ast Thursday when I got home, I noticed a funny thing on my phone. I had five telephone calls from a number “800-222-0300.” No voice mail messages were left. I called the number and got a recording that I was to call AT&T’s billing office for a matter regarding my service.
I looked up the 800 number on Google. There were a lot of complaints about it, suggesting it was a physhing scam.
Early the next morning, I went online at AT&T’s Website and saw that I had forgotten to pay a bill for $39.99. So I paid with with a credit card. Since I was on their Website I felt reasonably secure that the number was safe.
Then the calls started again. One at 8:20 a.m., then 9:27 a.m., and then 1:44 p.m.
So I called the 800 number and went through a phone tree. Finally, I got a real person named Andrea and asked why I was still getting calls when I had paid my bill. “We have no register of that,” she said. I replied that I was looking at an official receipt for the $39.99 on my computer screen. I asked for her supervisor. I got Melissa. “May I call you Peter?” she asked. I said no, that she could call me “Mr. Galuszka.” I did ask that they stop calling me, saying the bill had been paid. Melissa told me I would have to write a letter, not an e-mail, and post it to a post office box in Charleston, S.C.
My anger stirred. Why did I have to do that? So, being a reporter, I sent an email to the AT&T flak in charge of blogs. Identifying myself, I asked what was going on and if the 800 number and the Charleston address were legit.
The calls stopped. On Monday, I got a call from Steve Harrison with the office of the AT&T president in Kansas City. He was very apologetic about AT&T calling me. He said they would stop. I said I had been a customer for years and was at fault for misplacing my bill, but it was only a little late.
I asked him why AT&T couldn’t just email me to alert me of a payment problem or other matter. “We’re not equipped to do that,” he said. I said that was odd since companies such as American Express can email and you both can go over the financial statement immediately. “It takes some time to post payments,” he said.
AT&T? I wondered. The all-knowing, all-caring telephone company of yore?
Mr. Harrison explained that in these hard times, lots of people fall behind on their bills. By making the recgular calls to them, they often connect with a customer service rep who can help with payment detaiuls or break up the payment into chunks to make it easier. I noted that this was a small bill easily corrected yet I had had eight calls in a little more than 24 hours . Wasn’t that excessive?
He apologized again, but said it was the way AT&T had chosen to go.
Peter Galuszka