We had SBC Yahoo DSL for a year, from May until May, at which point we called to cancel our service because of unsatisfactory speeds and also because it was the end of our contract. I called twice to confirm that the DSL line was going to be deactivated, and I was told that it would be at the end of my billing cycle.
I looked over our March bill and saw that we were charged $59.90 for SBC Internet Services, and after looking at several other monthly SBC bills, I saw that SBC had been charging $29.95 every month for SBC DSL even after we had cancelled. I promptly called the DSL Billing line at 877-722-3755, and after speaking to a billing help line employee, the issue was escalated to a manager by the name of Shawn (employee number SC41704). I asked him why we had been billed for so long after we had cancelled, and we were told that their records do show us having cancelled the service, but that it was reactivated shortly after.
I asked him by whom and why it was reactivated, and he could not tell me, but simply told us that it was our fault for not "catching" on to the issue earlier. If this was the case, what is to stop SBC or ANY other company from piling on charges to a customer's monthly bill and hoping that they do not find the extra charges? He said their dispute window is only 30 days, but I find no indication of that policy anywhere on the bill. I asked to have our money refunded, the reason being it was their mistake, and if they checked their records, they would see that I had not used the DSL connection after I had originally cancelled.
The amount of credit/refund that we asked for was from June till March at $29.95 per month, which amounts to $299.50. We believe that SBC had either activated the line without our permission or failed to deactivate our DSL line in the first place. In either case, we should not have to pay for a service we did not use, nor did we ask for it in the first place.
Furthermore, to add insult to injury, when we called to dispute last month's charges (since they were in the 30 day window, we thought we would at least get SOME money back), we were told that there would be a $250 contract cancellation charge. This situation has gone from bad to worse, and I have tried calling their DSL billing help line and also emailed customer support about this. Their response to the latter was to call the DSL Billing Number at 877-722-3755.
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