep you well-fed.
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Tell me you documented the person you talked to about reversing the credit, the date & time. Then you can report them to BBB. That is sooo fucking wrong on so many levels!
Seriously I know you’re fed up with the situation already, but I’d start a lawsuit or something. Just have all that documentation. And keep hasseling them!
Yay for the bf sponsoring the Save Alienman Fund!!
I do miss you, even if I don’t email! Tell Bella tomo & I say MEOW!!
I have so much going on right now, I barely have the luxury of time to even think about it on weekdays. It’s during the weekends that I am reminded of it again and I end up sleep-deprived from the anxiety and stress.
I don’t have any documentations on hand but they made “notes” on my accounts and I do have a case number for the reversal. You should hear the bullshit “notes”, though. It’s completely twisted to support their arguments, leaving out parts that would prove me right and adding details that are blatant lies. In one instance, they claimed they had “counseled me” on proper usage of phone cards. This was written by that guy I talked to, back in 2007, who didn’t even know what a phone card was!
I thought of calling the calling card company again, to talk to a manager there, but I don’t think I should even have to go that far – especially not after I was offered credit in the first place.
Girl, you should write to the Attorney General of your state and to BBB. Then write to AT&T regarding this problem, mentioning to them that you already wrote to your state attorney and BBB. Usually, it would work and they should return the money to you. Don’t let them take your money when you did not do anything wrong. Good luck, girlfriend!
I think I’ll do that. Maybe during the week, if I’m not too busy. I’ve been kind of overwhelmed this term but, you guys are right, it would SUCK if I took this lying down. I’m sick of talking to them on the phone and being constantly transferred from person to person and being walled off with their schemes to tire me out on the phone. I’ll have to do it by e-mail.
Do have small claims court over there? We once filed a suit with the small claims court here against a major telecom company (issues with mobile phone purchase). It cost around 20 euros to file the suit and the telecom company caved.
A Spanish friend of mine took her mobile company to court (again, small claims court) over a few euros of overcharge.
Personally I think it’s worth the time to pursue the matter, especially if they’ve unlawfully taken ‘thousands of dollars’ from you.
I hate it when phone companies give you the run around.
Alienman, fight this! Don’t give up – the outcome will be worth it. Don’t let this company get away with ripping you off. Write to the company explaining what has happened, look into legal aid, keep persisting.
In Australia we have this body called Consumer Affairs Victoria and they help people when they’re being screwed over by various businesses etc. They also give you advice on taking the matter further. I’m sure you would have something like that in your state? Look into it.
Good luck!
This might seem asinine…but….why don’t u just leave at&tscam…and find a phone service with better customer service? /= I have verizon…and haven’t had any problems where they take thousands of my money..if they did that I would be soooooooo pist…anyways…keep trying!! Don’t let them get the best of you…they want u to give up…but stay persistent until u get what u want…cause customers are always right!!
Firstly, I have to figure out what I want. Do I want to leave AND pay the termination fee? I don’t think I should even have to pay that. I do want out of AT&T but I want them to terminate me w/o charging me a termination fee.
I was with Verizon before and I found their plans to be way overpriced. The phone I had was horribly crippled and they didn’t even give you a USB charger b/c, at the time, they wanted you to pay for everything you downloaded to your phone. How is it now?
I would also consider Sprint but I hear their customer service is even worse.
The only carrier I’ve ever been happy with was T-Mobile. They have great rate plans, a great selection of phones and great customer service. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a strong signal in many parts of Eugene.
Hmm..no..paying a termination fee should be like your last resort imo. Hmm..I found verizon wireless has pretty good customer service imo. Maybe verizon is still over priced though…but ppl within the verizon network get free service, and free text message, and everything. However..you still have to pay extra for dling music..or internet service. I dono..they gave me a free usb charger…However…I think that if you had verizon and not at&t scam you would probably not have had to use thousands of dollars for verizon like u did for at&tscam..so maybe it would be worth it. Omg..I do not like Sprint either…I think Sprint sucks cause I use to have it too. Maybe all of us bloggers could give at&tscam a call for you, and we could be like, “So we heard from a friend that you guys have bad customer service, and you are refusing to give back her money that you STOLE from her.” All of us could call them, and maybe they will listen for once. Also..another thing that might get at&t scam to listen is to threaten them, that’s what I do when a company tries to screw me over. Oh yeah..did you call at&tscam’s customer service line?
Sorry to confuse everyone.
The thousands of dollars isn’t really relevant to this particular issue. That’s what they charged on landline bills my family many years ago when we moved. When we moved, they suddenly took us off the international rate plan we were on and we didn’t know until we were charged with several thousands of dollars of phone bills. Of course, they refused to drop the charges.
Afterward, I was good about boycotting them. Then, I moved to Eugene and my T-mobile phone wasn’t getting reception anywhere. So, I switched to Cingular. Before the merger, everything was peaches. Then the merger happened :/
It was okay for a while. They slipped up once in 2007 but they fixed the problem. It’s just in the past couple of months they’ve really been pissing me off.
My family has been using AT&Tscam for years. They have always tried to scam money out of us and everyone we know but a few years ago they really pissed us off. We came home to find our phone and internet had been cut off. We contacted them to find out why because we paid the bill on time, They claimed we were “Propagating a virus” and by doing so we violated their terms of service o_O. They said they would turn our service back on if we paid the reconnection fee. We don’t even know how to “Propagate a virus”!! A few days later after my mother’s constant complaints they turned our service back on without the reconnection fee and admitted that there never was a virus and it was a “mistake” on their part.