2 years of billing problems

Hello, I hope posting this will help in resolving my 2 year old problem. 

My name is Jeff ; my previous ATT U-verse account number is ****.  I need your help getting a 2-year old U-vers mistake removed from my credit report.  Presently, a credit collection company (Franklin Collection Agency) has entered me into collections (with a collections account number of ****) and lists ATT UVERSE as the unpaid client. 

Here’s my situation:

- I am in the military and tend to move a lot.  When we lived in Southern California we used Direct TV as our provider.  When we moved to Kansas in 2006, Direct TV told us to leave our “equipment” in the house for the next owner and that they would supply/install new equipment in Kansas (which they did).  We ended up switching to ATT U-verse (because during bad storms/tornados, we lost our Direct TV service) and could not keep track of the hail/tornado storms effectively.  Our U-verse service was great and we kept it until our next move.

-In July 2011 my wife contacted ATT U-verse and let the customer service representative know that were in fact moving to Oklahoma.  While talking with the customer service representative, she explained how Direct TV had us leave our previous equipment in the home and installed new equipment in our new home….and asked if we should leave the equipment in the house, just like we had done with Direct TV.  The customer serve representative told her to leave the equipment and that they would bring new equipment to our new home.  My wife told the customer service representative to shut off our service at the end of August and that she would call back when we had a new address, so we could start new service in Oklahoma.  In fact the reference number to cancel the service in Kansas was ****.

-In 24 August 2011, my wife called ATT U-verse back to confirm shutting down our service in Kansas and creating service in Oklahoma.  She was given a new account number for Oklahoma (****).  She attempted to set up installation of the new equipment, but was told that the “earliest” ATT U-verse could come to the home would be 21 September 2011.  My wife did not want to wait that long, so she asked them to cancel the “new” service and received a cancellation reference number of ****.  My wife did not think to ask again about the previous equipment, nor did the representative tell us to return the equipment.

-In October 2011, (I still have the bill) we received a bill stating that we owed $235.36 (along with a lot of credits)….my wife called U-verse to find out what the problem was, since we had paid through the end of August and had done what was asked of us.  At first they told us that we needed to go and get the equipment; we told them that it was in another state and that the home had been sold.  We told them what we were told to do by the previous U-verse representative.  They agreed that they had made  a mistake and stated that they had fixed the problem.  We thought this was resolved.

-She called again on 13 December 2011 (at 11:28AM) and spoke to a billing department person (name unknown) and explained everything to that person.  The person agreed with us regarding the mistake and did a bunch of credits and stated that it was all fixed.  My wife asked for a confirmation number and was told that number was mm1843.

-We received another bill almost immediately, so my wife called again and spoke to “Rachel”….however, they lost connection.  My wife immediately called back again and spoke to “Jeff” (at 3:58PM).  After going through the everything all over again, he too said he fixed it and that it was resolved.  My wife asked for another confirmation number and was told that numbers was JS423B

-We received another bill in January 2012, so my wife called again.  This time she asked for a “Billing Supervisor”.  “Darrell” came on the line and identified himself as a supervisor.  My wife again recounted the entire story and was on the phone with him for over an hour.  At 6:05PM he too said that he had fixed the problem and that it was not our fault and that this was again resolved.  He gave a confirmation number of ****.

Fast forward to this year and I’m now getting phone calls from a credit collections company telling me that I now owe $646.00 (not the $235.36 on the October 2011 bill).  I had my credit report pulled and it does now indeed show that ATT U-verse has had a collections company make a mistaken derogatory input onto my credit report (their account number ****) for an unpaid amount.  When I moved to Oklahoma, I had a 760 credit rating….this has damaged me and brought my credit rating down to 668.  On my credit report I have 23 creditors listed with 839 reviews.  Of all the creditors and reviews, I show 835 reviews without one bit of negative information.  I also show a very old credit card (that I closed a long time ago) with 3 30-day late payments and then this collection.  I had nearly a perfect credit history and perfect payment history.

-I called ATT U-verse on 19 August 2013 and spoke with a billing supervisor named “Isabell”.  I again went through the entire sequence of events and she agreed that everything that I said tracked with what she showed in her computer history of our account.  I spoke to her at 10:45AM.  She explained that she saw that a previous case had been opened  and showed resolved, but later it somehow was reversed or reappeared again.  She told me that she was opening a new case (****) and that she was going to clear this all out and that it would take about 72-hours for it to clear out.  Once it cleared, it would go to the “receivables” department and once they were finished, it would be sent to the credit collections company to close and pull from my credit report.  I asked her to please send me a letter on ATT U-verse stationary that listed that my account was mistakenly put into collections (including the collections company’s account number) and that it was in the process of being removed.  I felt that was the only way that I could be assured that I could prove (should it again re-appear later) that this should not be on my credit report.  She said she would email me this and that she would contact me after the 72-hours was over and it had cleared….and that she would watch it and again email me when ATT U-verse had sent information to the credit collections company to close it on their end and clear my credit report. I asked her if she could see if I was ever late on any payments up to the date we moved (August 2011) and she stated no, that what she saw was that we always paid on time.

-I called ATT U-verse today (20 August 2013) because I did not receive an email from billing supervisor “Isabell” and spoke with another representative named “Adel”.  He told me that the case that Isabell opened yesterday had been rejected and that he could start another case.  He told me to email consumer.appeals@bellsouth.net and that they would get in touch with me within 24-hours...so I emailed that address on 20 August and haven't yet heard from them.  So now, I'm posting this on your forum....

I need your help.  This is ridiculous; we have contacted ATT U-verse at least 10 times and each time the ATT U-verse customer service/billing representative/billing supervisor has told us that this is an error on ATT U-verse’s part and that “they” would fix it; only for it to show up again (with a growing amount of what we owe….from $235.36 to $646.00).  ATT U-verse has agreed that we have been great customers and always paid on time.  My credit report is 99.5% PERFECT.  We have been very patient and paid our bills on time.  I would have NEVER left any equipment had the first ATT U-verse customer service person not told us to do so. 

Can you please contact me to clear this up and assist in clearing my credit rating!

 [edited for privacy - please do not post unique personal information]