Complaint Review: Ameritech - Milwaukee Wisconsin

In June, 2001, I went online and applied for

access for online billing. The Ameritech site

took a lot of information from me and then

informed me that I couldn't pay my bill until

they sent me a password. (Note that I had already

given them my checking account information.)

5 weeks later I received the password and went

online with it in order to pay my bill. It asked

if I would like to review my bill. I answered,

yes. It asked if I would like to pay my bill. Well,

naturally, yes I would like to pay my bill, so I

answered yes. It paid my bill without asking me to

confirm the account that was paying it. I had not

recalled giving the site my checking account information.

Unfortunately, that checking account had been closed

since then due to my being layed off. I had been layed

off from a brokerage, where one benefit given is their

VIP checking, but if you are not an employee, you need

10,000 dollars in the account to have the checking/banking

services at this brokerage. Naturally, not having 10,000,

I had to close the account.

The charge to a closed checking account was an honest

mistake, which better site design could repair by

showing you the account that is to be charged against.

However, when you clik on pay it automatically does

this. The only review is of your bill. Unfortunately,

there is no really good means of giving feedback.

I called Ameritech and their lines had a long wait,

so the next day I got through to Customer Service

and informed them of the problem, and requested

that they charge my Credit Card, instead. They informed

me that they couldn't stop the check from going through.

I called the brokerage and since the account was closed

and the bill was paid, everyone seemed to agree that it

was all OK now.

July 23rd the check tried going through again, and

they charged me 15 dollars for the unpaid check.

1) I owed no money on the account.

2) It is not a Non-suffcient Funds issue.

3) It was an honest mistake caused by the design

of their website. Everywhere else asks me to confirm

electronic financial actions before commiting to them.

I received an e-mail stating that I would no longer

be able to use the online bill pay since I had two

unpaid checks. I wrote an e-mail asking for this to

be adjusted.

The e-mail address that sent me the notice that I

can no longer use the online bill pay doesn't handle

any type of complaints or feedback. It doesn't even use

your name when informing you of this. Ameritech only

handles you by phone.

4) Isn't it ironic that in trying to simplify life I

prevented the simplification during first time use of

the _product_?

I called Ameritech and spoke to no less than 8

different people. At one point a Supervisor promised

me that a manager would call me back in 25 hours and

no one ever did call me back.

I finally spoke with their online people and they

agreed that they could remove the online restriction,

but they couldn't get collections to remove the 15

dollar charge. This made me fear that an NSF would

be reported to Chex Systems, or to a Credit Agency,

etc. This type of mistake would prevent new checking

accounts from being opened by me for the next 4 years,

among other credit problems.

When I explained this to the next collections person,

they said that the online people are supposed to remove

the 15 dollar fee, then asked me how it got there again,

so I explained it again, and this person asked

me why I left the checking information on the site.

I replied, "because I was informed I lost access to use

the site so why would I go back to it?" She asked why

I didn't update the checking account information and I

said, "because I didn't owe Ameritech anything for them

to bill." She insisted that the second check that caused

the fee wouldn't have occured if I had corrected the

information. I spent another 30 minutes trying to get her

to understand that I paid my bill and the second pass of

the check through the systenm wasn't a second bill being

paid, it was the same check making a second pass, so it

wouldn't have mattered if I had changed the account

information. She continued arguing with me, telling me

that I wasn't listening to reason. I asked to speak to

a manager, and she said she'd put me on a 24 hour callback

list. I said that didn't work the last time. She insisted

it would. I've heard nothing from a manager a second time.

This is really terrible Customer Service. I've spent

far more than 15 dollars of my time trying to resolve

this.

I've decided that no matter what, I am turning off

Ameritech in my house and switching to Cellular. My

average Ameritech bill: 50 bucks. For that price I

can get mobile service which includes free long Distance,

call waiting, Caller ID, Voice messaging, text messaging,

and web alert acccess, plus 1500 night and weekend minutes,

1000 in network minutes, and 350 anytime minutes, and then

use voice over the internet to talk to my tech buddies via

instant messaging. Good-bye Ameritech. The future will

hopefully make you obsolete. (My Inet connect is already via

cable modem) This may not be the best solution for families,

or those who talk on the phone a lot. But this works for me.