Billing credit

We'd be happy to help, @IndyCarSteve.

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Alexander, AT&T Community Specialist

@IndyCarSteve 

If there was a refund, it should have gone out after 30 days from when the account closed.

However, as of this year any cancellations go through at end of service month. So if prior bill showed credit balance, bill for final month may have eaten through that credit.

Their "cares" team that contacted you should get this straightened out.

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@IndyCarSteve wrote:
The credit has gone on for 15 months and no one seems to know what to do since he is deceased. It’s ridiculous.

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You mean the account was canceled 15 months ago and still reflects a credit? That should have been sent out a long time ago. I wonder if it got caught in the transition from the old account system to the new one.

If there is an authorized user of the account listed, or surviving spouse, they can call DirecTV and have the agent submit a manual refund request (usually approved/denied within 10 business days). Otherwise ask for the address/email/fax (whatever the process is now) to submit Power of Attorney (POA) or Executor of Estate info with request that refund of credit balance be processed.

But I hope the Cares team gets things moving so you don't have to take any additional steps.

The account is Disconnected not closed. I’ve been trying to close this account for months as I have said before, no one on the phone or at the store has been able to help me. I just keep being transferred to another department. Understand that there is no authorized user as he has passed away and did not have anyone else on the account. 

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@IndyCarSteve wrote:

The account is Disconnected not closed. I’ve been trying to close this account for months as I have said before, no one on the phone or at the store has been able to help me. I just keep being transferred to another department. Understand that there is no authorized user as he has passed away and did not have anyone else on the account. 

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That is strange. An account should only be active, under a voluntary suspend (max 6 months, automatically becomes active afterwards), past-due suspend (which is not long before it goes into automatically disconnecting for past-due), and disconnected. All I can think of it is some agent made the error of disconnecting all boxes individually, not the account itself, and the system isn't set to auto close the account if not a single box active (rare, but not unheard of).

Call DirecTV 1-800-531-5000. When you get the voice system say "cancel" which should route you directly. Once confirmed you are speaking to the retention/cancellation department, let agent know up-front that the account owner is deceased. Used to be they would close it and have their back office due any verification needed, but with some changes from AT&T they may have you send in documentation showing deceased. They should also verify name/address for the "Executor of the Estate" for any credit going out and final statements for records.

If that agent is unable to resolve the issue themselves, or at least give you the fax/email to send in the documentation needed, then I would request a supervisor. This should have been very simple to take care of and I am astounded at the difficulty you have been put through.

This is a customer to customer forum with no access to any accounts.

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@IndyCarSteve wrote:
Read all of my notes up until now. This is what’s wrong with you people.
There is a credit on the account and we’re trying to get the money At&T
owes us

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Sorry these are all the suggestions we can give at this point. Cancellation may only be done over the phone. With the acquisition by AT&T, documentation may need to be faxed/emailed in but that info is provided by the retention agent on where to send it. Last option there would be requesting a supervisor (once you are in the retention department of course).

This is a customer to customer forum, no access to accounts here. We can only advise on how it should be taken care of. Unfortunately we cannot stand over the shoulder of the agent to do what needs to be done.

Account can only be active, suspended (voluntary or past-due) or disconnected (again voluntary or past-due). An account cannot be disconnected and open otherwise as those are conflicting states. The one functional exception as I mentioned if some poor agent disconnected every individual box instead of disconnecting the account which puts it into a weird limbo. With the new system AT&T is migrating all to, I hope it is built not to let that happen. But in the event of that error, the next agent would just have to disconnect the account and then procedures follow normally.

Perhaps someone from @ATTCares could help this customer as something weird is going on over the phone?

I’ve been on the phone in the store. I’ve spent over 7 hours trying to resolve this issue and just keep getting transferred from one person to another.