Complaint Review: AT & T

- Time removed from my AT & T Wireless Pre-paid account before the specified 45 day expiration date for time to be rolled over from the previous purchase

- $100 purchased on 9/3 rolled when time was purchased on 10/8

- Purchased $100.00 based on a deal of receiving the lowest call per minute fee

- Time from purchase on 9/3 and 10/8 was rolled over when time was purchased on 11/16

- Total time of $135.00 utilized was $13.50 per the AT & T representative, a total of $121.50 was removed from the prepaid account

- AT & T indicated the time would not expire until 12/27/02 during my last purchase of time

- Called to renew time on 12/27 and was told the balance expired

- Spoke to a phone representative on 12/27, was told that nothing could be done, that there is no way anything in AT & Ts system could possibly wrong, and was hang-up on after requesting to speak to a supervisor

- Called back to speak to a second phone representative on 12/27 and was again told nothing could be done and that nothing could possibly be wrong with the AT & Ts system

- Requested to speak to a supervisor, was told none were available, but that the representative would fill out a call back request form and I would receive a call with 2 to 24 hours

- As of 12/29 I have not received a call from a supervisor
- Called a 3rd time on 12/27 to get the complaint departments address and was offered no assistance or even asked what my concern was
- Called a 4th time on 12/27 to verify phone had been reactivated and was offered no additional assistance with the matter
- Called 12/28 to get the fax number to Correspondence and spoke to Franklin who actually decided to ask what he could assist me with

- Franklin got me to Phil who gave me a $30.00 credit, and forwarded my account to be looked at by his supervisor
- Was told time would expire on 2/11
- Written letter of commendation for Phil and Franklin to AT & T e-mailed on 12/28
- 12/30 spoke to Tracey and was told my number had call blocking and that is why the supervisor could not call me back, the supervisor did not leave a number to call her back

- It was later discovered that the number where I was staying for the holidays had call blocking and not my home number

- 1/1 to ensure $30 credit had been placed on the account

- Was told the time expired on 2/10

- Verified with a phone representative when the time would expire and I was told 2/11
- The representative could not explain why there was difference between his system and the Voice Response Unit
- He said the supervisor should be able to explain
- 1/3 spoke to Sharon to see why a supervisor had not called me back and to verify my expiration date and see why I was being given 2 different dates
- Sharon explained that there are 2 different systems that provide expiration dates one is in the customers time zone and one is in Greenwich Mean Time
- It is left to the customer to understand which system is correct without knowing one is in one time zone and another in Greenwich Mean Time
- 1/10 I called and was immediately given to a supervisor
- Supervisors name was Victoria- 5040
- I asked Victoria why I had not been able to directly speak with a supervisor in the past and she stated different sites have different procedures
- I asked her when my current time expired she stated the 2/11, I asked her why the Voice Response Unit stated the 10th and she started to explain the Greenwich Mean Time and I asked her what that meant to me in my time zone and she could not do the conversion
- I looked up the conversion and it means that my time expires at 6:18PM on 2/10 CST
- This means that by listening to a representative I would have lost my time again and it should be noted that I had to speak to 6 people before anyone could explain why the Voice Response Unit and the Representatives were providing different dates
- Victoria stated that I did not buy time until the 28th, time was purchased and a call made on the phone on the 27th
- Victoria next stated that I was lucky to have gotten a $30 credit and that she did not care if she lost me as a customer
- Called back on 1/10 again and spoke to Cathy who put me back in touch with the original supervisor who attempted to call me on 12/30
- The supervisor called back 1/10 with in 20 minutes
- Supervisors name was Cathleen
- Cathleen provided an additional $31.50 credit and apologized that she could not do more

- I asked several people along the way if the expiration date was in my time zone or in Greenwich Mean Time and no one could positively answer one way or the other
- In short no one could say for sure that when I was told my time expired on the 27th if that was in my time zone or Greenwich Mean Time, because evidently a few representatives do the time conversion for the customer

- The unresolved portion of this dispute in dollars is $60.00; however, another part to this issue is the number of minutes
- When I purchased the $100.00 on 9/3 I received the lowest per minute call cost
- As of the last time I used the phone before the removal of time I had 814 minutes, with the credits of $61.50 and the purchase of $25.00 I only have 254 minutes
- Cost per minute before the removal of my time was $.15 per minute
- Since my cost has gone to $.35 per minute or a 133% increase in cost
- I would need an additional credit $196.00 at $.35 minute to equal the original time that was removed on 12/26
- 814-254=560 minutes lost
- 560 minutes * $.35= $196

- As a side note I allowed ~$50.00 to expire back in April or March and did not call AT & T because I understand the 45 day roll-over policy on minutes and understood that allowing the time to expire was entirely my fault

Mary
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.

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