AT&T Messed Up - Charging Us For Almost a YEAR

I’m not understanding your issue. They told you up front you needed to add a line to get the promotion. That is the “ghost line” you speak of. Now that was a blatant lie that they wouldn’t charge you for that line but everything else is accurate. If you cancel that line, you lose any remaining phone credits and you will be billed the remainder owed for the phone. Now why you’re not using that line, I don’t understand. You can certainly use it. In any event, you can try escalating to corporate by filing an FCC or BBB complaint. The complaint will result in someone from corporate contacting you. I very much doubt you will get the resolution you seek but if corporate can’t or won’t resolve, no one will.

Adding a line is one thing. They were supposed to add my number which they couldn’t even agree was possible for some reason. This new line with a new number was always intended to be a placeholder. (To convert to this new phone number I’d be leaving behind the # I’ve had for literally 17 years with no issue across 3 previous carriers.) Then they finally succeeded in adding my number so why can’t that be the new line credited to the promo? It’s a new line on the original account. Why can’t they switch the promo to that line? Or, again, credit the account? It is clear that line is not being used. There is no phone or sim associated to it they will easily be able to check it. Also I have the original slip that shows the promo terms.

Your prepaid number does not qualify as a new line because it was already on ATT. 

Well that’s not what we were told, ever, either at first when inquiring if this was possible, or ever over the past 10 months...

Lol.   You can’t lie to a computer and you can’t fool a promotion set and run by computer.  
Trying to do what was done in your case is fraud.  
Filing a complaint reveals your complicity.  If I were you I would cut my losses and cancel the unused line while you can still at least break even. 

Sorry how were WE lying? We have told everyone at AT&T literally the exact same question/scenario of what we were trying to accomplish since day one in Feb. Again I have the (computer) print out confirming this. I spoke to multiple human beings who work for AT&T and no one ever said this was not allowed or even not possible. If they had it would have saved us and them 10 months of headache so I really wish they had. Thanks for your super helpful comment though!!!!!!!

Employees of AT&T have to be polite and delicate.  
We don’t work for AT&T, so can be straight forward.  

If you had no idea then, and still have no idea, you were trying to circumvent a requirement, which amounts to fraud, that rightly seems to have failed, with help from a rep who clearly didn’t care if it failed as long as you bought the phone and his convoluted idea - for gosh sakes, smell the Java.  

But can’t say I believe you didn’t think something was suspicious.  
   

Trust me I realize you don't work for AT&T, aren't polite, and are trolling for AT&T support boards for no apparent reason. 

We did NOTHING wrong. We absolutely qualified for the promotion. We added a line to an existing account. All I wanted to do was keep the phone number I've had all my life. How is any of this suspicious? Because I was already a prepaid customer? That's your entire basis for saying we're shady, suspicious and fraudulent?

Multiple agents across three local stores helped us with this process, and heard our explanation of exactly what we were trying to do. Not one of them EVER offered the fact that we didn't actually qualify as an explanation. Seems if that were the case it would have been stated immediately. 

But again. Thanks for your tremendous help. 

I don’t see where you did anything fraudulent or were complicit in any way. You were simply lied to. File the FCC or BBB complaint. 

I have had a very similar, very frustrating experience with AT&T.  We purchased a new phone for my son, who is in college, during a promotion in Sept 2020.  The promotion was: Get the phone for 1/2 price when you purchase a new phone and add a new line on an installment plan.  The day we purchased his phone, for whatever reason the AT&T store could not get his phone number to port to the new phone.  We were at the store for almost 3 hours working on this going back and forth between AT&T support and his previous provider.  As a solution they told us they were going to issue a "temporary" line for him to use with a new number.  They issued the "temporary" line because it was supposed to take 48-72 hours for the situation to be corrected.  My son needed to return to school and this way he was able to use the new phone  while we waited (the old phone we were replacing was broke beyond repair) .  No problem, right? WRONG!!  It has been an absolute nightmare.  They told me it would not be a problem to remove the temporary line once everything was taken care of.  They made it sound so simple.  

Fast forward to today 5-6-2021, I am still trying to get the situation fixed.  I have spent countless hours on the phone with these people for something that was caused by their own employees! 

Here's a short summary of what has happened between then and now.  After weeks of constant calling and store visits they were able to get my sons original number ported over to his new phone and added to the bill.  However when they did the port they did not transfer the installment plan with it.  The "temporary" line remained on our bill with the installment plan attached to it.  So at this point we were paying for 2 lines for one person with one phone.   Finally, at the end of December they were able to get the installment plan transferred to the correct line and the "temporary" line taken off the bill.  When they did this they did not transfer the promo with it which is a credit of  half of the installment payment each month.  I asked if I could just pay our half of the phone in one payment and be done with it.  I was told I could not.  In order to receive the promo we had to keep the installment plan.  Now,  I am trying to get them to honor the promo (which is why we purchased that phone model).  They are telling me the problem is that when they transferred the installment plan to the correct line It gave it a new start date of December 2020 instead of Sept 2020 which is outside of the dates of the promotion.  Seriously?!!  Why is this so difficult?!They know when the phone was purchased.  There are detailed records, countless case numbers, and STILL they cannot add the promotion to his line???   Since then I call each month when the new bill comes out.   I am given assurances that yes it will be fixed and that my case is now considered to be escalated to an "urgent" status, whatever that means.  So far it has meant nothing because they are still not getting it fixed.  At this point their customer service has been dismal and I think they are just blowing me off and not trying to fix anything.  

As a side note,  I have been a customer with AT&T for over fifteen years so its not like I bounce around between service providers.