Southwestern Bell ripoff Houston Texas

Fradulent and Misleading Billing

I have recently become a victim of companies trying to mislead customers and charge enormous money. Southwestern bell phone company ripped me off by sending me 730$ bill for just 2 calls to India. This story begins when SBC one day out of the blue sent me a bill around 100$ for adding some extra features on my account ..which I NEVER EVER asked for.

My regular basic SBC local bill every month is always around $25/pm. I called them back to get this error rectified and they admitted making that mistake and removed those features from my account. No sooner had I got out of this mess.. the representative I was talking to put me a in bigger mess. My long distance (including International) carrier at the time was ATT to which I was paying 42c/min for calls to India.

This represenative (wish I knew his name)spoke a clean white lie and tells me that did you know that ATT was charging me 5$/pm for in state long distance calls. I told him that I wasn't aware of it and that I dont make any in state long distance calls from land line because I use my cell phone for that. (ATT denied making that charge). He said that he could offer me the in state long distance for no monthly charge as against 5$ by ATT. And I agreed because I thought its better than paying monthly charge 5$ to ATT for something that I don't even use.

Little did I know that by doing so I was changing my long distance carrier from ATT to SBC and that it would knock off my international plan with ATT. That representative did not want to inform me of the same. I am sure he would have shouted that out and loud it were knocking off my SBC international plan. Satisfied that I had settled the error they made earlier I hung up the phone. A few days later I made two phone calls to India one for about 1.5 hrs and the other one for about a 15 mins. Few days later I recieve this bill from SBC for about $730 as they charged me for calls to India at the rate $4/per min as my regular international plan of 42cents/per min had been knocked off without my knowledge.

Till this date I have been trying to settle this issue with them but of no help. They are extremely adamant and unwilling to help. They have reported my non payment of the bill to the credit bureau and it is reflecting very badly on credit report. I have offered them to pay the bill at the SBC international rate of 55 cents/permin compared to 42cents/min for ATT, but they don't seem to interested. I am under no circumstances ready to pay 730$ for 2 calls as I feel I have been awfully cheated and mislead.

Unfortunately I would have to file a lawsuit against the company if they do not settle this.

Lalita
houston, Texas
U.S.A.