COLLECTIONS

What is the appropiate (beings I guess the term legal makes this an inappropiate post) procedure for sending an account to collections?  My husband has been sent to collections from ATT, for an account that is not his.  Upon speaking with ATT representatives, via the telephone and live chat, it has been proven that they did send his account by mistake.  This collection item lowered his credit score by 41 points, and even though ATT acknowledges that it is their error, they will not do anything to correct the issue, other than refer us to the collection agency and the credit bureau.  I understand that this is the way to go about handling a fraudulent case, but this error is not ours to fix.  We know the source, and it technically is not fraud.  It is human error as the collection was sent BY NAME and not my SOCIAL which I will never understand.  We have contacted the collection agency (who asked us to email his social, which we will NEVER do), and have now turned to TransUnion.  Unfortunately, with ones credit score being such an important factor, we could not wait to file the complaint to have the issue resolved, but I am beyond curious to see if this is actually a procedure that ATT has in place.  You are dealing with peoples credit score here.  If we would have been in the process of purchasing a home, this could have RUINED our chances of qualifying.  I have faith that TransUnion will correct the error, but I will never return to ATT for the inability to accept responsibility for their own error.