I used to have a contract with Bell South for phone sevices at my business. A few months back AT&T bought Bell South. My rates suddenly shot up over $30.00/month.
When I called to inquire as to why I was told I had signed on for a new program and that my old program had expired and I could not go back on it. When I told AT&T I had done no such thing I was told they had a signature on file and that was that, I was stuck with the new higher rates.
What happened?
AT&T apparently subcontracts with Encore Marketing Group who sent someone into my business, tricked one of my employees to sign a paper "for receipt of information regarding our opportunity to save 50.00/month with a new phone plan!"
My employee several times explained that he was not authorized to make any decisions on the businesses behalf and was assured that he was simply signing for the materials left with him nothing else.
No copy of what he signed was left behind, only a paper with the Encore Marketing logo and some very vague information on it. I threw this out when I saw it because I had no need nor interest to change my phone plan. I also felt that whatever was left looked sloppy and unprofessional and I had no intention of calling Encore Marketing to find out more since I was not planning on changing anything.
I am not surprised to see AT&T using unscrupulous companies as their sub contractors. I find both AT&T's and Encore Marketing's behaviour to be highly deceptive and unethical.
I signed a multi page contract with XXX XXX for my phone plan. It was done in a highly professional way and obviously signed by me the business owner. Why AT&T feels they now can overthrow said contract via sending in a pushy lying sales person into my business to trick my employee is beyond me. They just proved what I have felt since 1996, they are a company to avoid.
I have managed to get AT&T to put me back on a program closer to what I originally had, but had to drop certain services to get back to the lower rate.
The Encore Marketing employee used lies and trickery to get a "sale". I guess the pressure to make commissions creates this kind of behaviour.
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