oct17.com Blog

Things not to do: Accidentally wire $3,000 to AT&T

I love electronic bill-pay, but I recommend that you periodically clean out your old, unused accounts. Otherwise, your mouse might slip and you could select the wrong recipient when paying your holiday credit card bill. And if you do somehow accidentally wire thousands of dollars to the wrong company, make sure it isn’t AT&T.

So far it’s been two months with no offical acknowledgement from the company that they have my money or that I’ve filed any claim to get it back. The tally so far:

• 9 different customer service reps, incl supervisors
• 1 copy of a bank-routing info
• 3 hours on the phone
• 2 faxes
• 1 postal letter (not registered! that was mistake)
• 1 unrelated refund of $121 that was found in an old account

Latest sally was today, so everyone cross their fingers and wish me luck.

UPDATE: All’s well that ends well. After talking to a dozen different customer service representatives, I was given a magic phone number. This number was answered on the 1st or 2nd ring by a human, who could look up my claim and give me a status! It was unreal. I checked back a few times, while “the check was in the mail,” and then the check actually arrived.

I’d post the Magic AT&T Phone Number, but that would probably ruin it.