A Day in Paradise

It takes a lot to get me angry, but today AT&T/Bellsouth has pushed me over the edge.

I don’t want to be that insane guy who rants about how a big company intentionally lies to them, and has customer representatives who have no idea what they are doing and give you a different story every time you call them, but after 6 months of bullshit there is nothing else I can do but rant and pay a $1200+ bill to avoid getting a credit hit.

The story starts when we decide to move over from our 8 line BellSouth Small Business phone package to a VoIP solution. We have a 36 month contract which has 8 phone lines and 1 DSL line on it. We know that the contract is coming to an end and, to avoid downtime and cancellation fees, we synchronized our accounts so that we have plenty of time between the installation of our T1 and the termination of the contract. We talked to BellSouth support with these concerns and were assured that we could terminate the contract on the date we needed and not have downtime or cancellation fees.

The T1 was up and running, and on the day of the switch the phones transitioned perfectly, but we had 2 days of our DSL downtime - which is a clusterfuck which I don’t have the time or energy to describe today.

After getting our DSL back we thought we were in good shape – until we got hit with a bill for termination of our 36 month contract.

Call #1: When I get the bill I call and speak to a representative that says that that is a mistake on the bill and they will reissue the bill.

Next month we get the same bill with a late fee.

Call #2: I call and they acknowledge that it is a late fee and state that it was because we terminated the contract, but don’t have any information. I explain that we already discussed this with BellSouth support and we scheduled this move to avoid the contract termination fee. They have no more information.

Call #3: They say that we terminated the bill 3 days after the contract renewed itself. I explained how that was the day we arranged for it to be terminated and we had gotten assurance that we would be prorated for those 3 days without having to renew a 36 month contract. (We were prorated for those 3 days, but we still got hit.)

Another bill comes.

Call #4: I call and explain all of the above, and ask for the account to get escalated to someone who can help me figure out the contract payment issue. They said they would send it to dispute department and get back to me on the status.

This is where I say that we have been loyal customers for a long time, we always pay our bills on time, and we have always been the ones contacting BellSouth as to how we can resolve this issue.

BellSouth got a response from the dispute department, but never contacted us like they promised. Instead it went to collections.

We were surprised to get a collections letter as we were still waiting for BellSouth to call us with the resolution to this issue. We immediately called the collections agency, and explained all of the above and they explained that the issue was no longer in the hands of Bellsouth and it was up to them to resolve it. They said that if we pay the first half of the payment right away they would take care of the resolution (this tactic seems pretty common). I told them I would contact BellSouth and get back to them.

Call #5: I talked to BellSouth and they said that the reason I got the charge was because I terminated the account less than 60 days before the renewal date. They said that I was informed of this on my bill 90 days before the bill would renew. I let them know that my bill was paid online and unless there was an abnormal charge, automatically paid. I also told them that this was exactly opposite of what they told me a month before about having been 3 days late. They told me they could escalate it again but it would take 7 days.

As I hang up the phone. The phone rings again. It’s another person from the collection agency asking about the payment, I tell them that we are working on resolving this, and even if I wanted to pay I can’t because our book-keeper has already left for the night. I ask about the option to pay 50% and have them resolve it with BellSouth and he says I can pay 50% now and 50% next month – Exactly the opposite of what the first guy said.

At this point it’s 6pm and I call Stella and explain that I’ll be late because I’m wrapping stuff up.

The phone rings again. This is another person from the collection agency, who rudely explains to me that unless I pay THAT NIGHT they will report us to the credit agency. I explain again that I can’t turn into a check even if I wanted to pay.  I send a couple emails and decide that while there are other options for dealing with  at&t’s debt collectors at this point we can’t risk the credit hit and I call the agency to arrange the payment.

After all of this I feel that after being a loyal customer and paying them for their service for years, I was intentionally mislead and put into a position where I was forced to pay a fee which was intended to punish people who broke a contract which we took a lot of time and effort to make sure we didn’t break.

BellSouth had MANY opportunities during the process to inform me about the fact that if I waited to terminate the account I would break the contract. I specifically asked WELL BEFORE the 60 days what I had to do to avoid this, and was NEVER informed about the 60 day buffer. Even after we received the first bill we were not told specifically how we broke our contract. If after we got the first bill (Call #1) they would have said  “You didn’t notice the 60 day termination fine print on the contract, now you’re FUCKED” we would have been pissed off, but would have been able to deal with it.

Now we have to deal with paying the bill, the stress of having a collections agency call ever 5 minutes (literally) and the time dealing with this crap.

It’s simply unbelievable.