Joys of AT&T

[Dusty Devil Dale]

Has anyone succeeded in terminating services with AT&T.  I'd be interested in how you accomplished that.  

For 40+ years AT&T has been the only landline telephone company available here where I live.  We long ago terminated the landline telephone service in favor of cell phones, but they remained our Internet Service Provider, absent any other viable options at this location.  

In January we finally became fed up with AT&T's lousy Internet service and their virtual communication barriers to report problems or service failures.  We bought a Starlink system antenna and have never regretted it if one-half second.  That is when the real fun began with AT&T. 

 

I called to terminate all AT&T services.  After a 4- hour wait on hold, I finally got through their phone tree to a real person (a subcontractor in Shri Lanka).   They said they looked but could. not find our account and denied that it ever existed. (Never mind the 40+ years of billing notices).  I emailed them a scanned copy of my most recent monthly bill to assist their search, but they still could not terminate my services (which  to their highly advanced computer system did not exist). 

 

They directed me to their website, saying that it was the only way to terminate service.  I explained that I couldn't go to their website, because my modem was by then disconnected and their land line to my home had not worked for three months.  They still insisted that I needed to use the website access.

 

On Feb 9th, I sent (to the address on the billing statement) a registered, return receipt letter terminating all of my AT&T services.  I included billing statements to enable them to cancel the correct account.  I received the signed-off USPS return receipt on February 21.  

 

Every month since then I have received a billing statement for the terminated account (that they told me they had no evidence of its existence). 

Yesterday, I received a notice that I have been sent to collections for my unpaid invoices.  It included no contact person, no customer service address, no contact phone number, and no instructions how to follow up.  

 

In describing this to friends, I find I am not the first to find it impossible to terminate an AT&T account.  So that is the reason for my original question --has anyone actually accomplished account termination and do you have any advice to offer?

[Texas Joker]

Refuse to accept changes to the terms of service in writing. You signed a contract if they change he terms you don't have to accept that.

 

Stop paying for it. You told them to cancel but you keep paying

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Since you've stopped payments, make sure you keep all your documents.

Keep an eye on your credit rating to ensure they don't try to hang you out to dry on your credit score.

For more fun, copy the pertinent documents and post it all on the AT&T Facebook website and ask if other clients have experienced this level of incompetence.

 

 

 

 

[Pat Riot]

I had a similar issue with Verizon. I kept getting bills after termination of my contract. These a** clowns were billing me for a tablet we hadn’t used in years. Since I didn’t specifically terminate that part of our service they kept billing us. It took several hours on the phone to clear it up and I still had to pay the use fees.
After 25 years of being a good customer they treated us like we are idiots. 

Is there a chance you still have some service that’s active that these douchebags won’t tell you about? 

[Dusty Devil Dale]

19 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

I had a similar issue with Verizon. I kept getting bills after termination of my contract. These a** clowns were billing me for a tablet we hadn’t used in years. Since I didn’t specifically terminate that part of our service they kept billing us. It took several hours on the phone to clear it up and I still had to pay the use fees.
After 25 years of being a good customer they treated us like we are idiots. 

Is there a chance you still have some service that’s active that these douchebags won’t tell you about? 

No.  We have zero service.  I personally climbed  their pole in January and pulled our land line plug (sent them a photo).  

The irony is that while they supplied us with a paultry 2.6 mbps download speed via their 40 year-old, dilapidated land line, they ran a 5G fibre optic cable across the front of our property with no easement,  and refused us and all of our neighbors a connection.   Their old land line cable spans 790 feet between two pokes, and it sags to just 11' 8" above my driveway street entrance.  For over three years I've tried to get service to install another pole.  Ive called their customer service line, stopped their service trucks on the road, even reported it to County Compliance Office.   I finally gave up on them and propped up their cable atop the crookedest 18'  4x4 pole I could find, just so I could get my travel trailer out the driveway.  The 4x4 has been there 1-1/2 years and they've never noticed it.  

What a sick excuse for a "Service Provider" company-- the phone company with zero communication! 

[Calamity Kris]

Thanks for the warnings.  We will be watching this thread closely as we are going to be terminating our service {If you call what they provide "service"} with them in the near future.  We have them as an internet provider only.  If the folks laying the fiber cable in our neighborhood don't hook us up soon, we're looking at Starlink ourselves.

[Pat Riot]

23 minutes ago, Dusty Devil Dale said:

No.  We have zero service.  I personally climbed  their pole in January and pulled our land line plug (sent them a photo).  

The irony is that while they supplied us with a paultry 2.6 mbps download speed via their 40 year-old, dilapidated land line, they ran a 5G fibre optic cable across the front of our property with no easement,  and refused us and all of our neighbors a connection.   Their old land line cable spans 790 feet between two pokes, and it sags to just 11' 8" above my driveway street entrance.  For over three years I've tried to get service to install another pole.  Ive called their customer service line, stopped their service trucks on the road, even reported it to County Compliance Office.   I finally gave up on them and propped up their cable atop the crookedest 18'  4x4 pole I could find, just so I could get my travel trailer out the driveway.  The 4x4 has been there 1-1/2 years and they've never noticed it.  

What a sick excuse for a "Service Provider" company-- the phone company with zero communication! 

It would be a shame if that line would keep separating…somehow. 
 

Fiber doesn’t work well with kinks in it. 

[J-BAR #18287]

Discontinue phone and internet and written conversations with them.  Visit an AT&T store in person.  Talk to the manager, document the visit, record the meeting on your cellphone.  It's sad to think you may wind up in court, but you may want to get a lawyer's guidance (I am not a lawyer).

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

There are companies that get zero respect for sending you to collections, in other words if they send you to collections the rating agencies ignore it. I got sent to collections for $8, the agency spent twice that in postage sending notices.

 

I would have driven through their sagging line, then over it, maybe chewed it up with a lawn mower.

 

just stop paying them.

[Eyesa Horg]

They don't amuse me either When I retired from Southern New England Telephone, part of my retirement package was life insurance equal to my yearly salary. AT&T bought out SNET and the retirement program. After 15years I get a letter notifying me that they have dropped the life insurance to a flat 15K. How can they just drop a benefit like that? They just suck period..

[Dusty Devil Dale]

15 hours ago, Calamity Kris said:

Thanks for the warnings.  We will be watching this thread closely as we are going to be terminating our service {If you call what they provide "service"} with them in the near future.  We have them as an internet provider only.  If the folks laying the fiber cable in our neighborhood don't hook us up soon, we're looking at Starlink ourselves.

I have nothing but good things to say about Starlink.  Musk has that act totally together.  It practically sets itself up, except mounting the antenna.  Everything works perfectly right out of the box.  My download speed is always over 85 mbps, and upload speed is around 35.  That is a far cry from Paying AT&T for 75 mbps and getting less than 3.  

Before I made the jump over to Starlink, I talked with quite a few users, including a couple homeowners I did not know, but I noticed their Starlink antenna and knocked on their door.   Nobody had a bad word to say about it.  Now, after enjoying it for  6 months, I know why. 

[Dusty Devil Dale]

15 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

It would be a shame if that line would keep separating…somehow. 
 

Fiber doesn’t work well with kinks in it. 

Have Mini-excavator Will Travel!

[Dusty Devil Dale]

6 hours ago, Eyesa Horg said:

They don't amuse me either When I retired from Southern New England Telephone, part of my retirement package was life insurance equal to my yearly salary. AT&T bought out SNET and the retirement program. After 15years I get a letter notifying me that they have dropped the life insurance to a flat 15K. How can they just drop a benefit like that? They just suck period..

Sounds like 'Lawyer up time'.

  I cannot imagine a court-- particularly not a jury-- letting an international company the size of AT&T  get away with that. That's IF they could find 12 jurors who have not had bad experiences with the company themselves.