Fraud Dept Unreachable

If you or someone else authorized on your account didn’t add them, that almost certainly means identity theft and it was probably new phones in addition to those new lines. You should escalate to corporate by filing an FCC or BBB complaint. You should also check credit reports for other signs of identity theft.

OK. I filed a complaint with the FCC. Any idea what the next steps should be? I think it was someone in the store who did my upgrades. I guess it is called "cramming".

So you upgraded phones and got new lines added with them instead of being processed as upgrades on existing lines? If so, that explains why the fraud department said no fraud. Even if you didn’t realize they were adding lines, you still had to sign off on the transaction. That’s not cramming but it is still wrong. The good news is that’s not identity theft. Was this upgrade done at an authorized retail store? We see that complaint often with authorized retailers. In any event, wait for your response from corporate. Hopefully, they will make it right.

Yes it happened at an authorized retail store. I provided my PIN at the start of the interaction, but after that I never "signed-off" on anything.

It has been such a runaround since I found out: the store told me to call customer service, they told to talk to the store, which led me to a diferent store, they told me to call fraud, they told me nothing was wrong, which led me here, and then to the FCC. 

Well I contacted the FCC. And someone at AT&T from the office of the president sent me an email. In it they said there was no phone number listed to contact me (which I did put that in the FCC filing) and that I should contact them at a listed phone number or email. Well the phone number goes straight to voicemail and no reaponse from the email. So another dead end.

It isn't fraud (by AT&T's definition), so trying to go down that route will always be a dead end. Since these lines were added in your presence  (and I'm surprise you finished a transaction with out having to sign showing you agreed to anything). This is a job for regular customer service. 

Are there installment plans associated with those lines? 

If no, call customer service and requested the lines be disconnected and back dated to the day they were activated. If they cannot or will not backdate, then make sure they're disconnected and proceed to the "If yes" portion.

If yes, it's hairier. In that case, file a complaint with the BBB. It will go to the same group as FCC complaints, but probably best to start fresh since they pretty much brushed aside your first complaint. Explain the full story, that you went to purchase new phones but two unrequested lines were added to the account as well, with installment plans (if that's correct) and you'd like them disconnected and the billing corrected. 

Maybe put your phone number in the body of the complaint so they can't claim you didn't fill in that field. 

I didn't sign anything. My receipts have a line for a signature, but no signature. 

There are installment plans and that's precisely what I put in my conplaint. You only get 500 characters to describe the event. And it wasn't "brushed aside". They just gave me a callback number that doesn't get answered.

They just gave me a callback number that doesn't get answered.

Sounds pretty brushed aside to me. 

It takes far less than 500 characters to tell them what happened:

I went to the store at X to upgrade phones on my two lines. When I got my bill, I noticed that rather than upgrading the existing lines, they had added two lines with the installment plans connected. I would like to have the new lines disconnected and the installment plans moved to the existing lines. You can call me at 333/333/3333

That still leaves you over 100 characters for the address. 

I finally got a callback from the AT&T person and was not brushed aside. They seemed very knowledgeable (and super busy) and said they would move the upgrades and payment plans and trade-ins to the correct lines and have the erroneous lines removed.

So it seems that filing an FCC complaint was the way to go!