My father received two billing statements from AT&T with charges from Americatel. My father never agreed to receive any services from Americatel. When we contact AT&T they know nothing! They don't know who these people are why my father is getting charged for two months in a row.
When I ask them how can they not know when a company a 3rd party includes charges on a bill from AT&T. I got absolutely no answers their only excuse was that it is legal for any 3rd party company that states that has an account with one of their customers can just add their charges on the a AT&T bill.
On top off not being able to answer who, what, why, or when, they added late fees on my fathers bill for not paying the 19.01 charge from Americatel. Keep in mind I was on the phone for over an hour, and spoke to over four different representatives all they were willing to give me was a phone number that by the way took another hour to answer.By this time my father has decided to cancel his account both home phone and internet services.
All AT&T was willing to do was give a 25.00 credit for the trouble in hopes we would stay with AT&T. I adviced the representative it is not a matter of getting a credit, it's an ethical issue. It just so happens that my father is not the only customer that is currently going the same problem with AT&T and Americatel.
Apparently, friends of my fathers have also experienced the same troubles with AT&T and were not aware that they were not alone. When disconnecting the services with AT&T, the representative let me know that the disconnection of services didn't mean that Americatel would not stop the charges, when I asked her how can they charge for an account that doesn't exist, she made no comment and rushed to end the call.
I would like to add before I continue that my father was told that he had not paid 20.44 balance througout the whole call, at the end of the conversation, I asked the disconnecting representative if she saw such balance she said no, it has been paid. Later that day we called the phone number provided for Americatel.
My father was assured that it was a mistake on their part and that they had issued a refund check to AT&T, and guess what AT&T didn't mention not once that such transactions between both companies ever occured, If I recall well AT&T repeatedly said they were not aware of who Americatel was! I will be contacting the local channels as well as the FCC and State District Attorneys office.
If AT&T is correct, that a 3rd party company can legally impose charges that, according to AT&T are not aware of, but yet applying late charges on then the general public has the right to know. If they are not right about the legalities of this statement then it should be stopped!
Times are hard enough for consumers for these companies to take to just not know what is placed and why it's placed on statements which carry their name. If all this happens to be in fine print somewhere someone please someone tell me, that way I can just assume this is how american corporations work and that it needs to be in bigger print! I'm not surprised they are not part of the better business bureau.
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