Invisible Contract to Servicemembers during Pandemic

Move orders only have a 1 year contract unless there was an upgraded receiver(s) added this applies to everyone.

When you signed up you agreed to the TOS.

The scra protects you from early termination fees if you cancel due to the provider not being able to provide service in your new location. You didn’t cancel you moved and kept services. The scra does not apply here. It also doesn’t protect you if you just cancel because you no longer want the service and still have a contract 

Transition Act of 2018, you can cancel your internet or TV programming contracts without penalty if you have deployment or relocation orders for at least 90 days to a new location that doesn't offer your current service.

@shannon02 then explain why my FIL was forced into a 2 year contract on May 05, 2020 when there was no upgrade in service and nobody on staff available to even come to the home and provide it. 

@Constructive I didn’t move and keep the service. I canceled my service prior to moving. I never signed a contract and I’ve been billed for services not rendered. My FIL moved and is being forced to move again as he is my dependent. He had service and is canceling it. The SCRA protects military members AND their families/dependents from being held to contracts. A contract, furthermore, that my FIL didn’t sign. Nor could he have made a legal agreement as he is non-English speaker and ATT I am his interpreter on phone calls. He lived in one house for 17 years, was forced to move during a pandemic, doesn’t even have a permanent place of residence and is being forced to move again because his son-in-law (me) is the servicemember and I took him in. ATT is charging him an early cancellation fee for a contract he signed 10 years before ATT even owned DirecTV. 

Don’t come at me with the SCRA only applies for relocation orders for at least 90 days. That’s so disingenuous considering ATT’s own website includes a full list of qualifications and that is but a single bullet point on that list. You don’t have to fit all bullets, just 1. Of which, I do. In addition we are moving and my FIL is my dependent. 

In 2017 I had this very conversation go all the way up to Randall Stephenson’s office. The moment he found out I was military, do you know what he said? He said, military members cannot be held to contracts through ATT and he didn’t know why it hadn’t been resolved by his employees prior to it getting to his office. But go on and tell me how you personally know more about ATT policy and laws protecting service members than Mr. Stephenson. Get real.  

Looks like you aren’t interested in touching the fraudulent line ATT failed to reimburse, or the two years worth of U-Verse I’ve been charged all at once. ATT must pay you the big bucks to spit it back in the customers face, blame them for not reading the fine print on contracts that were never signed between parties who never spoke to one another, and explain to them how being displaced during a pandemic is justification for a 2 year contract being added to a customer’s service without so much as letting them know. Maybe it would have been explained in person had someone come to my house and set up service, but they didn’t… because it was the middle of a pandemic and there was no ATT members on staff when I took in my inlaws and you signed him up to live in my house for two years without so much as consulting me about it. Maybe you just woke up from a year long coma and I should give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t know how utterly unethical that is. 

You or someone signed the handheld at the time of install otherwise you wouldn't have service.

@CWeebs  said

In 2017 I had this very conversation go all the way up to Randall Stephenson’s office. The moment he found out I was military, do you know what he said? He said, military members cannot be held to contracts through ATT and he didn’t know why it hadn’t been resolved by his employees prior to it getting to his office.

Since you know how to contact the Office the President why are you dealing with a customer populated forum?  Apparently they solved your problem then so you should give them an opportunity to solve your latest problem.

 ATT’s own website includes a full list of qualifications

Also, could you please give us a link to the above information for future reference?

@skeeterintexas Here’s a link to ATT’s qualifications for SCRA. Keep in mind, this is just ATT’s policies, and many states are subject to their own additional policies that expand upon federal law. @Constructive quoted a single bullet on ATT’s policy as if that’s all you need to know about servicemembers’ protections. Even according to ATT this is verifiably false. Importantly, a company or state can expand upon federal protections and rights, but they cannot deny existing rights. 

https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1046235/

In terms of past issues getting resolved by ATT, no. Not in the least. ATT never reimbursed me from money they admitted to have stolen by issuing an invalid installment plan on a phone that was not purchased from ATT. ATT paid their own fraudulent line with their debt they owed me. The staff members involved in the theft were arrested and/or terminated from ATT and my issue was elevated to the OOP. It was the OOP that took the $600 and applied it to the remainder of the invalid (stolen) installment plan that they were charging me. This is when I cut all ties with ATT. I canceled every service and severed my relationship with the company. It took over six months of dealing with ATT all the way to A.W. of the OOP (my understanding is she is no longer holding that office) and to Mr. Stephenson. Stephenson removed the cancellation fee that I was going to be charged for removing my family (4 lines) from ATT’s service, which he did citing that I am military and never should have been held to a contract to begin with. 

ATT had previously lied to me, stating that I personally signed for those lines and they had my signature as proof, yet wouldn’t provide it. Their mistake was that at the time they said I went into ATT and signed a contract I was deployed overseas and my wife was my power of attorney. She had never spoken to ATT.

ATT’s “contracts” are the biggest scam of them all. @shannon02 saying we someone signed it at the time or we wouldn’t have service… that’s a crock. 

In addition, once again, ATT’s credit company Sunrise Services sent us just months ago a single page paper bill for $1,600 with no explanation on it as to what its for. I already went through the song and dance with ATT billing and fraud department, that’s how I found out its for U-Verse. This is a service I never had, I’ve never received a single bill for it, never owned the equipment, nothing. When my family did watch TV it was on PSVue up until it went under. We haven’t had TV since. According to ATT’s loyalty department we signed up for U-Verse two years ago in a house that wasn’t even wired for cable and then we chose not to pay for two years and they chose to keep charging us for two years without providing service or sending a bill. The first time we heard anything about it was the Sunrise Service letter, followed by incessant phone calls. Sunrise Service can’t fix it because they can’t see what the bill is for, ATT loyalty can’t fix it because it’s already been canceled and is now just a bill, Billing can’t fix it because they only deal with bills that are legitimate and don’t handle fraud, Fraud department can’t handle it because they only investigate 3rd party fraud and not ATT’s own fraud. Meanwhile, ATT’s fraudulent charges have decreased my credit score, which has impacted the interest rate on the home I’m moving into, our insurance, taxes, etc…

and I haven’t been a customer with this company for over a year. 

Because ATT doesn’t have a single employee from the ground up, all the way to the OOP who is capable of looking at a bill, realizing it’s a invalid, and removing it, they have negatively impacted almost every facet of my family’s financial lives. With a helpful smile they will walk over you and blame you for their own criminality. And will repeat the same nonsense being expressed above “someone had to have signed a contract if you had service”. But they aren’t expected to provide receipts.

If I signed something, why can’t they provide receipts? I keep receipts. I have every email correspondence saved between myself and the OOP. I have the email verifying my communication with Mr. Stephenson. I have documented by employee number every ATT staff member I have spoken to whether in person or by phone. 

I would just as soon never speak to ATT here or anywhere else ever again, but none of my issues have been satisfactorily resolved. Not through Better Business Bureau, not by going up the chain to their CFO or OOP, not by cancelling service.

I’m here because I’m ticked at all I’ve been put through and have continued to be put through by a company that could have and morally should have just allowed me to cut ties with them long ago. Go ahead and look up how many (Edited per community guidelines) ATT is under, how many (Edited per community guidelines) suits and investigations.

And ask yourself, if they would make life such (Edited per community guidelines) for a servicemember, how will they treat the rest of their customers when the ship goes down? How will they treat you when they’re inevitably beat out by some new company like Mint or the growing number of streamers and cheaper internet options coming with more federal regulation? If they will steal money from a veteran, force service on a veteran’s family during a pandemic, shrug off employee arrests who are in the news for stealing over $600,000 from customers (including identity theft of individuals over 75yo) and taken their debt to a veteran to pay their own invalid and fraudulent lines, charge thousands for services not rendered without beating an eye… if they would do all that to a veteran who has all the receipts to prove it… what makes you think they won’t do the exact same thing to you?

If you have had no resolution through Customer Service, the BBB, the OOP, the fraud department, Sunrise Services & the FTC (was that one mentioned?), you're really spinning your wheels posting on a community message board.

It is abundantly clear that no one here can offer any advice or direction concerning your problem.  I wish you well, thank you for your service and good luck with your future endeavors.  👍

If I am understanding correctly, the account is in your Father-in-law's name but he is officially your dependent (i.e. in DEERS/RAPIDS) to have the account qualified under SCRA? I wonder if that is under dependent, not you as the account owner, is tripping them up. If you haven't already you might consider getting an 1172-2 from your DEERS office that reflects your FIL as a dependent.

As for the 2 year contract, that only happens from a move if there is an upgrade of equipment (adding additional TV counts) as a Movers order is a 12 month agreement otherwise. But that only starts upon equipment being installed and activated. I would review your FIL's order confirmation to see if it mentions additional equipment ordered for reference.

Yes, he is officially my dependent. And we did not upgrade his services or have new equipment installed. When he moved in we were initially in a TLF and moved to a rental house at the onset of government shutdowns. We didn’t so much as speak to an ATT employee. They had a webpage with instructions on how to set up your equipment at a new address as a result of covid guidelines there were no employees available to come to our home or even speak to over the phone. No upgrade. Therefore, my service history isn’t even relevant for anything other than the SCRA additionally protects us from contracts when having to move. It’s more of an “on top of everything else” than this is the problem. The problem is that my father-in-law didn’t order new equipment and didn’t upgrade his service. I know because I am the one who set it up. That’s also how I know that he didn’t sign a contract. I am his interpreter and can speak for him on calls while he is present, but I am not his power of attorney. I cannot buy services on his behalf and I cannot legally sign for any services on his behalf, nor have I. He is my dependent from April of 2020. That’s it. He is not my DEERS dependent because I was never his dependent prior to enlisting in 2011. He is my in-law, not my natural father. In order to be considered by dependent through DEERS and receive things like VA benefits then I would have had to have been his dependent or vice versa for at least one year prior to enlisting. 

Let me emphasize ATT does not use DEERS for qualified dependent purposes, nor can they. They use the same thing they would for any civilian claiming dependent status. Things like IRS and taxes. He is my claimed dependent. ATT cannot legally demand that I provide any military documentation except that which is needed to prove military service. This is something Randall Stephenson knew and why he acted upon it right away. It’s the same with ADA protections. You can’t demand that a customer provides medical records to prove disabilities. That is against federal law. You also can’t demand an 1172-2 to prove my in-law is my dependent. That documentation is for medical purposes and military privileges on military based. It isn’t for ATT to determine eligibility of SCRA. My name is on the account. I’m the service member and he lives in my home. ATT is not obligated to know anything other than that nor do I owe them anything more than that. Same as when I added their lines to my account. I only have to prove my service. That’s it. That’s all that is legally required of me. 

As far as my FIL’s order confirmation, he didn’t receive one. Just a continuation of the same bill he had at his previous address to the new address. Nowhere on any bill or documentation we have received does it state there was a contract renewal or that he is under a 2 year obligation. 

Multiple people here have now confirmed that the maximum contract for a transfer of service is 1 year. I just canceled his service yesterday and am paying the extra 250 dollar cancellation fee myself after arguing the same points to ATT’s loyalty department, whose “hands were tied” and he said it was an automatic 2 year contract for moving and that his records show someone coming to our house and setting it up. All lies. I set it up myself. ATT literally had no house calls during May 2020. We were under government shutdown during the time. ATT doesn’t do logic or common sense though. If the computer has a note, that’s what happened. 

that’s why I advise to write down every interaction you have with ATT, take down every employee ID# (not just name), record your calls and get it in writing. Above all else, drop ATT with haste. And prepare to lawyer up to get rid of them completely. 

Service agreement is supposed to informed by agent over the phone, but also shows on the order confirmation and tech's handheld. This is why an adult 18 years or older is required upon install, even it is not the account owner as they are accepting on their behalf since they are physically present. If no install was done, then no new agreement is added. A Movers order does not have a no-agreement option itself, just ECF waiver in certain situations like you are disputing.

Movers order is not automatically a 2 year contract, only a 1 year. A 2 would only happen if any additional/upgraded equipment was activated. But if only existing boxes, then just the 1 year. So if same boxes but 2 year agreement, without any other special (like 24 month discount), then I agree somebody messed up.

No demand was made for the 1172-2. I only suggested it might help clear up the issue as would be another reference that he is a dependent. It has a bit wider use then many are aware of. 

If your FIL didn't receive an order confirmation, I would check that DirecTV has the right email on file. They can resend that confirmation upon request.

You don’t just get service established out of nowhere and then never receive a bill for it? That makes no sense. There were never holds on contracts due to the pandemic...EVER. If you moved and didn’t add or upgrade equipment then the correct contract duration is 12 months. Sometimes for whatever reason the system screws it up though and reflects 24 months, but either way, why didn’t you just tell them you were cancelling due to military? The rep isn’t going to know if you’re telling the truth or lying lol that would have waived the ETF

@TrollGod69 I did tell him I was cancelling due to military. The rep put me on hold and came back and said he couldn’t. I didn’t get service established out of nowhere. I have never had U-Verse or any form of cable ever. I received a bill from Sunrise Credit for 1,600 with no explanation as to what it was for a year after I cut ties with ATT. Sunrise began calling incessantly after I received the bill. When I called them they said it was for ATT. When I called ATT they informed me it was for U-Verse at an address I lived at three years ago. I didn’t have U-Verse then either. I’ve never had it. I have not once received a bill, not once received service, not once signed a contract for ATT U-Verse. I agree, it doesn’t make sense to charge someone for two years of U-Verse. Obviously, it’s a mistake on their end. A mistake they sent to collections and took out on my credit score. 

Lastly, there WERE indeed holds in my city and state, as I live in what was the second most infectious city in the world at the time with the second highest deathrates. We were shut down. Nobody was coming to any houses in at this time last year, including ATT. To say there wasn’t a hold on services last year is some revisionist history. I’m not saying a “contract hold” whatever that would be, I’m saying you couldn’t get new equipment installation or in house service at that time due to closures in this area. The equipment my father had at his previous address is the same equipment he brought to this one. I installed it based on ATT self-installation guide on their website. It was a literal one-for-one transfer done by the client. The loyalty department told me that triggered the two year contract. It really doesn’t do any good if customers know that’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. I know they’ve wronged me to the point of criminality. I already posted the article above, showing that ATT employees were arrested for it. It was more than one. I was sent to the store to resolve it because the phone rep said only the person who “sold me the invalid line” could refund me. My wife and I were physically present at the store when said phone rep and two other employees were arrested for selling said invalid lines. It’s why it ended up having to be escalated to the OOP. It was a criminal matter. One that by federal and state law ATT owed us treble payments for. We never received a penny, even though they acknowledged guilt. In fact we left the company and received a final bill. And then one for U-Verse almost two years later for good measure.

The problem is that no matter how right you are or morally repugnant ATT is, if they don’t want to pay you, they simply won’t. If they don’t want to resolve the issues. They won’t. And if they want to bill you for services you didn’t sign up for or phones you didn’t buy, nothing will stop them from doing that. They don’t care about (Edited per community guidelines) or anything. Safety nets from recent administrations let them crap all over you without repercussions. Look at the big (Edited per community guidelines) suit they just lost. Customers received a measly 20 dollars in damages for their victory. ATT got that same amount more than 10x over per rewarded customer in the very same month by billing those very same customers. 

The only actual recourse I have is warning other customers of what ATT did to me. They stole from me, destroyed my credit, billed me for services not rendered, took advantage of my Thai FIL, and held us to illegal invisible contracts. In direct damages ATT cost me more than 2,200. The impact it’s had on other bills is incalculable but includes an interest rate on a mortgage that is a percent higher than it would have otherwise been, for an additional $600 a month that I would not have owed had it not been for ATT’s corruption.

There are better companies out there that provide the same service without one-sided agreements you didn’t sign up for. Companies like Mint, Spectrum, and all your streaming services. ATT is in all respects a corrupt company from the ground up.

To be candid, had anyone of my issues been resolved in a way that was simply neutral, I would have never complained. Had they reimbursed me for the phone their own employee stole from them and charged me for, had they simply honored us moving as a reason to cancel service without an ETF, and had they acknowledged a mistake had been made in billing us for a U-Verse when we never so much as received a box from them and weren’t billed for this service the entire time we were actually ATT customers.

Heck, when I found out about the stolen phone, I asked only that they remove it from future billing cycles. I didn’t even ask to be reimbursed what I’d already paid at first. But after months of being told by employees they didn’t know how to fix it, and even having one tell me that the easiest way to resolve it would be for me to just pay off the rest of the stolen phone, I expected a bit more out of the resolution. There’s only so much you can take the sharktoothed grin of someone who doesn’t give a crap about your situation and is trained to just milk money out of customers until they’re dead. 

I’ve had enough.

"Uverse" also refers to Internet service, at least it used to.  Did you ever have AT&T as your ISP?

Did you ever engage in Binding Arbitration as laid out in the TOS?

@skeeterintexas No, I never used ATT for anything but phone service. I have not heard of Uverse referring to anything but their television plan, but that doesn’t matter. Even if I had internet through ATT and they called it Uverse, if I accumulated 2 years of unpaid bills they wouldn’t continue providing service. I can’t even have keep my water or electricity on for two months without paying. It appalls me that anyone would try to justify it or try to “figure it out” but such is the habit of every person and every ATT member. It should be impossible to accumulate more than three months of bills for any service. At which point the unpaid bills go to collections and the service is defaulted. ATT sent a single bill for 1,600 and have not a single bill on record for that service before that date. The service dates occurred while I was paying my phone bills in full, including paying for the stolen phone while trying to get it resolved for several months. 

And yes, I spent months dealing with ATT over each of these disputes in private. I even have emails from the office of the president apologizing for the invalid charges… and yet no reimbursement. Matter of fact, the first bill I received after they attempted to close out the claim was for three times the normal amount. This is because it included the remainder of the invalid installment fees on a single bill prorated with the difference of payments I already made on it. Essentially paying off a debt with a debt.

Imagine you go into a car dealership for a vehicle lease for your spouse. The dealer leases the vehicle to you and then puts in their system that you bought another car in addition to the lease. They hide this charge as miscellaneous on your bill and they steal that car from the dealership and sell it on the side. Dealership thinks you got two cars that day. A few months of automatic payments come out and you notice your bill is high. You investigate it and discover that your paying for two cars. You call the dealership. They see the error and tell you that it can only be fixed by the person who sold the car. You go to the dealership just in time to witness your salesperson hauled off to jail for a series of similar fraud cases $600,000 worth. You then have to deal with it over the phone for months, all while making payments, all the way up their corporate ladder to the CFO. They acknowledge what happened and say it’ll be fixed. They then send you a bill for the rest of the car payments on the stolen car, combined. You’re done. You give them their lease back, pay what wasn’t even owed to them, cut your losses. Then a year later that same car dealership sends you a bill for $1,600 on a boat rental. You’ve never been on a boat. Never signed for a boat. Never received a bill for a boat in your life. They already sent the $1,600 to their own private credit company. Meaning they bought their own debt for pennies on the dollar and are charging you in full for it after having already admitted to stealing from you a year ago. 

This is what ATT has done. It was February(ish) of 2018 when I was charged for the stolen phone. It is now May of 2021. Did I try to settle it as laid out in their TOS? I’d sure freaking hope so. I didn’t wait three years to just now consider saying something about it. It only came up again because of what is going on with ATT and my FIL. It is irritating that I have to deal with the company again on my end since my FIL needs me to interpret for him. I want nothing to do with ATT otherwise. Dealing with this has been (Edited per community guidelines) on my mental health among everything else.