Perhaps some of you remember the saga of my previous employer and the cell phone bill that kept showing up on my bank account.
In short — for my full-time reporting gig, I bought a cell phone through AT&T for work — my boss told me to do this and he would reimburse me. That all went over fine.
A few months and a firing later, the nightmare began. On the last day of work, after a long conversation with AT&T on the phone, it sounded like the account would be transfered to my boss and all would be fine.
But then the auto pay bills started showing up on my bank statement. One in December, then one in January. I finally called AT&T and after 3+ hours on the phone with them (which ended up costing me something like $100 on my Verizon cell phone that I used to call them) you’d think everything would be solved. They talked to my boss again and he re-gave them permission to transfer the account to him.
Oh… but what shows up on my bank statement this month? ANOTHER $106.41 charge from AT&T. WTF?? My boss is supposedly reimbursing me for the last two months ($109 and $106) but I haven’t gotten that check yet, and now I have to bother him and the accounts woman again asking for more money to be expensed and…
I am just so frustrated and I don’t know what to do. Not only is this costing me lots of money (which will hopefully be reimbursed at some point), it’s also costing my boss lots of money. As soon as the account is transfered to him, he was going to change the monthly plan to the lowest cost one, so he wouldn’t have to pay $106 a month. Except they just can’t seem to figure out how to transfer it to him.
Add in to the mix that this former boss of mine just had a heart attack. It’s not exactly the best time to be bugging him with this… but I also can’t keep getting charged $106 a month for a phone I no longer have!
What should I do?? Do I have any rights here? I don’t want to spend another zillion hours on the phone with AT&T because it seems that gets me nowhere.
Ack! That sucks so much.Is there any way you can cancel the auto payment and unlink your bank account? You should be able to do this online, I think.That way, they'll have to send you a bill rather than draft your bank account. If that's not possible, contact your bank and see if they can help you block the auto withdraws.Put your request to AT&T in writing and send it certified mail. You won't have to deal with morons on the phone that way.Good luck!(Also, I'm a former reporter. Fun times, eh?)
I used to have a phone company that did that, and would do double payments at the same time, etc. It got to a point where I didn't have the patience to deal with the company and got my bank to put a stop payment on it. They didn't have my permission to take my money and they don't have yours.