The ongoing drama with the New AT&T continues.

First, let me recap:

• In mid-July, I signed up for “Auto Draft” service, which allows the New AT&T to automatically debit the payment due from my checking account on the due date.  One less thing for me to worry about, assuming they don’t screw things up. I received an email from them thanking me for enrolling.  So they clearly knew I had done so.  Just sayin’…
• In August, I got an email saying my payment was past due.  I went to the website and saw that the payment was due.  So I attempted to pay it online and a box popped up warning me that since I was already enrolled in Auto Draft, I should not proceed with a payment because doing so could result in my checking account being debited twice.  So I followed their website’s instructions, and waited for them to just debit the money as I had previously instructed.
• They didn’t.  My telephone service was suspended.  I called — on my cell phone — and explained why I hadn’t paid, and reminded them that they had my account info:  just debit the payment and be done with it!  They informed me that it takes at least a full month for Auto Draft to kick in, no matter what the website says.  So I paid.  Phone was back on that day.
• September’s payment was due on Wednesday, Sept. 10.  They authorized a debit from my account on Thursday, Sept. 4th for the amount due plus a $30 reconnect fee for my prior month’s “late” payment.  On Saturday, Sept. 6th, they suspended my internet service for “non-payment,” despite the fact that they had already authorized the auto draft two days before that for a payment that still wasn’t due for another four days.  When I called and pointed all of this out, they told me there was nothing I could do until the billing department returned the following Monday.  I asked for a supervisor, and my internet was restored that Sunday.
• Fed up with two months’ worth of foolishness, I cancelled my home telephone service on Tuesday, Sept. 9th.

This brings me to last night, when I received an email from the New AT&T stating that I owed $82.  Eighty-two bucks for just internet service?  Yeah, something’s wrong.  Again.

So this morning I call them up and try to get answers.  It turns out that while they credited me money for the local phone service, they just went ahead and billed me through October 2nd on long distance service.  Did you catch that?  I’ve still got unlimited long distance through October 2nd on a dead phone I cancelled on September 9th.

I asked why the same computer system that could see I’d cancelled my local service and could issue a credit for that was somehow able to miss that detail on the long distance service.  She didn’t have an answer for that, which didn’t surprise me at all.  There’s no explaining a series of screw-ups this large.

And to make matters worse, they can’t correct the problem until the next billing cycle — after they just go ahead and debit the extra money they already know I don’t owe them from my checking account in October.  They’ll give me a credit in November, but they still will have shorted me in October.  Guess times must be tough at the phone company, too.

But the one good bit of news is that after the customer service rep sat through this story and read all of the notes previous reps had left as they sorted through this comedy of errors, she did credit me the $30 reconnect fee I should never have had to pay to begin with.  There’s just no way to know whether that will drop the amount they debit from $82 to $52, or whether I’ll see that $30 in November along with the extra long distance.

I don’t know what’s going on with the “New AT&T,” but I sure wish we could get the old one back.

I’m just waiting for them to send me one of those silly little surveys about their customer service.  I can’t wait to tackle the question about whether or not I’d recommend the New AT&T to my friends!