Horrible customer service leads to theft of $389.00 from the widow of an AT&T linesman!

I will try to keep this as succinct as possible, but I am so angry that there may be a ramble coming in regards to this issue!

My mother is the 75 year old disabled widow of an AT&T linesman. My father worked out of the Norwalk,CT office for his entire phone work career. The reason I tell you this is because she is a DEDiCATED AT&T customer as it is a reminder of my dad and she believes in your organization. 

She purchased a go-phone account many years ago for emergencies when my dad got sick and has had the same phone account in good standing paying on time for over 10 years. She actually has a constant credit on the account as she is not tech savvy, does not text, and only uses it for emergencies such as power outages.

So on May 3rd, 2022 your organization emailed my mother notifying her that her account had been closed. There had been no prior email notifying her that there was an issue with her account or a warning that this would be occurring. My mother showed me this email the next day and asked me to contact customer service to resolve. I called customer service that day and spoke with "Mina" and she explained the 3G technology update. I explained that my mom was not notified beforehand about the closing.

In speaking with Mina she said that the notifications were sent by text. I have reviewed my mom's text messages  for the last 2 years (as she does not know how to delete them) and there is no notifications  explaining the tech update. She did receive  texts in regards to the privacy policy and money deductions so we know the system works. Mina told me that my mother would need to go to an AT&T  store in the area and they would sell her a new phone and her credit could then be restored. As my mom has over $389.00 in credits on her account, that seemed to be the best option.

So I took today off from work to take my mother to handle this errand. I took my mother (who needs a walker to get around) to the Derby, CT store. At the store, the associate notified  us that they could not help us as they can not reopen accounts and could only provide a new plan. So I  took the day off and put my mom thru pain for NOTHING!

I returned back to my mom's home and called customer service. I spoke to customer rep Louis first who tried to help, but did not have the authority to fix anything. He explained that Mina should have notified us that we needed to go within 10 days of notification to get the account reset. She absolutely did not tell me that as I would have made sure to get it resolved within that time frame. I then spoke to two other managers (Kevin who was rude) who did nothing to resolve the situation or even provide a phone number of someone who could help. Basically  he told me your organization had the right to steal the money eventhough he could NOT provide proof that my mom had been notified. 

So now I had to search for some avenue to help my mom (who is a senior on a limited income) recoup money that she is owed by your organization!

The customer service for this upgrade was no service at all! Your organization accepted her money in February 2022 to keep her account active, but there was no warning to her email before the account was closed in May. The customer service received after the closing was useless as we were not given a real avenue to resolve as the original customer rep did not provide all the correct info and all the contacts since did nothing to find a resolution. 

I hope that I will receive a response to this plea for help.  If I do not, I will be forced to go further up the chain or even to the media. I can not believe that no policy was put in place for this upgrade for those customers in good standing to recoup their money should they not receive the supposed notifications!