AT&T, the wireless carrier service I use for my iPhone smartphone, has went too far. The company has a billing practice that’s fraudulent and criminal in its nature, and must be stopped. To do so, I filled an FCC complaint, and I’m encouraging you to do so, too if they’re your carrier and you have had the same problem.
I just got an email that AT&T attempted to collect $197.52 from my debt card (which I make sure only has pay-as-you-go money on it for reasons like this one) and for a bill that AT&T’s own email tells me is not due until August 20th; today is July 20th. So, how the hell can a bill that’s not due until August 20th, be due now, and then called past due?
Answer: it can’t. AT&T is engaging in a lie.
Moreover, I just paid AT&T a large sum of money two weeks ago, and to clear up an issue that I was certain was based on the same fraudulent and criminal practices. What they’re trying to do is make sure that you’re always in a penalty state with them, and thus always in collection with them, and to guarantee this, the carrier, whenever it feels like it, just dips into your account for money. If the money’s not there, it says you’re payment was not processed, and so you’re late – even if the payment happens to be not due at that time, but, as in this case, a month later.
My mother has complained about similar practices by AT&T, and as recently as last week. That tells me something’s going on at AT&T that’s really rotten. They in direct violation of Communications Act of 1934, or…
The Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.) – A federal law that protects customers from fraudulent billing practices related to their communications services. The Act established the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which regulates charges that appear on your telephone bill under its Truth-in-Billing policy. Under the FCC’s Truth-in-Billing rules, service carriers are required to provide clear billing disclosures, describing each service for which the customer has been billed.
Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) (15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq.) – A federal law designed to protect consumers from unfair credit billing practices. The FCBA provides guidelines for both consumers and creditors including procedures to manage disputes regarding billing statements, and requires the immediate correction of billing errors.
So, in an effort to stop this, once and for all, I went to the FCC website and filed a complaint, and sent a screen-shot of my email from AT&T showing the fraud in action.
I did this even before calling AT&T because my experience with the organization is that its call center workers are told to advance lies. This would be one of them.
For example, I once made a promise to pay with AT&T, but then what it did was try to collect a payment unscheduled, then did not, and then sent a text to that information. Then my service was interrupted. Then I called to find out what the heck was going on, the person on the phone claimed the text I sent TOLD ME that my promise to pay was taken away from me, and that the text they sent said that.
The text said nothing of the kind. The only readout was that AT&T was attempting to collect money, and they did that ahead of the promise to pay. There was never, not once, anything telling me that.
So, in an effort to get all of that behind me, I made the payments and cleared up all of the issues, right or wrong.
But this is wrong. This time, AT&T’s going to pay and big time.
So, something’s going on at AT&T that is really out of line, and it seems to be on a massive scale, just from the fact that my Mom had the same problem where AT&T was trying to make another payment collection just a scant few days after her account was paid and up to date, just as mine is.
AT&T’s trying to say it’s not – but not this time. I am taking this matter to the FCC and even going so far as to inform the Whitehouse, and every elected official, FCC commissioner, and consumer protection organization in between. This must stop.
FCC Complaint Area
If you’re having problems like this, file a complaint right now, right here: http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
Stay tuned.