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 contacted AT&T, they knew nothing! They did not know who these people are or why my father was getting charged for two months in a row.
I asked them how they could not know when a third-party company includes charges on a bill from AT&T. I got absolutely no answers. Their only excuse was that it is legal for any third-party company that states it has an account with one of their customers to just add its charges to the AT&T bill.
On top of not being able to answer who, what, why, or when, they added late fees to my father's 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, which by the way took another hour to answer. By this time my father had 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 advised the representative that it is not a matter of getting a credit, it is an ethical issue. It just so happens that my father is not the only customer currently having the same problem with AT&T and Americatel.
Apparently, friends of my father's 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 did not mean that Americatel would stop the charges. When I asked her how they can charge for an account that does not exist, she made no comment and rushed to end the call.
I would like to add that my father was told throughout the whole call that he had not paid a 20.44 balance. At the end of the conversation, I asked the disconnecting representative if she saw such a balance, and she said no, it had 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 did not mention even once that such transactions between both companies had ever occurred. 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 the State District Attorney's office.
If AT&T is correct that a third-party company can legally impose charges that, according to AT&T, they are not aware of, and yet AT&T applies late charges on them, 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 without these companies just not knowing what is placed on statements that carry their name, and why. If all this happens to be in fine print somewhere, someone please tell me, that way I can just assume this is how American corporations work and that it needs to be in bigger print! I am not surprised they are not part of the Better Business Bureau.
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