AT&T customer receives shocking $6,223.60 bill for the holidays

The holidays are around the corner but unfortunately for one AT&T customer, the gift they received was a massive bill for $6,223.60. As Usual-Guava-8899 explains on Reddit, they received the bill on December 11 shortly after recently moving over one of the family’s lines to AT&T FirstNet. While the family has multiple lines and usually pays around $250 a month, they didn’t expect this, especially since the AT&T rep had previously claimed the bill would go down a few dollars with a change.

It’s pretty obvious this is an error of some kind, but what’s most frustrating is that it doesn’t seem to be something that can be instantly resolved. The customer initially contacted customer service and the supervisor and agents they spoke to couldn’t even find the high bill and instead said it was only $205. The customer could clearly see this wasn’t the case in the app, however, and so he eventually went into a brick-and-mortar location.

The AT&T corporate store immediately located both the bill, as well as the problem. It seems that during the migration process to FirstNet, the customer’s account was accidentally switched over to a pay-per-use plan. Even though it was only for a day, the rate was a crazy $2 per MB and so all it took was using 3,097MB in one day to accrue such a bill.

Here’s where things get increasingly frustrating. AT&T wasn’t able to just reverse things then and there. As one Redditor (and former AT&T employee) notes, this is likely because the amount was so large that the credit required to fix the issue requires someone with a much higher authority level than even a store manager would have. The customer was told to contact “the office of the president” of AT&T, and that they’d hear back later that day (12/12) or the next day (12/13).

Unfortunately, the call never came, leaving the customer with the choice of either paying a ridiculous bill that was due on the 15th or risking not paying and hoping it all gets resolved before it becomes an issue. The good news is that several reps were active and willing to help in the Reddit thread, so the odds are it’s being resolved.

Of course, you have to wonder what happens if it takes a few days to work out. It’s important to note that all of the big carriers have the same policy when it comes to dealing with disputes like this: You are required to pay or further action could be taken against your account.

The good news is that, in most cases, the customer has a grace period before service is suspended. Nonetheless, a late fee will likely be levied against the account. That said, it’s very possible that charge could also get reversed once it’s all worked out.

Personally, I think there should be a process in place that ensures fast and timely resolutions to errors like this. Or at the very least, there should be a way to flag an account and give it an “under review” grace period before any further fees or actions are taken on overdue accounts that are disputing charges. What’s your take? Let us know in the poll (and/or comments) below.