AT&T Worldnet charged credit card over $550 in long distance fees for internet service for toll free number Maitland Florida

We signed up for internet services with AT&T online with our credit card authorizing them to charge the $21.95 per month. On the page we signed up from it was headed with "subscribe to AT&T Worldnet Service, Look up a local access number. We did that and found a local access number.

Last week we found out that AT&T had taken over $550.00 from our account. We called them to inquire and we were told we had been charged 10 cents per minute for accessing thier toll free number for the dial up. We did some research and found that instead of assigning us a local access number they had assigned us thier toll free number for our dial up time.

We have called them a total of three times trying to explain this and get them to credit us that amount back. We can't get past thier customer service reps to a supervisor and the CS reps can't do a thing. I want to know if this is legal for them to charge this to our credit card without authorization. They seem to think they are within the law and tell us that we would have been made aware of the charges using a toll free number when signing up.

I have read numerous complaints about AT&T's wireless service etc. I don't however find any viable suggestions or remedies. I have read AT&T's Terms and Conditons pages and I do see information regarding dispute resolution and binding arbitration governed by the FAA. It also mentions small claims court being an option. All this can take months! Not that this is a factor for most people but this is December and we had that money ear marked for Christmas presents for the kids.

We have called our bank and they have suggested filing an affidavit for unauthorized withdrawal. This mean we also have to change our account so that AT&T can't change the amount by an amount of pennies and re-submit for payment in the future. Please tell us what we might do that would effectively stop any collection efforts and get AT&T to voluntarily refund us the $550 plus dollars. NOT TO MENTION MAKE CONSUMERS AWARE and let AT&T know this is unacceptable practice.

Vickie
Orting, Washington
U.S.A.