AT&T home phone service

My name is Aliaksandr Penksik and I am an AT&T customer. My account number is 84722904762273. I currently have my phone, cable, and internet services with AT&T. I am writing you with a rather large problem which presented itself with AT&T service in December of 2008.

Let me explain:

In December of 2008, during one of the conversations with a customer service representative of AT&T, I was offered a special rate for my phone service (14 dollar reduction) in exchange to an upgrade to a higher speed of my internet service which would cost only 5 dollars. Since that seemed like a better deal to me (saving roughly 10 dollars) I decided to go ahead and agree to the change under one condition- that nothing would change on my phone plan (no addition of subtraction of any services). I was told by the representative that everything would stay the same on the calling plan. After two weeks had gone by, I was checking my account online and noticed that my long distance provider, which was Primus for the longest time, was switched to AT&T. I never gave my consent to make that switch either to AT&T or Primus. I immediately called AT&T customer service and demanded that my long distance plan was put back with the provider that I had before (Primus). I also demanded that the calls that I made to overseas during that time were not charged at AT&T rates due to once again never agreeing to switch my long distance provider to AT&T. The reason why I chose Primus in the first place as my long distance provider is because their rates are roughly 100 times less than the those of AT&T for international calls (for example: Primus-$0.03 per minute, AT&T-$6.00 per minute). I was immediately told by the customer service representative that my long distance plan will be switched back to Primus right away and also that AT&T will charge me for those calls at the rates of Primus. Needless to say, I was very surprised to see that my statement that came in January of 2009 showed that I owed $1,400.97. That sum was for 9 calls to United Kingdom, Belarus, and Russia. Once again, I immediately got on the phone and after a long discussion with Angela (ID # 034) and her manager, I was in a three-way call to Primus to verify that I was their customer and find out their rates so that AT&T could once again adjust those long distance charges according to Primus’s rates. At the end of our long conversation with Angela and her manager I was told my balance was $61.08 for that month. I was also told that after one billing cycle the enormous sum of 1,400.00 dollars will be removed from my account. After a month had gone by, I sent a reminding email to AT&T customer service to make sure to update my account and take the long distance charges off. In return I received a message by phone from an AT&T representative stating that it will take two billing cycles for the amount to be updated. Here are the statements that I received for the last couple of months coupled with the phone calls I had made to resolve this issue and the people I spoke with:

February 09 statement- $1,391.01

I called AT&T and find out that all I need to pay is $36.97 and not to worry about anything

March 09 statement- $1,390.05

March 21st 09- I called Amy (ID # 513) and once again was told everything is being taken care of

March 26th 09- I spoke with Mark (ID # 044) and got the same response as from Amy

April 09 statement- $1,405.32

May 5th 09- I called Jenifer (#250) and was told that everything would be taken care of in two days.

Finally, at the end of May I received a phone message from an AT&T representative about this issue. When I called back I was told that my case was closed and that the charges on my account will remain. I would have to pay them in full. I asked to speak to a manager but the manager just insisted that the case was closed and that some investigation bureau deemed the case to be rejected and the charges to be sustained. When I asked to be given a number of that bureau so that I could call and explain my situation to them, I was denied of any contact information and told that there was nothing I could do to appeal this decision.

I can be reached by email: Penksik AT att.net

Thank you,

Aliaksandr Penksik