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BJS17's profile

Contributor

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Saturday, September 1st, 2012 3:26 PM

Combined billing

I really just wanted to comment because ever since I have combined my billing I have had absolutely the worst customer service experience with any service provider I have ever utilized. Hours on the phone with reps and 8 months later still having issues! Has anyone else had these issues??

 

I am on the verge of cancelling all of my services and joining my wife's plan! HELP!!

Expert

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12.2K Messages

12 years ago

try pming ATTAlexCM and detail the problems that you are having he should be able to get it to the right people that can help. The other att rep is on vaction until next week

ACE - Expert

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14.1K Messages

12 years ago

I worked in a combined billing call center for several years, and I saw nothing good ever happen from it. I always encouraged my customers to keep separate bills.

Expert

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12.2K Messages

12 years ago


@MicCheck wrote:
I worked in a combined billing call center for several years, and I saw nothing good ever happen from it. I always encouraged my customers to keep separate bills.

Have had for my landline and wireless for about 8 years never had a glitch with it at all, gues you mileage may vary

ACE - Expert

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14.1K Messages

12 years ago

Glad to hear you've never had a problem. I'm sure I never talked to people likle you, because people without problems don't tend to call in!

I'm sure most people don't have issues with combined billing. Most of the problems I saw weren't really problems, but rather confusion over high bills due to prorating.

Expert

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12.2K Messages

12 years ago


@MicCheck wrote:
Glad to hear you've never had a problem. I'm sure I never talked to people likle you, because people without problems don't tend to call in!

I'm sure most people don't have issues with combined billing. Most of the problems I saw weren't really problems, but rather confusion over high bills due to prorating.

tghe pro-rating issue has absolutely nothing to do with combined billing, those issues occur under combined or individualy billing.

 

From personal expierence on running a call center  - you only here from the lower percentage of people having the issue and they are upset about it, you never hear from the vast majority of people that never have a problem

As you stated most of the "problems I saw weren't problems at all"

ACE - Expert

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14.1K Messages

12 years ago

Prorating confusion tended to be worse with combined bills, since the amounts are so much higher. Think about a customer with a $150 wireless bill, and $150 Uverse bill, then add nearly a full month of prorated wireless charges, and that one bill could be over $500. Even if absolutely correct, that bill will raise some eyebrows. 😉

Contributor

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1 Message

11 years ago

You can uncombine it. I made the mistake of combining my bill only to see a whole months charge for 2 days, and when i talk to customer service they tell you,,, go look on page blah blah, ignore that it says 10/14 to 10/16 you're paying a month in advance to Nov 26, and then he had the gall to tell me i've been paying a month in advance all this time... which is not true... because i looked at the statements as he's telling me this and none of them before this was advance pay. And obviously anyone would know this simply for that fact that you didn't pay a whole month when you first activated the phone. ---. I told him to uncombine everything because i didn't want to deal with this side of ATT anymore. I wanted to get back to my Premier Desk. then he had the gall to tell me that i will be missing out on the combined bill discount....and i straight up asked him...oh really what was that discount...and then he said...oh you weren't getting a discount... O M G! --- I am just about ready to tell everyone on my plan to stop upgrading their phones so we can get the heck away from AT&T. As long as my premier desk continues to be great... I will stick with AT&T.. the minute they turn on me I am done.

 

Don't let them confuse you by saying it's prorated: --- prorated should only be LESS! not MORE!.  The difference is the way they bill you....so not only do you pay last months bill, but you're paying next months bill too! == and will continue to pay "advance monthly service charge" because they need to sync it with they way everything else gets billed. (in advance!).   of course it takes 2 billing cycles to get everything unconfusing...because you've just payed a month before, this prorated period...and a month in advance all in 1 Bill!   What genius came up with that billing syncing plan/process?

ACE - Expert

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14.1K Messages

11 years ago


@thuytran213 wrote:

You can uncombine it. I made the mistake of combining my bill only to see a whole months charge for 2 days, and when i talk to customer service they tell you,,, go look on page blah blah, ignore that it says 10/14 to 10/16 you're paying a month in advance to Nov 26, and then he had the gall to tell me i've been paying a month in advance all this time... which is not true... because i looked at the statements as he's telling me this and none of them before this was advance pay. And obviously anyone would know this simply for that fact that you didn't pay a whole month when you first activated the phone. ---. I told him to uncombine everything because i didn't want to deal with this side of ATT anymore. I wanted to get back to my Premier Desk. then he had the gall to tell me that i will be missing out on the combined bill discount....and i straight up asked him...oh really what was that discount...and then he said...oh you weren't getting a discount... O M G! --- I am just about ready to tell everyone on my plan to stop upgrading their phones so we can get the heck away from AT&T. As long as my premier desk continues to be great... I will stick with AT&T.. the minute they turn on me I am done.

 

Don't let them confuse you by saying it's prorated: --- prorated should only be LESS! not MORE!.  The difference is the way they bill you....so not only do you pay last months bill, but you're paying next months bill too! == and will continue to pay "advance monthly service charge" because they need to sync it with they way everything else gets billed. (in advance!).   of course it takes 2 billing cycles to get everything unconfusing...because you've just payed a month before, this prorated period...and a month in advance all in 1 Bill!   What genius came up with that billing syncing plan/process?


 

Prorating when combining a bill makes it higher.  Let's say your wireless cycle was September 14-October 13. On September 14, a bill for that month (in advance) is prepared...it would be due around October 10 (note: you're billed in advance, but if you pay on the due date, the cycle is almost over).

 

If you combined, and your wireless billing cycle has to be changed to the 27th-the 26th. That means you will be billed for the regular month from October 27th through November 26th. 

 

Unfortunately, that leaves the poor partial month from October 14th through October 26th without a billing cycle to call it's own. AT&T can't just pretend those days don't exist, so they find them a home on the next bill. That means you are paying for October 14th through November 26th on one big bill, just so no days feel left out. The next bill will include wireless charges from November 27th through December 26th. Since you've already paid through November 26th, there are no days without a billing cycle. At this point, every day has a cycle to call home, and you just pay one month at a time again.

Contributor

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8 Messages

11 years ago

 

All of my problems started last year when I canceled my home land line with ATT and ported my number to a Magic Jack. I have been told that combined billing and wireless have limited ability to see both sides of billing at once. Canceling my home line causes a billing issue for ATT. It removed me from their combined billing bliss & placed me in their combined billing [word filter avoidance]. For the second time I am dealing with what was resolved last October (or so we thought) only this time it’s double the amount. When it first began I called to ask about the letter that explained That I owe  $256.27  Which I believed I did not owe. Not one ATT representative could see that I owed money. This was also true when I logged in to all of my ATT accounts….no past due amount. After spending hours & hours in the phone system I would only be more frustrated. Then I started getting harassing bill collectors calling my cell number. At that point I gave the problem to my husband. He had the same results. Eventually he was in contact with Brain W. (Manager for combined billing)[edited for privacy – please do not post personal information]he convinced my husband that I did owe the money. Brian personally withdrew me from collections on 29-Oct-2012 for $256.27 because as he said “we were placed in collections by error”. After convincing my husband that I owed the money he gave my account a “courtesy credit” of $250.00 leaving minimal dollar amounts due.

 

In short we discussed it and ATT was to a credit us for the portion already paid and a bill would be sent to us for the remainder of the balance. I paid that bill as we agreed. They gave my husband their contact emails and asked us to give ATT until December 2012 to make sure everything was straightened out. (No one can connect us with those representatives now) We were under the impression that everything had been taken care because we did not receive any more bills for that period just our normal monthly cell phone bill until just recently out of the blue I received a bill dated April 4th and due April 4th for the house phone that had been disconnected saying there was a past due amount of $512.54 for the same time period we had previously taken care of.  That total bill is exactly double the amount of the last supposed bill.  This time the collection company has said ATT will accept half of the supposed bill reducing it from $512.54 to $256.27 the original amount in October.

NEST STEP: [Edited to comply with Guidelines]

Former Employee

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1.1K Messages

11 years ago


@zzz5 wrote:

 

All of my problems started last year when I canceled my home land line with ATT and ported my number to a Magic Jack. I have been told that combined billing and wireless have limited ability to see both sides of billing at once. Canceling my home line causes a billing issue for ATT. It removed me from their combined billing bliss & placed me in their combined billing [word filter avoidance]. For the second time I am dealing with what was resolved last October (or so we thought) only this time it’s double the amount. When it first began I called to ask about the letter that explained That I owe  $256.27  Which I believed I did not owe. Not one ATT representative could see that I owed money. This was also true when I logged in to all of my ATT accounts….no past due amount. After spending hours & hours in the phone system I would only be more frustrated. Then I started getting harassing bill collectors calling my cell number. At that point I gave the problem to my husband. He had the same results. Eventually he was in contact with Brain W. (Manager for combined billing)[edited for privacy – please do not post personal information]he convinced my husband that I did owe the money. Brian personally withdrew me from collections on 29-Oct-2012 for $256.27 because as he said “we were placed in collections by error”. After convincing my husband that I owed the money he gave my account a “courtesy credit” of $250.00 leaving minimal dollar amounts due.

 

In short we discussed it and ATT was to a credit us for the portion already paid and a bill would be sent to us for the remainder of the balance. I paid that bill as we agreed. They gave my husband their contact emails and asked us to give ATT until December 2012 to make sure everything was straightened out. (No one can connect us with those representatives now) We were under the impression that everything had been taken care because we did not receive any more bills for that period just our normal monthly cell phone bill until just recently out of the blue I received a bill dated April 4th and due April 4th for the house phone that had been disconnected saying there was a past due amount of $512.54 for the same time period we had previously taken care of.  That total bill is exactly double the amount of the last supposed bill.  This time the collection company has said ATT will accept half of the supposed bill reducing it from $512.54 to $256.27 the original amount in October.

NEST STEP: [Edited to comply with Guidelines]


@zzz5, thank you for your post. I'm sorry you're having difficulty. Please send a Private Message to ATTCustomerCare with your account information, email address and phone number. One of our managers will be happy to look in to this for you. 

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