The petition
Less than five months ago, I opened a telephone account with Bellsouth - which is now ATT, and when I opened the account, I asked the customer service representative to set me up with a plan that would put me less than $100 per month for telephone and DSL charges. By the time we ended the installation request phone call, my bill - with estimated taxes - was approximately $103 and I was completely fine with the plan I thought I was on.
Now, fast forward another two months and I'm running in and out of town and can't keep up with anything personal in my life. And there's a stack of bills on my desk that I didn't open because I wasn't home long enough to write a check. So I called Bellsouth/ATT to make a payment over the phone and the customer service representative kindly told me that my bill was $502 past due for only 2 months, with a total balance of over $750!
After I picked myself off of the floor, and found the words to continue a conversation with a very rude representative, I'd like to add, I learned that my bill was averaging $250 per month for unlimited local and long distance, voicemail and DSL. Hello????? How does a bill go from $103 per month to $250 a month - with no changes to service?
Well, this is how Bellsouth/ATT does it....they want you to sign a 36-month agreement - of which, if you cancel before the agreement is up, they charge you $100 for the equipment and $29 per month for every month remaining on the contract. So that means, if I decided to cancel my contract 26 months into the agreement and there were 10 months remaining, ATT would charge me $290 for the remaining months on the contract in addition to the $100 equipment charge - which is $390.
Now, when I asked why my bill was so high? I was told that outside of the 36 month agreement, my DSL charges were $79.95 per month. Did you hear that, my friends? 80 Bucks per month for a service that competitors are charging $20-$35 per month! Can you imagine the commercial, and the consumer feedback if ATT advertised, DSL for just $80 per month! Yeah right, they would get laughed right out of town. It's plain and simple, ATT jacks up the rate from $40 to $80 per month and then lures you into a 3 year long arrangement by calling it a discount. The discounted price is what the actual price should be!
I asked the customer service representative if they have a large amount of customers who pay over $200 per month for telephone and internet service, and she said many people do. But I think it's ludicrous. With the current state of the economy -low morale, high unemployment, failure to make a livable wage and people losing their homes with adjustable rate mortgages, I'm not sure who exactly can afford to pay $200 per month to use the telephone and send an email. Enough is enough!
I didn't think about this option, but my husband suggested I call Time Warner. They have the high speed internet and unlimited long distance telephone service. I figured, hey, why not, their rates have to be better than ATT. And, sure enough, Time Warner charges $89 for the same exact services that ATT was charging $179 per month for. That's almost $100. Now multiply that number times 12 months or so, by thousands of customers - and you can see how these companies benefit from our ignorance. I think it's a shame and it's up to us to do something about it. And I know that the ATT's rates have always been up for debate, but this time - we have to try to make it stick and stop ATT from continuing to charge the rates they are charging.
The customer service representative from Time Warner said apparently there were many other people in this market who were also fed up with ATT because in his department alone they had over 100 transfers from ATT just the day before. And while 100 transfers may seem like a lot, it's not enough in my opinion. It's going to take more than a couple of hundred people to make ATT get the point! I would like to see thousands of people switching service in a month's time and perhaps that may make someone in management over at ATT scratch their head a little longer and think of a different plan. A plan that can make the company money and still benefit the consumer.
The representative also mentioned that ATT looks at Time Warner as a threat because in the few short years that they have offered digital telephone service, they have surpassed their competitors in many markets. According to this representative, ATT is trying to buy Time Warner out in every market. Apparently, ATT has been successful in many other markets, but has yet to acquire the local Time Warner in this market. So that takes me back to the question. What are we going to do here? Because let's assume that ATT buys out Time Warner completely - the affordable option that I discovered would no longer be available, and consumers would have to subject themselves to a very expensive monopoly. Sign this petition now, forward to your friends and feel free to send a comment to petitions@consumercredit101.com.
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