Not re-rating other bills honestly sounds like laziness; it takes a LOT of time to figure out which numbers were not correctly rated. But that's what offline commitment teams are for, anyway.

Good luck to everyone trying to regain control over their wireless bills.

Dylan

Let me translate:

1) "You calling or emailing us directly inconveniences our system."

2) "We don't communicate very well with each other internally (or not at all) so your information is constantly lost in the shuffle."

3) "You suck for being successful at actually reaching one of us and maybe getting us off our rear ends to help you."

and the best one,

"Do it again, and I'll flag your account so you don't ever get helped again no matter what."

Thank you for calling, is there anything else I can't help you with?

My experience with switching to AT&T from Verizon just this past week has been an overall nightmare! If I had to do it over again, I would have just stayed with Verizon. I never really had any major problems with them, but after being a 10 year customer, I sure wasn't getting any 'loyalty' benefits.
One of the issues with ATT was that they said we would get free TV for 60 days on our LG Vu. When we were unable to connect, I went back into the ATT store and was told I had to be in a 3G network for it to work. OK.
Later in the week we were in a 3G network and still no workie!
I called and was told I had to subscribe to the data plan to use the 'free' TV. So my question to the rep was, So the TV service isn't free then? Yes she insited it is free, but only if I subscribe to the data plan...then can I actually SEE the TV on the phone. Interesting!
Other issues were, our online order was mysterious cancelled (no one can tell us by whom) and then re-ordered incorrectly. I had to fix and re-fix the errors and blunders in the 2nd order, b/c they were not what I wanted.
I could go on...buy my head hurts just thinking about the nightmare this has become!

Calling AT&T, I was told I could be offered a $50 credit. When I told them the difference was about $200, I was told the CSR was only authorized to do $50. She saw the notes and the bill and agreed I was right, but wasn't able to help. I asked to speak with a supervisor. She said they weren't allowed to put calls through to supervisors.

After going througn this process every day for a week or so, I got really angry. I filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General. I had dates,names, receipts, etc.

In about 2 weeks, the AT&T people called me telling me they required me to fax the receipt to them to credit my card. I told them there was a copy of the receipt on the AG complaint. The guy freaked. Said he didn't know anything about an AG complaint. Told me he'd call back. Never heard from him again.

A week or so later, I received a call from a woman in the "presidents office" telling me the issue had been resolved and asking me to notify the AG and cancel the complaint. I asked her to hold on, called my credit card company to verify her story. It wasn't credited yet. So I told the woman who called that the complaint stood until I received proof from the credit card company that my card had been properly credited for the full amount. She said it would be processed that day, and I replied then when it's done, I'll call off the AG.

The next week I received notfication it was corrected. THe credit card CSR told me it had just been received and processed that day. I don't know how other cell companies are to deal with in this matter, but AT&T is the ABSOLUTE worst.

We have AT&T home and broadband service and have zero problems. Their customer service, in my experience, is first rate.

All accounts have "pay per use" data. Meaning, you don't pay a recurring fee to access the web from your phone, and you only pay for what you use. However, if you later decide to add a monthly data plan, you must remove the "pay per use" feature from your account. Otherwise, you will still be charged for "pay per use" data, even though you are paying for an unlimited data plan.

I guess it's safe to say that ATT's billing/account software is about as smart are their customer service reps. ;-)

@ helloodiane (reply still not working for me!)

AT&T wireless reps don't work on commission. At least not at the AT&T call center where I used to work. The only thing we go was bonuses based on our stats within the call center, and that was it.

and @ Bodgy

That's not entirely true. When I quit from AT&T, if someone was cancelling a line and moving from an family plan to an individual plan, the M2M feature was almost ALWAYS something that was already listed in the features tab on Telegence (which I'm just assuming is what was used, as that's the main program for MOST of AT&T accounts). Unless they were inadvertantly activated on a plan that's not normally used, the mobile to mobile feature would not have to be added, it would already be there.

To me, it sounds like what happened was that whichever rep switched the account around screwed up. Plain and simple.

And bull crap that they can't make a credit for the past month's bills where this error was made. They may not have been able to do it on that particular bill, but they could have added a credit to the account in general for the amount of error. I did it all the time.

@Taliskan - same thing happened to me with Verizon Wireless, except it was right at the beginning of my contract with them. The bill I got was HUGE and it turned out they has mis-entered or mis-coded something and not given me the unlimited night & weekend minutes. I thought it was a really dumb error, since all of their contract plans included nights & weekends.

CSR was very nice & attempted to be helpful, but said she couldn't resend me a correct bill. Instead, they wanted me to pay the huge bill, and then they would credit me. Had a been a more savvy consumer, I probably would have stuck it out longer, but in the end I caved & spent several hours trying to figure out which calls I was incorrectly billed for. And then the error persisted through the next 2 billing cycles.... big pain.

In the end, they did credit my account the correct amount & I haven't had any problems since. But it was definitely the wrong foot to start off with. I am very suspicious of my bill. And I have a very, very low opinion of whatever VZW uses to process their contracts.

Have been with AT&T for many years and you do have to watch them. If you ever make a change they screw your whole account and you end up with charges that add up to and exceed 1000 dollars. They add charges and fees that seem to be pulled out of a hat, when you call them on it they seem to be removed. JUST REVIEW ALL YOUR BILLS

Before attacking AT&T, more information would be prudent. All of AT&T's rate plans do not feature free mobile to mobile calling. This is frequently not a feature of the old rate plans that are sometimes grandfathered when you complain and may also arise when you do something like activating a new line without contract.

Verizon used to do this to me for quite a while when I upgraded my cell plan to a Family Share plan (added a second line to the account). They would charge for nights and weekends, and in-network. These were supposedly included in the plan price. The fact remained that neither me nor my buddy used many minutes so the overages weren't enough for me to notice from the regularly billed price.

One month the bill was outrageously high, and I looked at the itemized call list and noticed the mistake. I went back to the previous two months and saw the same. I call Verizon and they credited my account and said they fixed it. The following month I was charged again for nights and weekends and in-calling. Again, I call, credit, fed the line it's fixed. Needless to say this happened for a few more months until I spoke to a CSR and they said they didn't understand why it was happening. She finally fixed it and tossed me a couple promotions for my troubles which was quite nice. Occasionally something in their computers denies the included price of nights and weekends, and in-calling. I call up and the matter is usually resolved with a credit.

Now I have learned how important it is to look at that itemized list of phone calls. To think if I just accepted what they gave me at face value, I would have been paying extra for features that were supposedly included. Read those bills!

So yes the first question out of my mouth would have been how did you get this number/email address. Then I would have helped them after getting their promise they would not do it again and making a note on their account. After their third strike we ignored any emails/calls from said customer that were not submitted through the proper channels.

this person was probably charged for m2m because of an error or mistake on someone's part, not the company as a whole. the person he talked to just tried to think of a stupid excuse for it because they could not explain it. happens all the time.

and to the rest of you complaining: if you simply new how the system worked you would avoid all the mess and complaints you have. most of what people bitch about is their own fault. att/verizon/etc don't go out of their way to charge you for things, it's an automated system and it works well. your understanding of how it works is just flawed.

Thing is, no one at AT&T seems to care when there is a problem. I was receiving texts from senders that were texting to my number by mistake.

I got an e-mail address for an AT&T CSR from Consumerist and e-mailed her to see what AT&T could do. She called me back, but her first question was "how did you get my e-mail?"

AT&T has zero interest in resolving problems which may result in increased revenue to them.

@heliodane: If anything, the rep would have benefited from putting the feature ON their account. That CSR is probably losing out a few bucks now in commission

Cell phones have another good racket going with international billing rates. In the airport in Taiwan I turned on my cell phone - just to see if it would reset to the local time etc. I did not do anything - no text messages, no calls etc. Switched it off 30 seconds later. A couple of callers had left me voice messages, so I got a voice message alert - and a $38 dollar bill because every minute of voice message was billed to me - at some super high rate - even though I didn't check them... They reversed this when I complianed - but how many just pay it?

@helloodiane: Ya know, it just SEEMS that these errors are MOSTLY in the companies favor, and very very infrequently, in the consumers favor. In reality I'm SURE that is it 50/50... (said tongue-in-cheek).

And if I don't notice it right away, they get a couple months worth of bogus charges out of me. It's a sick, ridiculous game.

i dont think its anything shady, just a mistake made on their part. ATT has millions of customers (bills), theyre not going to look through every single bill. anyway, they fixed the mistake with credits.

i dont see anything sneaky.

Verizon did this to us about a year ago, we shared the same cell phone plan and yet, THEY BILLED US FOR TALKING TO EACHOTHER. On the Verizon network. On the same account. I found this out only when we were charged overages.

I went back thru 3 cell phone cycles to find that we were using almost our full plans worth of minutes... just talking to eachother! Verizon fixed it after an audit, but WTF.

This is a major and consistent problem in itself. Companies write themselves their own "statute of limitations" and pretend to do you a big favor by returning PART of the money they steal from you.

Being a casual consumer takes a lot of work. You constantly have to scrutinize everything because you will be ripped off. For instance, I like to remind people that you have much less of a chance of having your money stolen from your mattress than in a bank. I know, I know, this is counter intuitive. But consider that banks will charge you fees for keeping your money in their bank 100% of the time. If you are very clever, the bank will learn to be more clever than you and eventually the bank will take your money. How do I know? I used to be a Bank of America customer, a Sovereign Bank customer, a Fleet Bank customer, A wells Fargo Bank customer and currently a RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) customer and every one of them has ripped me off repeatedly and I watch my accounts like a hawk. They will change their terms of service so you are forced to shuffle your accounts around, otherwise, you will be charged a fee. Credit cards will change your terms of service and force you to call them to change it back. Telecos... the same thing. I have to call Sprint almost every month due to billing issues. Sure, they fix my bill every time, but what an annoyance!

:)

A couple months ago my sister was billed $50 for text messages when she had the "Unlimited" text messaging plan.

Turns out AT&T changed their pricing model for the unlimited text plans and downgraded her to 1000/month plan that was the same base price in the new model. Of course, this was without telling her. She got it straightened out with credit eventually, but such a waste of time.

AT&T is making sure they don't lose in the first round of America's Worst Company.