SBC Once you're contracted, they don't treat you well Internet

My wife and I had SBC in Indiana and we never had a problem. When we moved to Wisconsin, however, it all went haywire.

To begin with, just after we moved my wife paid two bills online - first, the remaining balance from Indiana; second, the appropriate connection fees, etc. from Wisconsin. A month into having SBC up here we got a bill stating that we had never paid the connection fees, that our payment had bounced, that they would no longer accept checks or online payments from us, and that we were about to be disconnected. Our first response was to check with our bank, because we had just made a very large deposit and we knew that the payment couldn't possibly have bounced.

It turns out that according to the bank, there was only one debit from SBC - the Indiana payment. So, we called SBC and asked what had happened. They told us that the bank had responded with an insufficient funds notice. So, we called the bank again, and they told us that they couldn't have given anyone such a notice because of the deposit we had just made. We called SBC again, told them what the bank had told us, and they said they would require a notice, in writing, from the bank informing them that SBC had never attempted to debit our account for the connection fees in Wisconsin. We were being treated as "guilty until proven innocent," but at the time, we thought it was just a fluke because of moving and changing states. No such luck!

That was in August; when this was resolved, my wife also purchased DSL and agreed to the contract (although for some reason she didn't realize that that's what she was agreeing to). Come December, we got behind on our bill (I'm a grad student, so money's tight). That much is our fault - no contesting that. Our line was disconnected on roughly the 22nd. We were out of town at the time. When we returned around the 26th and discovered that our line was disconnected, we called and made an over-the-phone payment (using gift money from Christmas) and ordered a reconnection.

This is where things get complicated. All of the following I learned from a very nice SBC customer service rep named Tony after repeated calls (from my cell phone, of course) to try to get this figured out. Apparently, SBC has two different levels of disconnection - one temporary, one permanent. The permanent one is only supposed to be used when a bill is settled and an account is completely closed. The temporary one is what is used when an account gets behind on its payments. We were supposed to have been temporarily disconnected, but we were in reality permanently disconnnected. Because of this, when they went to reconnect the phone service, they actually gave us a whole new account. This meant two main things: first, we were charged connection fees as if we had just opened a whole new account, and second, our DSL had to be connected to this second account and removed from the first.

With regard to the first thing, we called, talked to several representatives over a period of a couple of weeks, and got the reconnection fees eliminated because it was SBC's fault, not ours, that we had been permanently disconnected instead of temporarily disconnected (Tony is the one who removed those fees for us).

With regard to the second thing, the removal of DSL from the first account and the connection of it to the second, we had lots of problems. First, we were charged for having DSL when the phone was disconnected. Second, the phone line was reconnected (with the new account) after the DSL was disconnected from the first account but before it was connected to the second account. Therefore, we had to wait for our DSL to be reconnected. We were given a date for it to be reconnected, but on that date nothing happened. I called their customer service line (which of course connected me to someone in India) to find out what was wrong. The man on the other end worked for over an hour to connect my DSL service before finally telling me that it looked like the system didn't recognize our line as being authorized to have DSL, and he told me to call SBC DSL service the next day. So, I did just that, and I was told that someone would have it connected in a few days's time.

On the day it was supposed to have been connected this time, I checked it, it didn't work, and I called again. This time, I was actually told that the work order was sitting on someone's desk waiting for the original disconnect to be cleared before it could be reconnected to our new account. By now, it had been three weeks since our original disconnection. So I tore into the poor woman on the other end of the call. She told me that it would take a week to connect the DSL because of the way that they deal with the work orders, and so I told her to forget it, we were tired of having to deal with SBC, we were going to get, they'd lost a customer because of poor service, and yes I'm sure.

We then got a bill for about three hundred fifty dollars from SBC. I called again, I told them that many of the charges had been removed (or were supposed to have been removed) by Tony. The CSR looked it up, saw that he had indeed removed the charges, and told me how sorry she was and that they would correct those charges. She, however, could not tell me the amount of the adjusted bill, and I wanted to make sure that everything that should have been credited was credited. She advised that I wait for the next bill, check it to make sure I was satisfied, and then I could pay.

At this point, I was frustrated that we were going to have to pay the $200 early disconnect fee for the DSL, but it was worth it to me, so I was going to accept the situation as it was at this point. However, I told her that an automatic payment was scheduled to come out a few days later, and could she put a hold on it so that I could get that next bill. She said she could do that.

So, my wife and I were saving to take a trip to see her Grandfather. She hadn't been able to see him in several years, he had cancer, and he will probably pass away before we can get to see him again. On the day before we were supposed to leave, over $250 dollars was taken out of our account by SBC as an automatic payment. Complaint #1: the amount did not include all of the credits we had been promised. Complaint #2: they weren't supposed to have taken it out anyway!

I called that day, and boy was I furious. The poor woman I talked to was very apologetic, she saw in the record that the withdrawal was supposed to have been stopped, she promised that we would recieve a check for the withdrawn amount within the next few days, and I left the phone call feeling okay - not really happy, but I did think everything had been dealt with.

We scraped together enough money to get to Texas, but we were depending on our SBC check to get us home. Our roomate was going to deposit it when it came, but of course it never did. I called SBC on Good Friday and talked to a very helpful young lady named Kelly who apologized, explained that no check could have gone out that fast, no one should have authorized it or told me it would, and said she would contact the appropriate department to see if she could get ahold of our money and mail it out immediately. She promised me a return call in no more than two hours.

Two hours and five minutes later, I called her back. I was informed by an automated system that SBC's call centers were now closed for the holiday weekend, and could I please call again Monday?

Having now had to borrow money to get home, and suffering several overdraft fees that were caused by the absence of the promised money, I called SBC on Monday and eventually got back to Kelly. She remembered me, was surprised that I hadn't heard from the department she had contacted on my behalf, and then she transferred me to her supervisor (who I think was named Laura, if memory serves). Laura arranged everything - a refund of the amount that was to have been credited, an extra amount to cover the overdraft fees, and a closing of the account.

At this point, however, I had one last bone to pick. I decided that I wanted to contest the $200 cancellation fee. Laura transferred me to the appropriate people. I talked to a man who was actually the only SBC CSR throughout this whole issue that was rude and obnoxious, and I argued as follows: Your company has treated us badly, not done what it ought to, no one has been held liable for any of the things SBC has done to us, and I don't think it's fair for me to pay to leave a company that has treated us in such a fashion. His reply was brief: the contract says we'll provide DSL for twelve months and you'll pay for twelve months, or you pay $200 for leaving; it says nothing about the quality of customer service. (Yes, he actually said that.)

My reply was that the initial disconnection of DSL was not our fault. (If you'll remember, although this is a long post, our DSL was disconnected not because of our failure to pay but because SBC incorrectly disconnected us and they had to disconnect and then reconnect the DSL because of their own mistake.) I told the man on the phone that Tony had told me that the disconnection was done in error (permanent vs. temporary, I mean) and that this was the reason for the disconnection of the DSL. Therefore, SBC had failed to provide us with 12 months of service - they had disconnected our DSL and not reconnected it when promised. Therefore, SBC was in violation of the agreement, even in the simplified version he had phrased it in.

He replied that because the initial cause of the whole situation was our failure to pay on time, SBC wasn't liable. Again, I responded by pointing out that his own company had told me that the disconnection wasn't done the way it was supposed to have been and that was the reason for the DSL disconnection. In response, he simply said that there was no mention in my account of any improper disconnection - permanent, temporary, or any other - and therefore he would not remove the $200 requirement, and was there anything else he could help me with?

I said no, just know that some else is getting your money now.

Jeremy
Franklin, Wisconsin
U.S.A.

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