AT&T and SBC Global Billing Screw Up on Their Part - 12 years later turned to Collection Agency!!!

I'm so upset I am not going to stop until I get to the bottom of this. I had the same phone number 614-890-xxxx from June 1994 to March 2005 at the same address in Westerville Ohio. Of course, without knowing anything at all about phone and communication company mergers and acquisitions, I just kept on paying my bills as they rolled along all those years. Things went from AT&T to Ameritech and then SBC Global and maybe some other variations I can't even remember. I had my phone services bill set up on electronic funds transfer to be paid automatically for several years - like maybe 8-10 years! so that I would be sure to pay my utility bills on time. Same with my gas bill, electric, etc.

I got the most shocking letter dated December 2006 from a company called Asset Acceptance LLC and the outside of the envelope had just a PO Box in Warren Michigan, no company name or nothing else marking this as anything important. I assumed it was junk mail and had put it in a pile of things to sort through after the holidays. I open these and remove my personal identifying information before trashing these.

I was incredibly upset to read that this was a Collection letter for $105 and I was being urged to immediately pay a past due balance for an AT&T bill. When I called, the collection agent stated their records showed they purchased old debts to collect from AT&T in November 2006 and included in that was one for me. I had no choice to pay this. If I didn't the situation would keep getting worse and worse. That there was no way to contact AT&T now and resolve this. I was forced to pay the collection agency today. They said I could argue until I was blue in the face but that it wouldn't do any good. I owed the debt and they were not going to stop trying to collect it. I asked for a phone # or a contact name at AT&T to discuss this with even if I did pay them today. They said they could provide no such information, they buy debts to collect as a group and have nothing to do with who the companies debts are they collect for. Incredible that they can't give you a number to call. Well, I can assure you, I'm going to find someone to call and just as the collection agency indicated they were going to be mean as a pit bull and not let go until I paid, I'm doing the same to AT&T. Even if all I can do is make their complaints ratio higher and make more scrutiny with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, there has to be something consumers can do to protect themselves.

When I moved in 2005, I went back 7 years and kept all key financial records and purged and shredded those older than 7 years. Incredibly this is probably the most painful thing I did because in 2005 I probably still had phone bill records from 1994 but MOST people would not! Now I feel I have no defense whatsoever on what the charges may have been. It only seems right that AT&T should be forced to provide a detailed accounting of what this mysterious $105 is for --- they shouldn't be able to turn you over to a collection agency for something they can't provide the details to you.

I appreciate any suggestions I can get on how to handle this.