AT&T Store

The cashier (whose name I will keep private for now) present at this AT&T store on August 29, 2014 horribly deceived my 2 colleagues and I while we were in the States for a month on international business. He convinced us to sign up to a package "family plan" (for $240) that was expensive and did not end up working (only 2 out of 3 lines were ever activated). We used the phones for half a day before calling up to cancel. AT&T told us there was no problem with cancelling, all we had to do was pay them $240... for half a day's use of 2 out of 3 activated numbers. We spent hours on the phone with AT&T customer service over the course of the next week explaining the situation and disputing the charge.



Two days after this event, August 31, 2014, we were in Bryn Mawr, PA for our next meeting and visited another AT&T store in that location while still working to cancel the other lines. At the Bryn Mawr store, my 2 colleagues and I individually signed up for the AT&T prepaid plan ($60/month), at the recommendation of the much more knowledgeable cashiers at this branch with no problem or hassle whatsoever. The cashiers at this branch helped us greatly and were optimistic we would not have trouble cancelling the lines registered in NJ because we had only used them for 1/2 a day and the company never activated all the numbers in the plan (read: AT&T did not comply with their end of the service agreement).



Fast forward 4.5 months, AT&T now claims we owe them $383.90 and have turned over the debt to a collection agency... for 2 out of 3 working lines on a family plan we used for 1/2 day on August 29, 2014.



Adding insult to injury, we had been in touch with AT&T a month prior to our travels and worked out everything with the 3 phone lines we required so the SIMs would be waiting for us when we landed. We arrived at our destination in the US to see that our request to register the 3 lines had been rejected (without receiving an email or phone call to update us in our international location beforehand). This is why we had to start from square one once we landed and even step foot in a physical store location to get the lines we needed for our business trip. The proactive, organized steps to secure US-based SIMs for my colleagues and I was taken well in advance of our travels. The above narrative is simply a description of what happened after all of the foot work with AT&T from our international offices.



Basically, the cashier at this Paramus, NJ AT&T store created a situation in which my colleagues and I are now liable to a debt collection agency for close to $400 for 2/3 AT&T lines we used for 1/2 a day. Maybe he was not trained adequately or did not have enough experience to know what he was doing, but either way he messed up big time and I hold this store responsible.