Oh really, AT&T?: cos

cos

Oh really, AT&T?

Nov 19, 2021 10:08

I've had AT&T cell service on my iPads since I got my first iPad more than a decade ago. It was simple, you sign up from the iPad cell data settings menu with an email address and password, and it charges your card once a month, pre-pay. When I travelled internationally, I could also buy 30 days of international data, logging in to AT&T from the same settings menu on my iPad. I'd choose how much data, which date it should start, and it would charge my card and I'd get cell data in whatever country.

When I was about to go out of the country for the first time in a couple of years, this summer, I couldn't find that option in the menus! I made several phone calls to mostly-clueless AT&T support people, most of whom weren't even aware that AT&T could be used on an iPad, and didn't know how to deal with service that wasn't on a cell phone. Each time I called I would have to get transferred at least once but usually multiple times before getting to someone who could even look up my current account. My question was "how do I buy international data" but they were used to directing me to use a login on their web site that apparently is not available for iPad prepaid customers, and also were mostly not aware that buying international data was something AT&T offerred. Some tried to convince me that I can't have ever done that, even though I've done it many times over the years. Fail #1

Eventually I found someone who knew more, and after some research they found an answer: AT&T had discontinued the international data option for iPad pre-paid data plans, in spring 2021. After having it for at least a decade, they just quietly got rid of it and didn't bother to tell anyone, not even their own customer service. Fail #2

Someone else, after another couple of transfers, told me that to get international data I would need to change to an AT&T post-paid account, and that it would need to be on a new SIM - they could not put a postpaid account on the Apple SIM that came with my iPad. They could mail me a new SIM, but at this point my flight was the next day, so they said I need to go to an AT&T store to get a new SIM with a postpaid plan. Okay, fine, there's one a few blocks from my house in Cambridge, so I went.

There's a whole other adventure in there, which involves going to two different AT&T stores, an AT&T employee waiting on hold for more than an hour on the same AT&T customer service phone system that I had been on hold for, and more. Eventually they had to create a "business" account for me to be able to get cell service on an iPad without also getting a phone (my phone is on T-Mobile). I'll skip Fails #3-#6 (at least) in getting that account set up, or this post would get way too long :)

Skipping to the end, I was at an AT&T store with with my iPad, they had replaced the SIM and my new postpaid account was activated. I asked them to cancel my old prepay account, and told them it was due to be charged for another month the following day, so I'd like to cancel it now. They checked on their computers and told me that actually that charge for next month had already gone through, but it would be refunded later.

Indeed, the charge showed up on my card on August 15th, the day after I flew out of the country. I expected it would take a while for the refund. What I didn't expect was to be charged again on Sep 15th. Fail #7. Since I had been on the hotspot plan most recently, each monthly charge was $55, so now up to $110 for two extra months of a plan I had supposedly cancelled.

I called AT&T again a few times over the next few weeks. Nobody could locate my account. Nobody could confirm it had been cancelled. Nobody could figure out why I was being charged, nor could they give me a refund for a charge they couldn't locate in the first place. Of course I had the same problem as back in August, in which most AT&T customer service people don't seem to know iPad data plans exist and are managed separately from all other AT&T wireless plans, but even when transferred to the people who seemed to know how to work with iPad data plans, they could find no account for me. Fail #who knows.

Since you sign up for an iPad account with email address and password, without ever being asked for a name, they tried to locate it by phone number (which I had fortunately written down, even though it was never usable as an actual phone number since this is a table). Several people told me that since they could find nothing under that phone number, that meant my account must have been cancelled - but could not say why I was never refunded for August and why I was charged again in September.

Eventually I gave up and reported both charges as fraud to my credit card. I got back a nice automated note from my online banking system telling me the charges were removed, they would try to contact the merchant, and if the merchant said the charges were legitimate they might ask me for more info or put the charges back on my account. Ha! Good luck getting AT&T to even confirm they had made those charges in the first place, let alone that they were somehow linked to me!

Of course, the bank never asked me for more information, nor did they put the charges back on my account. Some poor bank employees probably had to try to contact AT&T about it, and I'm sorry for their pain, but I'm sure they didn't get any answers.

On October 15h, I got a notice from my bank: AT&T had tried to charge me again for $55. They had denied the charge, presumably because it matched the charges I had already reported as fraudulent. Cool. AT&T Fail #even more.

And now comes November 15th, and the reason I was reminded about it again this week and inspired to post.

(Yes, that number matches the number my iPad had when it was on the pre-paid data plan. The same number I was giving when I called customer service a number of times in late September.)
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