Phone doesn't work, don't have the passcode and AT&T has the wrong email: what do I do?

Hi there @ArmyMom1977!

Thank you for joining our Community Forums. I apologize you have run into this particular issue regarding your account. When our customers are overseas, we definitely want services to be available. I will be happy to further assist you regarding this account issue.

If you are an authorized user on the account, please send us a private message. If you are not an authorized user on his account, please have him send us a private message to @ATTMobilityCare. Have him include his full name, account number, phone number, and email address where we can contact him.

We hope to hear from you soon, until then please have a great rest of your weekend!

Shenoah, AT&T Community Specialist

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@ArmyMom1977 wrote:

My son entered into a 2 year contract with AT&T last week after having a go-phone for several years.

Not to be nit-picky, he does not have a contract. He might have bought the phone on a payment plan (no interest), but if he pays off the phone (he's out of the commitment).

No power of attorney paperwork left behind for you for when legal matters come up?

There are no AT&T stores in Germany where he can go to get the problem resolved by showing his ID.

I'm a bit off topic, but if you're going out of the country I have no idea why you'd sign up for a plan in the US shortly before going, it's a fortune to use a US plan internationally. It be way cheaper to buy a plan there. And as you know, AT&T doesn't have stores there.

However, the sales lady entered his email address incorrectly on his account.

If you know the wrong address and if the e-mail mistake is obscure enough, go create a new e-mail account with that address.

He cannot even cancel the contract at the end of the 2 years because he doesn't know the passcode and can't reset it because the phone doesn't work and AT&T won't fix his email address.

Is he still going to be in 2 years?!?!?  (see my previous comment) 

Actually, did you set up autopay in the store? If you didn't, you won't even be able to pay the bill if you can't log in.

The second part of this problem is that he set up an international passport plan. It is in his contract, which we have reviewed several times. The people on the AT&T international service line have twice told us that he has to have an active contract for 3 months before international service starts working. At no point did the sales lady mention a 90-day waiting period - the lady SPECIFICALLY said several times that the phone would work as soon as he arrived. 

Carp! I forgot about that one! Yeah, that's a rule.

Hmm... If he's military you might be able to get an exception for that depending on how he was transferered / stationed there.

@ArmyMom1977  

ATT asks customers to pick a passcode/PIN number.  If a customer does not do so, the default is the last 4 of his Social Security number.    

Hopefully that's the code you need.

Also, if he sends in his deployment orders and is still paying for the phone and service here, he can get his phone unliocked for use with a foreign SIM card.  

One mom to another, this wasn't the best way to go.  He should have paid full price for an unlocked phone and continued to use Gophone.  This way he's paying twice as much as he should for service, and it's limited service too.

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@Gary L wrote:

Canceling isn't a problem, once he's paid the phone off, just stop paying the bill. They'll send a final paperbill and you're good to go. If you don't fix the other issues you'll need to call the charge card company / bank and have them stop paying bills for that vendor, but it should be doable. 

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That is not the way to terminate service on a postpaid plan. Simply not paying the bill results in being sent to collections and a hit on your credit. It is crazy for your son to continue to pay for a domestic plan he can't use and pay for an international plan on top of that. He does really need to cancel service and get a plan from a local provider. He can use his military orders to cancel without penalty and possibly not even have to pay off his phone. He also qualifies to get his phone unlocked so he can use it on a German carrier.

@sandblaster wrote:
That is not the way to terminate service on a postpaid plan. Simply not paying the bill results in being sent to collections and a hit on your credit. It is crazy for your son to continue to pay for a domestic plan he can't use and pay for an international plan on top of that. He does really need to cancel service and get a plan from a local provider. He can use his military orders to cancel without penalty and possibly not even have to pay off his phone. He also qualifies to get his phone unlocked so he can use it on a German carrier.

I was really thinking about port the phone number out then you'd get a paper bill, right? But you probably can't port out without a number. But then I don't have ANY idea how I went down the cancel it rabbit hole, I must have been thinking something, but it's not so great when I read it now.  (I'm just pulling the whole section out for now).

@sandblaster But now that it's brought up: They're NOT going to send out a single paper bill before they send you to collections???  They just send you there without trying one paper bill. That seems wrong... 

@Gary L I might be missing the point about a paper bill but no, I'm pretty sure you don't get sent to collections after not paying one bill. Service might be cutoff but ATT would continue billing for several months before canceling the account and sending to collections.

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@sandblaster wrote:

I might be missing the point about a paper bill but no, I'm pretty sure you don't get sent to collections after not paying one bill. Service might be cutoff but ATT would continue billing for several months before canceling the account and sending to collections.

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So you'd pay that then and no collections...?  But if you want your number you'd need to port out. 

But if they are gone two years (and that's how @ArmyMom1977 made it sound) no one will have the number, so canceling isn't such big deal, no one is going to be calling them on that number since it'll be too expensive (at least I hope not). So losing that number won't be too big of a deal. (It feels like a new number, it might not be)

I still think there would be a power of attorney form that could solve all of this.

@ArmyMom1977 Another thought: If he can do power of attorney paperwork there (someone on base) and send you the paperwork, then you don't need to send anything back. Plus, you'd have the paperwork for other unforseen potential problems. 

PLEASE, ship the phone with insurance on the shipping!

FYI

"Porting out" is transferring your number to another carrier (number portability).

I was going to suggest send the phone back though I'm not understanding why he is not able to set up online account access. Both email and passcode can be corrected through the online account. Regardless, does he realize how much service is going to cost him? I figure the cheapest plan he could get (1GB) is $50.  Add the passport plan, that's another $40. Then with his phone installment, he's around $120/month plus any calls he makes while overseas is another $1 per minute. Plus he only gets 200mb of data, he will be paying extra for that if he goes over. He really should cancel service while stationed overseas, get his phone unlocked and get service from a German carrier.