AT&T Security Breach - High Priority Business Account Cancelled by Unauthorized Individual

[WTS DB]

Our organization has dozens of AT&T accounts across the country.

Recently, an account was cancelled by an unknown individual.  This is a business account law enforcement uses to view cameras in high crime areas in a major metropolitan area.

Only a handful of people are authorized to make changes to this account.

AT&T allowed an unauthorized individual to cancel this account last week.  This individual is not affiliated with our organization, nor were they subject to any verification procedures such as passwords, secret questions, etc.

This is an enormous concern.  I have been in touch with billing all week to try and straighten it all out.  Each day since Tuesday I have spent several hours explaing the issue.  Each day I have been assured it will be corrected and I will be contacted by the end of the day.

Each time we have been assured a team leader will get in touch, no one has called us back, and the issue remains unresolved.  As this is a serious account security issue, I am surprised it hasn't been given the attention and priority it deserves.

I've had posted on these forums in the hopes someone is willing and able to assist us.  Thank you.

[ATTAlexCM]

Hey WTS DB,

Thank you for the PM.  Look for a follow-up with more information shortly.

Regards,

Alex

[WTS DB]

Alex,

I greatly appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.

Unfortunately, we still haven't made any headway.  I received an email this morning from one of your support people asking basic account information but have not received a phone call or seen any signs of progress towards resolving this serious issue.

I'm just at a loss to understand why this isn't a higher priority.  

Again, to reiterate as fair warning for all, AT&T allowed an individual who was not and has not ever been affiliated with us in any way access our account and cancel service.

 This individual did not have the passwords, secret questions, or any of the verification information needed to access the account, but were allowed to alter it nonetheless.

This occurred nearly two weeks ago, and despite spending dozens of man-hours on our end, we have received no information, and made zero headway towards resolving the issue.  

Anything you can do to assist us would be greatly appreciate.

[WTS DB]

Alex

Just to update you, I unfortunately still haven't been contacted in regards to this issue.  I received your PM, and provided my telephone number and the best times to reach me.

It has now been several days.

Can you please have someone contact me?  

.

[WTS DB]

Just to provide an update for the community, this issue still remains unresolved.

Early last week I was contacted by the Office of the President, and a high level associate was assigned the case.

On Wednesday this associate assured me everything was back in order.  I sent a subcontractor out to the site and he reported no access.  I asked him to wait while I called the associate back.  After no response and no callback, I asked the sub to clock out and leave the site.

On Friday, the high level associate assured me that this time everything was definitely back in order.  I sent a subcontractor to the site who reported no access and an error code.  We tried to reach the associate or customer care over the next hour but were unsuccessful.

My employer now has two invoices from the subcontractor, and we still have not had service restored at this address.

Any assistance that can be provided would be greatly appreciated.

[David]

I can turn it in if you want.... click on either my name or copy the goo.gl link in your browser.

Thanks

david

[WTS DB]

Hi David,

I appreciate your offer to help.  I was going to follow up with Eric in the Office of the President to get the billing straightened out this week.  

Incredibly, after spending nearly 3 weeks to get service restored, the account seems to be down again this morning.  I am going to send a sub over to the site once more in the hopes it is simply a locked up router.

David, if you could assist on the billing or point me in the right directon, it would be most appreciated.   

Our account was cancelled by an unauthorized party who was not subject to any account verifications.  

We have not received any information on how this occurred or what is being done to prevent this from happening in the future.  Meanwhile, AT&T has sent us hundreds of dollars of bills and has increased our rate after finally restoring service, which again, is back down today.

Any assistance that can be provided on any front would be most welcome.  Thank you.

[WTS DB]

A quick update for the community.

I just sent a sub to the site and once again, no service.  After 3 weeks of no service due to an account breach on AT&T's end and the involvement of the office of the president, it is absolutely remarkable we are back at square one.  

I will continue to update the community on the progress of this issue.

[WTS DB]

A quick update for the community.

We have not received a call back by the office of the president or the high level representative the case was assigned to.  After sending a subcontractor to the site yesterday and confirming the account once again has no access, our sub called in a favor with a local AT&T installer to take a look at the line and see if anything has changed.

He confirms nothing has changed, the account has simply been deactivated or cancelled once again.

To reiterate, AT&T permitted an unauthorized party to cancel this account on 9/9/11.  Today is 10/04/11 and we do not have service on the account nor have we received any information on how this breach occurred.  

If anyone can offer assistance or direction, it would be most appreciated. 

[WTS DB]

Another update for the community.

We are now at 31 days of no service due to an unexplained account breach.  

We have not been provided an explanation of how AT&T allowed this breach to occur, nor has our service been restored. 

The office of the president had an engineer get in touch with us last week.  He promised they had everything straightened out, and gave his personal assurance we would be back up and running today.

The business day is drawing to a close and I have not heard from the technician, the engineer, or the specialist assigned to resolve this case.

It is absolutely remarkable this issue persists.

[Computer-Joe ACE - Guru]

I have what might be considered dumb questions.

How do you know it was not accidently done by an "authorized" individual?

If "unauthorized", how do you know they were not presented with the security steps (password/security questions)?

If the server is that critical, why do you not have a seperate redundant account/connection for that server?

Have you tried to just forget the old account and ask for a new one at that location?

Have you insisted an AT&T tech be on site to verify the connection activation?

After this long, why have you not gone to a different provider for this connection (cable or wifi)?

Have you contacted the Retention Department and threatened cancelation of the "dozens" of accounts due to this issue?

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
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I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
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There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

[WTS DB]

Not dumb questions at all Joe.

How do you know it was not accidently done by an "authorized" individual?

There are a limited number of people designated to act on this account.  I have the name of the individual who terminated the account, it wasn't us.

If "unauthorized", how do you know they were not presented with the security steps (password/security questions)?

The individual is a tenant in a residential apartment building.  They are an innocent party in this affair who were simply trying to establish service for themselves.  They most definitely did not have the information needed to make changes to the account.

If the server is that critical, why do you not have a seperate redundant account/connection for that server?

I'm not sure a second dead AT&T account would have been very much help here  

Have you tried to just forget the old account and ask for a new one at that location?

While I am confident I could forget the old account, I don't believe their billing department could.

Have you insisted an AT&T tech be on site to verify the connection activation?

Yes, in each and every instance.  We are 0-4 at this point.  

After this long, why have you not gone to a different provider for this connection (cable or wifi)?

Provider options are very limited in some locales.

Have you contacted the Retention Department and threatened cancelation of the "dozens" of accounts due to this issue?

We would incur a significant labor cost deploying technicians to switch providers across all AT&T accounts.

[WTS DB]

Another update for the community.  Day 32

Service was restored yesterday afternoon.  We're going to give it a few days before we celebrate as it was previously restored for 48 hours.

We are just now waiting to be contacted regarding the pile of bills they have sent us.  I will update this thread upon resolution.

[Computer-Joe ACE - Guru]

---

WTS DB wrote:

Not dumb questions at all Joe.

How do you know it was not accidently done by an "authorized" individual?

There are a limited number of people designated to act on this account.  I have the name of the individual who terminated the account, it wasn't us.

If "unauthorized", how do you know they were not presented with the security steps (password/security questions)?

The individual is a tenant in a residential apartment building.  They are an innocent party in this affair who were simply trying to establish service for themselves.  They most definitely did not have the information needed to make changes to the account.

If the server is that critical, why do you not have a seperate redundant account/connection for that server?

I'm not sure a second dead AT&T account would have been very much help here   

Not sure if you can have two seperate accounts at one address with buisiness access, but I would think that might have reduced the likelyhood of this type of problem by 50%.

Have you tried to just forget the old account and ask for a new one at that location?

While I am confident I could forget the old account, I don't believe their billing department could.

I'm sure they wouldn't, but why beat a dead horse. Quit trying to "reactivate" the old account, pay the bill on the old one and just start a new one. (you can't make the bus go backwards but you can get on at the next stop)

Have you insisted an AT&T tech be on site to verify the connection activation?

Yes, in each and every instance.  We are 0-4 at this point.  

After this long, why have you not gone to a different provider for this connection (cable or wifi)?

Provider options are very limited in some locales

Obviously in this situation, limited options would be better than no options. There are not too many urban areas that do not have at least a cable provider to compete with the local telco.

Have you contacted the Retention Department and threatened cancelation of the "dozens" of accounts due to this issue?

We would incur a significant labor cost deploying technicians to switch providers across all AT&T accounts.

Not saying you have to actually go through with the cancellation, but I've had good results in the past with the retention department in getting things accomplished.

---

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

[WTS DB]

{please keep it courteous}

Community,

My eternal gratitiude to EricW and Leslie in the office of the President for finally getting us resolution on this outage.  I can't say enough about the patience of Eric, I don't envy his role, but I do admire the way he performs it.

In a hilarious fit of irony, we are now experiencing a similar issue on another one of our business accounts.  It was de-activated on October 24th.  We sent a technician to the site.  No internet.  He called AT&T and was informed the building is switching to UVERSE and our DSL line would be inactive until the migration to UVERSE was complete.

We were provided no estimates as to when this work would be complete.

Most troubling, we never received notification about this outage.  AT&T claims they would have called the number on the account. They did not.  They simply killed the line and couldn't provide information as to when UVERSE would be live.  

Without service or an explanation, we were fortunately able to arrange for a new ISP in short order, and now understandbly wish to cancel the dead account.  I have already spent two hours on the issue today, and haven't had any luck getting to the right person for a simple cancellation.  DSL sends me to UVERSE.  UVERSE sends me to DSL.

Our organization continues to be awestruck at how cumbersome and complex AT&T can make the most basic of issues.

I will continue to try the normal channels for officially ending our service.  That failing, I will reach out to the office of the president once more.

[WTS DB]

The second account with this issue remains unresolved.

1.  October 24th the line went dead.  Our technician reported no internet.  He called AT&T.  AT&T reported Uverse was on its way to that location which necessitated killing our DSL line.  This is a business account.

2.  AT&T claims they would have called the contact number on the account to inform of the upcoming outage.  They did not.

3.  AT&T was/is unable to provide a time frame for when the service would be restored.   We did not authorize an "upgrade" to UVerse nor do we want anything to do with it.

4.  I simply want to cancel this account.  But there is a pending uverse order.  Again, not an order we placed.  So when I call to cancel the account DSL sends me to Uverse and Uverse sends me to DSL.  Round and round I go, when this should be a 5 minute operation at best.

Yesterday, 11/1 I spent 2 hours in the phone maze and was unable to get anyone who could help.

Today I spent another hour.

Can anyone advise or help?  I just want to cancel this single account.