Alternatives, was Re: AT&T Bill For *Non Existant* Line. What to Do?
Danny Burstein
writes:
[ snip of Yet Another set of improper bills from AT&T ]
My recommendation: don't waste time trying to work through AT&T. Spend
fifteen minutes writing a letter to your State's Public Service
Commission, cc'ing it to the Attorney General.
Point out that AT&T has been cited by a half dozen State AGs in the
past month for sending out improper bills and that you are not going
to clean up their act for them [a]. For example, check out NYS's press
release from 04-May-2004 titled:
PSC Chairman Flynn Announces New AT&T Commitment to Fix Remaining
Bill Problems
available at www.dps.state.ny.us, then choose the press release
section. (the direct url is a javascript monstrosity).
[a] A couple of side notes:
1) the press release describes the problems and how AT&T agrees
to not charge people who complain, and will, after their
investigation, refund the improper bills. There is *nothing*
in the release that talks about any penalties against them.
Keep in mind that, let's say, twenty percent of the people
getting these bills simply paid them, and are continuing
to pay them... So there's every incentive to the companies
that do this stuff to keep doing it.
2) There's no relief for the customers who had to waste
their time, effort, and money, to get AT&T to fix this.
3) Any other business sending out improper bills of this
sor, by the thousands, would find the treasurer walking
out of the office with a pair of chrome bracelets.
4) I suspect that many places have recognized that making
"the usual errors" of this sort have no downside, and
plenty of pluses...
(and yes, I've written to the PSC stating these points).
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]