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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.
"AT&T spokeshole"
Is this part of the new genderless naming styles from the AP?
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
You'd do well at AT&T
People still dial in to AOL with a modem in 2015? *That* is the real "News for Nerds"
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There's really nothing to see here. Except that long distance with per-minute charges are still a thing. And AOL is still a thing, I guess? I definitely would not have called that. And old people are easily tricked into buying both those things. I don't think addressing the ease with which old people are tricked is on the agenda. Whether it's aluminum siding or their uncle in Uganda, tricking old people is just way too easy. And phone companies will just let you run up tens of thousands of dollars in arbitrary charges in one month, and let you keep doing it for several months when you don't pay the first one, that's definitely been a thing for a while. I'm actually a bit surprised AT&T waived it. In the stories I've heard in the past, the telcos usually put up a pretty good fight about that sort of thing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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.
Many people in the USA live in remote areas with no good cell coverage and no cable or fiber optic. And that $50/month undoubtedly includes unrestricted local calls, which is why his previous always-on AOL usage was not increasing his bill.
There used to be good commercial reasons for AT&T to monitor for this sort of thing. It was tying up long distance trunk lines nearly 24x7 for a month, and those used to be radically more expensive and less available than local connections. It required an actual physical copper connection from one part of the country to the other, maintained 24x7 with significant electrical and maintenance costs. But today, with all the different ISP's and phone services handling Voice Over IP instead and making much larger data connections, a single landline phone connection is a few packets lost in the flood of data.
Also, monitoring for this kind of accident is paying a lot more attention to individual customer bills and usage than I necessarily want AT&T monitoring. AT&T has already established that they cooperate extensively with monitoring US communications at NSA request, especially with the notorious "Room 641A". DO we want them collecting and acting on this kind of data?
My bank can and do notify me when there is 'odd spending' happening on my credit card. Usually it is just some odd store I have purchased from online.
Having their billing system trigger a flag when it hits 10x the usual cost and halt access and red flag for support to call them when it hits 100x is NOT hard or invasive. This wouldn't even need metadata, it could simply wait for the daily billing totals to tally up and run off that.
...
docsigma2000: jesus christ man ...!!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK
docsigma2000: my son is sooooooo dead
c8info: Why?
docsigma2000: hes been looking at internet web sites in fucking EUROPE
docsigma2000: HE IS SURFING LONG DISTANCE
docsigma2000: our fucking phone bill is gonna be nuts
c8info: Ooh, this is bad. Surfing long distance adds an extra $69.99 to your bill per hour.
docsigma2000:
docsigma2000: is there some plan we can sign up for???
docsigma2000: cuz theres some cool stuff in europe, but i dun wanna pauy that much
c8info: Sorry, no. There is no plan. you'll have to live with it.
docsigma2000: o well, i ccan live without europe intenet sites.
docsigma2000: but till i figure out how to block it hes sooooo dead
c8info: By the way, I'm from Europe, your chatting long distance.
** docsigma2000 has quit (Connection reset by peer)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
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
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.
Well, let's see here.
Firstly, there's no immediate feedback on phone charges. A running faucet or light left on will get noticed and turned off - people *want* to be sensible about their expenses.
Imagine a running faucet going unnoticed for 4 weeks. Phone services are like that.
Secondly, when the user does nothing different and suddenly gets these charges, can you really blame the user?
Imagine you work adjacent to the waterfront district, the Queen Mary happens to be docked there, and your phone calls are picked up by their tower and considered an international call - you've just racked up several hundred dollars for no apparent reason. Is it the user's fault?
Thirdly, there's no safeguards or limit switches in the system. You can't say to the phone company "I want service capped at $100 per month, alert me if it goes over".
You put the phone back in the cradle and the plunger switch doesn't disengage properly, the phone is still "off hook", and you go away for the weekend. When you get back, you've had a line open for 76 hours and will be billed accordingly (depending on your service plan).
And finally, and the one that gives people a burn about these issues, there's the issue of elites and the plebes.
You see, he *only* was able to get things straightened out because an elite was kind enough to help him. When he tried to straighten it out the phone company blew him off, but when an elite got involved it was sorted out immediately.
This sort of customer service - where the customer doesn't have to fight tooth-and-nail for everyday consideration from a big company, isn't available to you and me.
It's a perk of the elites.
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.
Like this.
I had my own issues with our local phone company. Several years (yes years) after I bought and moved into my house I got a visit from the Police. Hearing a knock at the door at 10pm on a Saturday night scared the hell out of me... I have a gated yard, so it meant someone jumped the 4ft wall just to come up and knock. The said they'd gotten a 911 hangup. I've never had my land line hooked up in this house, and no phones plugged into any lines anywhere. They shrugged it off. A couple weeks later, more police visiting mid day, same reason. I called the phone company and they had no record of service at this address, the police (supposedly) also called, and everyone figured it was fixed.
Nope... 3rd visit from cops, even they were getting annoyed at this point. This time I spent nearly 2 hours on the phone with phone company. They finally kicked me over to another department (tech guys I think) who found that a previous tenant, years earlier, had the emergency only (life-line) service. It had been "disconnected" in the system in every way as far as billing and such were concerned, but wasn't actually physically disconnected. The tech guys were finally able to fix it.
This is a case where you'd think their system would be able to detect that calls were being placed by a residence that had no service. Nope.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
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!
All of history. Old news. No story there.
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.'"
There's an excellent video infographic showing the breakup of AT&T and years later the the pieces re-constituting themselves .
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