AT&T still sucks 9 months after cancelling.

So I got a call from a company called West Asset Management the other day- they’re a collection company. AT&T apparently sent us to collections.

WHY, you ask? Because we had the audacity to cancel their service.

Let me take you back to the beginning:

– Had AT&T Phone + DSL at apartment
– Moved to House
– AT&T botched the DSL install, then canceled my contract and told me I had to sign a new one if I wanted DSL or pay 50% more for the monthly program.
– I told them that was unacceptable- gimme monthly because I’ll have a new DSL provider by the end of the month.
– Got cyberonic DSL a month later, spent three months working with them to figure out why the line sucked- the actual AT&T line was damaged, and AT&T refused to acknowledge it. NO DSL provider would ever work at this address.
– Canceled Cyberonic AND the phone line and went to cable.
– In September AT&T sends us a bill for $260 something dollars. turns out they were charging us DSL when we couldn’t have possibly been getting service for them (you can only have one DSL provider on the line at a time, nimrods).
– We pay the amount owed for phone ($57.31) and are told the other $210 will be credited to our account since we never received service.
– In November we get a dirty letter from them telling us we owe $210. We call them, the assure us it will be taken care of in the next billing cycle.
– In December, we get a dirty letter with threat of collection agency if we don’t pay. Jackie calls, they say everything is good and to call back on the 16th to make sure everything is good.
– She calls back on Dec. 16th and they say that everything is in process and good to go.

So we thought it was done, right? Wrong. The asshats sent us to collections. So I gathered up all my paperwork I could find and faxed it to the collection agency (who have so far been cool, other than calling me twice before their actual letter showed up). Hopefully they’ll side with me and I can be done with this stupidity.

Now for the fun part. Jackie and I have spent way too much time defending ourselves from AT&T’s attempted fraud and libel. As of December we had let the matter go, but now that we’re wasting time with an actual collection agency, I’m pissed. Once the collection agency sides with us, I will be sending AT&T an invoice. At our current consulting rates that equates out to about $330, minimum. Not only will I send them an invoice, but I will also complain to the Michigan Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, and Michigan Regulatory Commission.

Why will I pursue this? Because this is Fraud by Statistics. If you leverage these kind of bogus charges against 1% of your customer base, they won’t make enough noise to matter, and most of them won’t have the time or inclination to call them out on their abusive behavior. They’ll just roll over and take it.

To hell with that. They wanna start shit? Fine, BRING IT.