Complaint Review: AT&T Wireless - Internet Nevada

On or about 20 August, 2007, I purchased a Cingular 3G Laptop Connection Card, Option GT MAX 3.6 from their store at 4750 West Sahara, Las Vegas, Nevada.

The television commercial for this card said that it would provide high-speed internet anywhere, anytime. As I was about to leave for China, I thought it would be useful to have a single internet account for the times I would likely go back and forth.

I was explicit in describing to the sales clerk why I was interested in the device and where I was going with it. I bought it and paid, as I recall, about $260-270 for it and was told my monthly bill would be about $68. Although that is about double the local cable company fee, I felt it could be justified with the way in which I was going to apply it: that is to say, it would preclude any need for me to maintain two internet provider accounts.

When I arrived in China, I quickly found that the device did not provide high-speed internet. The speed was reminiscent of the 1980s, as it took up to ten minutes to download a single page. For that reason, I was on for considerably longer than I might otherwise have been. The contract, therefore, at that time, had already been breached.

After about a week, my internet service stopped altogether. (I was later to find out that this was done deliberately, arbitrarily and without intent to notify and the contract was breached in yet another way.) Soon after, around mid-September, my wife returned to Las Vegas. When she opened my credit card bill, she was astounded to find that AT&T had charged me $6,037 dollars for one week of internet service.

My wife, who does not speak English well, went to the retailer on Sahara where I had bought the card and asked for an explanation. According to her, they said that I had not told them I was going overseas with the card. They told her that the billing was because of roaming charges. They offered to reduce the charge by half, but that, of course, is still unreasonable, as it still works out to over $400 a day for internet service.

When I returned to Las Vegas in January, I went directly to the store on Sahara, explained the story from my perspective, and asked them to take back the card. They refused to accept it.

I believe it was the next day, I called a number the shop had provided and talked with a customer service representative. During my telling of the story, he revealed to me that one of their investigators made a record of having spoken with me while in China. I explained to him that such a thing not only did not happen, but could not have happened, as there was no way for this person to contact me. I then tried to get him to understand that their organization, besides their attitude toward customer relations, was also troubled with an integrity problem. He admitted that the investigator lied. I then told him that if they did not drop the charges, I would take several steps, the first of which would be to file a complaint with the FCC, which I did.

On or about 10 February, I got a call from an AT&T representative who spoke in a manner that was angry and sarcastic, though not quite over the line. He said that the billing was based on bandwidth and not on time usage. I reiterated that when I bought the card, I had not been told of any extraordinary charges for foreign use. He maintained that it was my word against that of the sales clerk on this matter. I countered by saying that no sales clerk would be willing to tell a potential customer that such service could cost $250 per hour, and reminded him that the card did not even provide the high-speed service it advertised, to which he responded by saying, in a sarcastic manner, something like, So you didn't get high-speed internet. That's too bad. He went on to say that they would never provide bandwidth in that situation at the price I was told to pay, the $60+ dollars per month. The phone call ended with him saying that they were willing to reduce the fee to half of the charge, to which I again stated that I would not pay.

On the 19th of February, I got a letter from a collection agency that has now raised the billing to $7,636.01.

I have complained to the state utilities commission a well, and they alerted the state of California's attorney general.

I have always had an excellent credit rating, and currently hold an open line of credit for nearly $200,000. I firmly believe responsible persons at AT&T, aside from a sadly immature attitude toward customer relations, have done the following:

Acted in bad faith

Failed to be forthright in explaining the obligations connected with the product.

Failed to provide the advertised service.

Arbitrarily broke our contract

Based their investigation into the matter in part on false testimony

Are defaming an honest customer

I finally settled for $1600 because I knew they were tearing up my credit rating, but I told them that my paying was not a statement of agreement. They extorted the money. It's that simple. Beware of AT&T. They will rip you off!

Ed xxxxxx

Las Vegas, Nevada

U.S.A.

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on AT&T

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.