Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service
McGruber writes: 83-year-old Woodland Hills, California resident Ron Dorff usually pays $51 a month to AT&T for a landline, which he uses to access the Internet via an old-school, low-speed AOL dial-up subscription.... but then, in March, AT&T sent him a bill for $8,596.57. He called AT&T and their service rep couldn't make heads or tails of the bill, so she said she'd send a technician to his house. None came, so Dorff figured that everything was ok.
Dorff's next monthly bill was for $15,687.64, bringing his total outstanding debt to AT&T, including late fees, to $24,298.93. If he didn't pay by May 8, AT&T warned, his bill would rise to at least $24,786.16. Droff then called David Lazarus, business columnist for the LA Times, who got in touch with AT&T, who wasted little time in deciding it would waive the more than $24,000 in charges.
AT&T spokeshole Georgia Taylor claims Dorff's modem somehow had started dialing a long-distance number when it accessed AOL, and the per-minute charges went into orbit as he stayed connected for hours.
AT&T declined to answer the LA Times questions about why AT&T didn't spot the problem itself and proactively take steps to fix things? AT&T also declined to elaborate on whether AT&T's billing system is capable of spotting unusual charges and, if so, why it doesn't routinely do so.
Dorff's next monthly bill was for $15,687.64, bringing his total outstanding debt to AT&T, including late fees, to $24,298.93. If he didn't pay by May 8, AT&T warned, his bill would rise to at least $24,786.16. Droff then called David Lazarus, business columnist for the LA Times, who got in touch with AT&T, who wasted little time in deciding it would waive the more than $24,000 in charges.
AT&T spokeshole Georgia Taylor claims Dorff's modem somehow had started dialing a long-distance number when it accessed AOL, and the per-minute charges went into orbit as he stayed connected for hours.
AT&T declined to answer the LA Times questions about why AT&T didn't spot the problem itself and proactively take steps to fix things? AT&T also declined to elaborate on whether AT&T's billing system is capable of spotting unusual charges and, if so, why it doesn't routinely do so.
AT&T keeps requesting that I enroll in autopay. I've resisted for fear of crap like this.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
This isn't an errant bill or anything. The person called long distance that much in two months.
And AT&T waived it after it was pointed out. So why freak out about this?
Finally, I'm really ashamed of slashdot approving an article which refers to an AT&T spokesperson as a "spokeshole" for no reason. Georgia Taylor didn't do anything to deserve that.
Show some maturity, slashdot.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I know right??? :)
I had an elderly customer stop into my computer repair shop. He had a laptop with XP. It caught cryptowall 3.0 and all his files are now permanently irrecoverable. I told him XP was unsafe to use on the internet and he insisted that it "works just fine," you know, because he know more than me about computer security...while his laptop is sitting here with a virus on it. He said a ton of people have told him to stop using it and he ignored them all. He drove here in a REALLY expensive car by the way so I don't think money is an issue. He's just a stubborn, arrogant asshole.
Now how many people do you think told the guy in the story to switch off of dialup. I personally have had 5 people lately that refuse to stop using the "AOL Browser" even though it crashes every 5 minutes. I hate to say it but I blame the guy. He's using an outdated product and he doesn't truly know how it works and then a lack of support for the ancient product caused it to fail over to a secondary dial number that was considered long distance.
The key phrase there is "credit card." Your bank does that precisely because it is the one liable for fraudulent charges. If you were the one liable -- is is the case with debit cards, or phone bills (as per this article) -- then they wouldn't give a shit.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
yeah,
AFTER sending the customer an $8,000 bill.
AFTER ignoring customer requests to look into the matter.
AFTER not carrying out the promised investigative measures.
AFTER sending the same customer yet another bill, this time for $15,000 +
AFTER threatening the customer with leagl action, costs, etc.
AFTER the customer got so fucked off, they had to phone a journalist to interevene.
AFTER said journalists pointed out to those shameless fucks, the customer was 83 years old, and ATT had done NOTHING but exacerbate the problem.
- you want to give Kudos here? Sure, but give it where its deserved. Give it to Lazarus, who cared enough to rise to the issue.
Because, sure as fuck if a mainstream journalist hadn't shamed AT&T into dropping their attempted months-long extortion of an 83 year old customer, with a demonstration of Customer Care competence that would shame a pair of Mafia kneecappers, their automated legal harrasment system would still be trundling along, producing multi-thousand bills + recovery costs.
Kudos to AT&T? - remove the journalist, drop the customer age to, say, mid 30's - theyd still be at it. And no-one would care. Way too many AFTER's for Kudos here, sorry.
That's nice. I pay $80 USD to get 5 mbs and have to pay long distance charges. And I live in the US, a third world country.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Google Fiber can't come soon enough!
It is astounding how bad our ISPs are that we are literally lining up and begging for data-warehouser Google to come along and insert themselves between us and the internet.
And I totally agree with you. I needs it, my precious.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"