Ameritech -Midwest phone company -Bad Customer Service *UPDATE employee agrees

In June, 2001, I went online and applied for
access for online billing. The Ameritech site
took a lot of information from me and then
informed me that I couldn't pay my bill until
they sent me a password. (Note that I had already
given them my checking account information.)

5 weeks later I received the password and went
online with it in order to pay my bill. It asked
if I would like to review my bill. I answered,
yes. It asked if I would like to pay my bill. Well,
naturally, yes I would like to pay my bill, so I
answered yes. It paid my bill without asking me to
confirm the account that was paying it. I had not
recalled giving the site my checking account information.
Unfortunately, that checking account had been closed
since then due to my being layed off. I had been layed
off from a brokerage, where one benefit given is their
VIP checking, but if you are not an employee, you need
10,000 dollars in the account to have the checking/banking
services at this brokerage. Naturally, not having 10,000,
I had to close the account.

The charge to a closed checking account was an honest
mistake, which better site design could repair by
showing you the account that is to be charged against.
However, when you clik on pay it automatically does
this. The only review is of your bill. Unfortunately,
there is no really good means of giving feedback.

I called Ameritech and their lines had a long wait,
so the next day I got through to Customer Service
and informed them of the problem, and requested
that they charge my Credit Card, instead. They informed
me that they couldn't stop the check from going through.
I called the brokerage and since the account was closed
and the bill was paid, everyone seemed to agree that it
was all OK now.

July 23rd the check tried going through again, and
they charged me 15 dollars for the unpaid check.

1) I owed no money on the account.
2) It is not a Non-suffcient Funds issue.
3) It was an honest mistake caused by the design
of their website. Everywhere else asks me to confirm
electronic financial actions before commiting to them.

I received an e-mail stating that I would no longer
be able to use the online bill pay since I had two
unpaid checks. I wrote an e-mail asking for this to
be adjusted.

The e-mail address that sent me the notice that I
can no longer use the online bill pay doesn't handle
any type of complaints or feedback. It doesn't even use
your name when informing you of this. Ameritech only
handles you by phone.

4) Isn't it ironic that in trying to simplify life I
prevented the simplification during first time use of
the _product_?

I called Ameritech and spoke to no less than 8
different people. At one point a Supervisor promised
me that a manager would call me back in 25 hours and
no one ever did call me back.

I finally spoke with their online people and they
agreed that they could remove the online restriction,
but they couldn't get collections to remove the 15
dollar charge. This made me fear that an NSF would
be reported to Chex Systems, or to a Credit Agency,
etc. This type of mistake would prevent new checking
accounts from being opened by me for the next 4 years,
among other credit problems.

When I explained this to the next collections person,
they said that the online people are supposed to remove
the 15 dollar fee, then asked me how it got there again,
so I explained it again, and this person asked
me why I left the checking information on the site.
I replied, "because I was informed I lost access to use
the site so why would I go back to it?" She asked why
I didn't update the checking account information and I
said, "because I didn't owe Ameritech anything for them
to bill." She insisted that the second check that caused
the fee wouldn't have occured if I had corrected the
information. I spent another 30 minutes trying to get her
to understand that I paid my bill and the second pass of
the check through the systenm wasn't a second bill being
paid, it was the same check making a second pass, so it
wouldn't have mattered if I had changed the account
information. She continued arguing with me, telling me
that I wasn't listening to reason. I asked to speak to
a manager, and she said she'd put me on a 24 hour callback
list. I said that didn't work the last time. She insisted
it would. I've heard nothing from a manager a second time.


This is really terrible Customer Service. I've spent
far more than 15 dollars of my time trying to resolve
this.

I've decided that no matter what, I am turning off
Ameritech in my house and switching to Cellular. My
average Ameritech bill: 50 bucks. For that price I
can get mobile service which includes free long Distance,
call waiting, Caller ID, Voice messaging, text messaging,
and web alert acccess, plus 1500 night and weekend minutes,
1000 in network minutes, and 350 anytime minutes, and then
use voice over the internet to talk to my tech buddies via
instant messaging. Good-bye Ameritech. The future will
hopefully make you obsolete. (My Inet connect is already via
cable modem) This may not be the best solution for families,
or those who talk on the phone a lot. But this works for me.