Comments on: How AT&T picked my pocket.

By: Alec

Alec — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:02:02 +0000

not at all. the win-back department and egregious cancellation fees are an abuse of the consumer. AT&T admitted as much when they refunded me the whole amount a few weeks later.

http://saunderslog.com/2008/04/25/quest-for-refund-an-epic-att-tale/

By: em

em — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:32:12 +0000

ok i skipped through the end part, but from what i read it seemed that it didnt get cancelled because your assistant wanted to talk to you about it first, so thats not their fault. right?

By: iamone

iamone — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:11:21 +0000

I have an advertisement with at&t and sent them a money order to pay for the monthly fee and they keep calling me and sending me letters hounding me for payment. I’ve called them and told them they received my payment already and cashed the money order. I had to pay to get the money order traced. I even sent them a copy of the money order that was sent to me from Amscot, and they still say they never got it.

By: "Quest for Refund": an epic AT&T tale — Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:20:04 +0000

[...] March 11, I wrote a very upset blog posting about an AT&T error which resulted in my being over-billed hundreds of dollars.A reader, Jason [...]

By: Alec

Alec — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:26:22 +0000

Hi Jessica,

Sears contacted me about 24 hours after the initial mail. At this point, they’re reconsidering a refund, and have promised me an answer shortly. My advice? Write your letter to Mr. Stephenson. There’s apparently an “office of the president” group that handles nothing but complaints sent directly to Stephenson.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:16:58 +0000

So, did the note to Mr. Stephenson work? I have a VERY SIMILAR situation with AT&T right now over $6,000! I would rather sue them and give the money to an attorney than give it to them for services I didn’t want or receive!

By: Brad Templeton

Brad Templeton — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:50:03 +0000

I had an even more slimy problem like this with Qwest long distance. I had them as LD provider, and had their plan that gave cheap calls to Canada. Then, in spite of the fact I made lots of calls to Canada, they insist I called in to switch my plan to their default plan which was 33 to 60 cents/minute for calls to Canada. But I also had automatic billing and didn’t notice it. Until quite some time later, and it amounted to $600 — spread out over many months.

I never got them to admit or refund anything, but I had my revenge. If you do a Google search for http://www.google.com/search?q=qwest+long+distance you will find the 2nd hit, after the Qwest web site, is my account about the whole thing and my opinions of this business unit’s billing dept. And others reported getting the same treatment.

Over the years, I suspect thousands of customers have read my story, and I presume a fair number may have altered their views of Qwest and cost the company business. That they would choose this path is stupid.

By: Alec

Alec — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:03:00 +0000

thanks for the suggestions Jason. I just dashed off a note to Mr. Stephenson.

By: Jason Yeung

Jason Yeung — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:02:27 +0000

Actually, SBC bought AT&T and just took on their name…the old AT&T no longer exists. BellSouth was also swallowed up by the “new” AT&T and thus prompted the name change to AT&T Mobility from Cingular Wireless.

- Jason

By: stevex

stevex — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:30:32 +0000

I concur about Rogers getting it right – this was actually one of the few times Rogers has impressed me as a customer. They contacted me about a cell phone that I believed was cancelled – I think what happened is I’d switched to a different Rogers phone and assumed they had cancelled the old one, but they had not – and when I talked to their rep, they offered to refund me for over a year’s worth of time. I didn’t even have to ask.

Really this should be an easy decision for them. If a customer paid for a service but didn’t get use it at all, and claims they didn’t know they were paying for it, then give them their money back. You’re much more likely to get their business in the future, and really, what has it cost you? Does AT&T need the money badly enough that it’s worth all this loss of goodwill?