AT&T Cable Internet

I know most people on this board don't have to deal with AT&T cable since they are not the dominant service provider in Houston like they are in Dallas, but I still have to vent.

I had AT&T Broadband Internet in my previous apartment. When I moved, the new apartment had a closed cable system, so AT&T was not available and I got Verizon DSL.

I terminated my cable modem service on February 6th, 2002 and returned the cable modem to the drop off point that day (and got a receipt). On March 6th, they charged me $50.41 for March service (even though the service had been turned off for a month). I called and they said they'd get a refund to me as soon as possible.

When the refund didn't show up in my account, I called again and again and again. In those seven calls, I was pretty well given the same story, on April 15th (the normal close of my account cycle), I would be receiving a refund for the amount that should never had been charged to me in the first place.

April 15th comes and goes with no refund showing up, so I call again. I am told this time that the refund is being processed and that I should have it by the end of the week or early the next week at the latest.

It gets to the end of the week after the 15th (which is now), and I've still yet to receive a refund (nearly three full months after cancelling the account). So I call again, and now I'm told that there is no refund coming.

As it turns out, it took AT&T until March 9th to get a technician over there to turn off the juice at my old apartment. According to AT&T now, that's the date I had to be charged to since that was the date service was actually turned off.

So basically, they're saying that I have to pay for an extra month of service because they can't be bothered to send someone over to my old apartment and turn off the cable even though I wasn't using it (and couldn't since I had vacated that apartment over a month before and had returned my cable modem to them over a month before).

Needless to say, I'm pissed. I'm especially pissed since they've waited two months and eight phone calls before telling me. In the previous seven phone calls, I was always told I was due a refund and that it was a mistake that they charged me in March. Now they've completely changed their tune.

I called the credit card company to dispute the charge, though I don't know if they'll let me since it's been so long since the charge appeared. I thought that AT&T would be honorable and handle it the way they said they would seven times. But that's obviously not the case.

So the moral is, don't wait for a refund from a corporate giant intent on screwing the little people. Contest the charge with the credit card company if it isn't valid because even though the corporate giant will pretend for two full months that they're giving you the refund, eventually, they'll show their true colors and screw you out of the money.

Things must really be bad at AT&T if they have to resort to theft to generate revenues. I'm actually surprised they're not still charging me (Maybe all the telcos are in trouble. For a while, I was getting cell phone bills from MCI every month even though I've never had cell phone service with MCI. The only way I was able to get them to stop was to file a mail fraud complaint against MCI with the post office).

I've had bad luck with companies lately. The only way I was able to get an air conditioner hose for my Audi was after getting the Texas Attorney General involved. The only way I was able to get MCI to stop sending me false bills was to get the Post Office involved. And now it looks like the only way I'm going to get AT&T to return the money they stole from me is by dragging some other aspect of the legal community into the fray.

Any more of this, and I may well totally renounce my Republican roots and start campaining with Ralph Nader for strong consumer protection laws. If the companies don't care to follow the laws we have now (pretty sure theft is already a crime, but that doesn't stop AT&T from doing it), perhaps we need some laws with teeth.

 

I'm sure I won't. It's one of those things that has just become a thing with me. It's not about the 50 bucks anymore; it's about what's right. Charging customers for the fact that they don't have enough service techs to come out and disconnect service in a timely manner is just simply wrong.

It's like an apartment complex charging renters after they've moved out by saying "Well, we couldn't re-rent it until we went in and did some painting and we didn't get around to painting it until a month after you moved out. So, you'll just have to pay us for that month."

Or, "We know you've paid off your car, but you're going to have to keep making regular monthly payments until we can get around to doing the paperwork... and since we're so understaffed, that could take awhile."

What is most annoying, though, is knowing that AT&T (and other companies) likely do this sort of thing all the time and have a not-insignificant number of customers simply accept it either because it's not worth the trouble (and it really isn't. The time I've already spent dealing with it is worth more than $50) or they simply don't notice (my father, for example, wouldn't have noticed being charged an extra $50.41.)

These companies know they can get away with stealing small amounts from people just by having the guts to do it. Of course, I suspect they would take a dimmer view of such theft if, for example, a clerk in one of their offices took $50 out of the cash drawer one day. I'm sure they'd prosecute to the fullest extent of the law because they are hypocrites who believe in nothing but their own power. AT&T can steal, but don't steal from AT&T.

They don't care about me because they don't have to. No one will make them give back the money, and no one will punish them for their theft. But you can bet if I stole from them, they'd be all over me both in trying to get that money back and in getting the incompetent Plano Police Department on my back (and I suspect the Plano Police Department actually does stuff for corporations. It's the citizens of Plano they don't care anything about and refuse to enforce laws to protect. The Plano Police only tend to prosecute crimes that can result in revenues for the city - such as traffic laws, etc).

When did the world get so corrupt? And how can I, an average guy, cash in on this corruption?

 

Well, AT&T already controls the bulk of this market anyway, so their being with Comcast wouldn't make much difference locally.

Personally, I'm getting satellite next time I move. I liked it better when I had it anyway. Not that they're better companies necessarily (as they probably aren't), but at least it isn't AT&T (at present).

Maybe they're just mad because I haven't used AT&T long distance in so many years.