Excerpt from story in Dallas News.com

Problems mount with AT&T's service Many local phone customers complain about charges, special features, assistance 01/18/2000

Subscribers by the hundreds have been charged for local calls as if they were long-distance. Others lost calling features that worked fine with Southwestern Bell. And numerous customers report long waits on hold with AT&T customer service - and little help once a representative does take the call. "We made a five-minute call to a neighbor; that was five times $4-something a minute," said Dallas resident Sharon Walker. AT&T corrected its calculating error quickly, but her phone bills still show the erroneous charges. "After calling several times and being on hold for up to an hour, they still said it will take a month or two to correct," she said. AT&T acknowledges the failures.

Link to Story:

http://dallasnews.com/business/19379_18biz1.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 18, 2000

Answers

Carl, To many this report sounds funny. Sure, all will soon be corrected. But, when you're the one caught in the middle of this (and all the other) messes. It ain't all that funny. Thanks for passing this along. Just one more reminder for all to keep on their toes with billings.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), January 18, 2000.

So at what point are their too many customer calls and billing errors which overwhelm the staff of the operation which is charging you? 100? 1000? 10000? per day, week, month??? And if it takes you 1 hour per call to get a stupid answer that it'll take 2 months to fix the problem, well???Over $1,000,000,000,000 is traded in NewYork/London/Tokyo just in FOREX ops per DAY. At what point do errors become overwhelming and people start getting pushed into insolvancy because funds are tied up 'for months' as they straighten things out???

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 18, 2000.

* * * 20000118 Tuesday

We noticed (with our current bill received yesterday, January 17, 2000) USUALLY "no charge" (local Michigan, Area Code 810 from Area Code 248) calls to a NUMERIC pager we use a lot, are now itemized AND charged/billed as long distance AT VARYING RATES for calls that are ALL under one minute (as long as it takes to enter the call-back number after their standard announcement).

We're researching our past bills to see when this actually started. With all the added taxes and "fees" tacked on here in Michigan, it's not going to be as easy as simply deducting the per-call charges from the bill. We need to know "AT&T's Math." ;-)

This type of error, if indeed it is an error, would be a typical consequence/evidence of a lack of system testing.

We'll see how this plays out.

Regards, Bob Mangus

P.S.: Check out your detail billings V-E-R-Y C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y! That's where the "Y2K Devil" will be.

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), January 18, 2000.

Paging JOHN KREMPASKY ........ Paging JOHN KREMPASKY ... please proceed to the white courtesy phone to explain to Carl and the Board how these errors are similar in kind and nature to errors experienced by AT&T Texas in every historical period prior to the rollover; and how without the Carl submitting actual statistical data to substantiate his posts, he is a panic-mongering niddy-noddy. Please.

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-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@needa.newaddress), January 18, 2000.

Carl, I addressed your non-sleep status once upon a time, only to see it deleted, before my eyes (ZZZZZ). Are you a real person? Who pays you for this search info., can I get a 2nd job, doing same?

-- At&T Charges doubled (here@business.com), January 18, 2000.

Aloha here@business. You're hired! Start your search engines! You can have exactly the same pay which I receive....the satisfaction of knowing the actions we freely perform with a clean and open heart help create a greater good for everyone.

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 19, 2000.