U-verse billing nightmare

[JMSeventySix]

I am new (as of May) U-verse customer; we had DSL+POTS service for 5 years but then we got a letter saying that DSL service in our area was going to be discontinued and that we should proceed with moving to U-verse at no cost us.

In the past month we've had nothing but problems are currently being charged over $200 for installation and subsequent service issues.

The U-Verse install was really shoddy. In my garage there are bare wires exposed where the tech spliced two cat 5 lines together, and the wires are just dangling, not attached to the wall or anything. There are no outlets, just a wire coming though a whole in the wall and plugging into the gateway box. 

Then the billing issues started. 

First, we were charged $49.50 + tax for installation even though the original letter said it would be a no-charge upgrade. Several phone calls to customer service have not resolved the issue. We were told a credit would be applied to our old DSL bill. This has not happened. We were also told not to pay the old DSL bill and wait for a new bill with the updated amount. Now we owe late charges.

Second, about three days after our U-verse install, our connection became extremely slow, under 1Mbps with > 10% packet loss. Our telephone service also stopped working. Tech support was unable to find a problem, even though they were unable to access our modem! They told us to hit the reset button on the battery backup unit, but the unit was installed so close to our breaker panel that we couldn't access the reset button. So they sent a technician out. At some point, things started working again. By the time the tech got to our house, he couldn't find anything wrong. He did move the battery unit away from the breaker panel but didn't touch anything else. Now we have a bill for $165 + tax for a repair charge + two computer outlet charges. I think this is completely unjust because a) we were not informed that someone coming to our house was going to cost $$ and b) they guy actually fixed some of the shoddy installation work. 

In my first call to billing about the repair charges, the person was very unhelpful and refused to remove the charges, and even claimed that the charges were because the tech's notes indicated he replaced our wireless router (an outright lie). In a second call, I threatened to cancel, and the person was more sympathetic and claimed that we was going to remove the charges. I told him I would stick with U-Verse for another month if that was true.  I should have been suspicious because he said he was waiting on his supervisor to process the full reversal.  Two days later, I see a $55 credit to my account, that's it. Not even the taxes for that $55 portion were removed.

Now I'm still stuck with over $150 of outrageous charges and I barely had the service for over a month. It seems that the customer service people are just telling us what we want to hear and not following through on anything. What do I need to do to get this resolved? Contact the Connecticut attorney general's office? The BBB?

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

Send a PM to Alex who is an AT&T Community Manager on this forum.

Also, check the settings on your account to make sure that you will receive email notification when a PM is received on this forum.

[JMSeventySix]

Okay, thanks, I sent Alex a message. I'll let you know how it goes.

[JMSeventySix]

An update: After PM'ing Alex, I got a very fast response from one the AT&T managers (Andy) who was able to resolve our billing situation. Thanks for all your help!

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

Thanks for the update.  I'm glad you were able to get things resolved.

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

Thanks for posting the update.