AT&T? Buh-bye!

We subscribe to one of Verizon’s all-you-can-eat local and long distance plans. Withoin a range of a few cents our phone bill is the same every month. I was a bit taken aback when I saw this month’s bill and found it to be about $9.00 more than the standard bill. A quick trip to the on-line bill presention shows that AT&T are trying to charge me $8.73 for long distance. “This is very odd,” I think. Why would I subscribe to AT&T for long distance when I’m paying for an all-you-can-eat plan with Verizon?

So I submit a service ticket to Verizon. About a day later (yesterday) they came back with a message directing me to AT&T customer service, saying that they cannot credit AT&T charges on my bill and I must get the issue sorted with AT&T. Today I finally got my chance to call.

What a group of scammers and liars! The first agent I talk to is clearly offshore. This is actually less of an issue to me so long as agents are sufficiently trained in how to handle customers in the American millieu. Well, she clearly was not. The first thing she tried to do was tell me that I was being charged because the Verizon long distance network was “filled up” when I had made some of my calls, so they had handed them over to AT&T, and that’s why AT&T had sent me a bill. I told her that was nonsense and that if Verizon wasn’t going to disclose that fact I would deal with them but first I wanted to get my credit for $8.73. She said she’d put me over to a billing specialist, but then kept trying to sell my on AT&T’s unlimited plan. “While I’m trying to fix AT&T’s billing error is not a good time to try and sell me on your service. I just want to deal with my current bill,” I told her. She would not drop the subject of having me switch providers. I asked her to drop the subject at least five times. Finally I had to ask to either listen to music while I was on hold or speak to her supervisor. I was getting very angry.

So, after a minute or two on hold I’m dropped into the touch-tone maze. Press “1″ for this, “2″ for that, “*765#2″ to speak to a represenative and all of that garbage. Finally I get through to the billing specialist.

AT&T are blatently lying to me here. They’re telling me Verizon aren’t able to carry long distance calls, so I cannot POSSIBLY have Verizon as my long distance provider and therefor must actually still be an AT&T customer. So I had to open up with my telecom whoop-ass and explain to her Section 271 of the Telecommunciations Act of 1996 and how Verizon received relief under that section of the Act to provide intra-LATA voice services in the Commonwealth of Virginia some time ago (I apologised for not knowing the exact date). She seemed a little taken aback and dumbfounded by this, so finally agreed to look at my account for my change order way back when I cancelled my AT&T long distance. “Oh… oh… THERE it is. November of 2002. I guess we have to give you a credit.”

Jerks. I’m astonished that AT&T would lie so blatantly to somebody as they did here– not once, but twice.