July 16
Shane L Mettler
AT & T Wireless
ATTN: National Correspondence Team
P.O. Box 6028
Cerritos, CA 90703-6028
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a former customer of AT & T Wireless. I have tried to resolve a billing dispute through the Customer Care and Resolution departments and have not been satisfied by their response to the issues I have raised regarding the cancellation of my account.
On 07/15/02 around 6pm MST, I spoke with four of your representatives. My final conversation was with Amber in the resolution department regarding two invoices I have received. The first dated 06/07/02 for $150.04 has been paid in full. The second dated 07/07/02 for $138.31 has not been paid.
My one-year contract for 120 weekday (7am-7pm), and 500 night and weekend minutes (from 7pm-7am weekday and 7pm Friday to Monday 7am) expired in May.
I did not intend to renew service with your company due to frequent poor reception that I was receiving on my phone in several areas of metro Denver, the most frustrating being my own home.in order to receive a half strength signal near my home, I had to go outside and walk across the street. I have spoken with other AT & T customers who experience the same issue, not only in Denver. I have since acquired cellular service through another provider and have no signal strength issues.
AT & T Wireless defines in-plan minutes as weekday minutes only and considers night and weekend minutes to be a promotional attachment to the plan. After much discussion and debate with your representatives, regrettably after the events of this dispute, I now understand how you conduct your marketing strategies.
How I interpreted your initial description of my plan when I agreed to the contract, along with what I consider vague and deceptive wording on a plan renewal letter (a copy is enclosed) I received in May is at the heart of this dispute. I construed my plan to be inclusive of weekday and weekend minutes. Your marketing brochures and all information I received from your initial sales representative a year ago led me to believe that my minutes were an inclusive plan. Your literature and representatives do nothing reasonable to explain the difference between a plan and a promotion and more importantly, that a promotion is completely separate from a plan. Your brochures use the word plan interchangeably with the word promotion, neither words ever being defined.
I read this renewal letter thoroughly and interpreted the letter to mean that I had one of three options:
1. sign a new one-year contract and continue my plan as is.
2. sign up for a new plan, of which I was given at least three options.
3. according to the important information on the reverse side of this letter. If you do not agree to a new service commitment, you will continue to receive the in plan minutes of your current calling plan.
Due to AT & Ts failure to explain the differences between plan and promotion I regarded option three to simply be a continuation of my service as is. I knew that I would not be renewing service, due to the aforementioned reasons, so I decided on option three and would keep my service with AT & T until I found another suitable provider.
At the end of all of this I have been billed a total of $288.35 on the last two bills. I dont feel it is reasonable or in AT & Ts interest to declare that my so-called misinterpretation of your vague and misleading marketing brochures should cost me personally such a sum of money. I believe my bills should have totaled something very close to $109.90 if my plan had remained intact with weekend, night and daytime minutes as I had for the past year. I have paid the bill dated 06/07/02 in the amount of $150.04. Therefore my suggestion for a resolution to this dispute is for AT & T to recognize with me this disparity in its marketing tactics and credit my bill dated 07/07/02 for $138.31. I think this is a reasonable solution as I am meeting AT & T halfway, and not requesting the full amount of the excessive charges.
I was told by AT & Ts representative Amber that my bills for the past three months had stated that my promotional plan was going to expire in May. I informed her that I had never read that on any of my bills, and at the same time, had I read that statement I would have interpreted this to mean that my whole plan was to expire, not just the weekend and night minutes! Your representative, Amber, suggested that I sign another one year contract and that all of the charges above and beyond what they would have been on my plan would be erased. That is unacceptable to me.in the first place, this extortive effort does nothing to address the reasons for my cancellation in the first place. Secondly, for Amber to state that if I continue being a customer of AT & T all excessive charges would be erased, but otherwise there is no resolution to this dispute, is ridiculous. These issues are easily solvable when two parties meet halfway. As a final thought, if AT & Ts representatives can so easily credit minutes, then this procedure exposes the real value of a minute of airtime. Therefore I hope that you will agree my suggestion of a resolution for this dispute to be adequate.
Sincerely,
Shane
denver, Colorado
U.S.A.
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