AT&T and Trans Union

I switched long distance companies to a "dialaround" company called onesuite.com (which by the way is a really cool service -- prepaid 2.9 cents per minute long distance). Since onesuite.com's access is through an 800 number I really didn't care who my long distance carrier of record was. I have been with Sprint for long distance for years and have ignored all of the offers and those "switch now" checks that I get in the mail.

But now since I use the dialaround service I figured I'd accept the offer AT&T mailed to me that was a $50 check. It was one of those deals that switches your long distance service to AT&T when you deposit it. No big deal, I deposited the check and got my fifty bucks. My long distance service switched to AT&T and I still have my 2.9 cent plan with onesuite.com.

I got a letter in the mail from AT&T today telling me my limit for long distance calls is going to be $200 due to information on my consumer credit report from Trans Union. Now I don't care, because my long distance bill with them is going to be a big fat zero each month anyway, but I never knew they were going to pull a report. There was no indication that I saw on any of the materials they sent me that they were going to do so.

Does anyone know if this is a hard or soft inquiry? I think I might send them a letter telling them to go to hell and switch my service back to Sprint.

 

Thanks. No I know I am going to send them a "go to hell" letter and also demand the inquiry be removed.

 

What would I threaten them with? Do you know specifically what law they violated?

 

Nope. With my hightened attention to all things credit related these last few weeks I would have noticed that one for sure.

 

Interesting. I really don't want 120 minutes of long distance though. That's $3.48 worth of long distance from onesuite.com. Seems like a pittance if they were really breaking the law.

 

Hehe 17,241 minutes if I make 'em buy the time from onesuite... let's see: I could call you in Flordia and keep the line open for 12 days straight.

You could help me with my small claims suit against Ford that way. I'm filing it on Monday.

 

I posted this a while back but you might have missed it. Basically, my wife was in an accident with my Ford Probe in October of 1988. It was a total loss. I didn't make my October payment because I knew the insurance company would pay them, so they called my house every day for almost a month.

Then my insurance company paid them (I never saw how much) and Ford stopped calling. I financed a new car at the end of October and never thought about Ford again.

On March 19th of this year I got a letter from a lawyer's office in town saying Ford Credit hired them to collect from me, and they were going to file suit against me for $2,011 that I owed to pay off the loan on the old car. I called them and asked where Ford had been for two and a half years and why they never told me I owed them any money. The lawyer told me that Ford had been trying to contact me all this time. Now that is really bull because I have had the same phone number and employment all this time, AND they called me almost every day in October 1998.

I disputed the debt in a letter to the lawyer and haven't heard back from them. Meanwhile, this got me thinking about my credit reports. I found this board and also looked at my Experian report on-line that same day. To my surprise there was a Repo listed from Ford Credit with a balance owing of about $8,500 filed in December, 1998. First, the car was NOT repo'ed, and second if they really think I owe them $8,500, then why are they threatening to sue me for $2,011? The only reason I can think of for reporting me for the higher amount is to knowingly damage my credit (further) with this information they know is false.

So, I am going to sue them for the max allowed in small claims ($5,000). I sent them a letter demanding payment and have not gotten anything back from them. The ten business days I was supposed to allow them to reply expired as of Friday. It's going to cost me $73 to file the paperwork on Monday, and I have to have their resident agent in Reno, NV served.

 

Well I thought this might be a good situation to test planetfeedback.com. I just used them to generate the following letter:

I'm upset with my experience at AT&T Long Distance USA. Quite honestly, I'm furious about this issue. Just for the record, here's my telephone information: xxx-xxx-xxxx.

I responded to an offer I received in the mail that consisted of a $50 check that if signed and deposited would switch my long distance service to AT&T. I read the terms carefully, decided to accept the offer, and signed and deposited the check.

Today I got a letter in the mail from AT&T informing me that they pulled a credit report on me from Trans Union, and based on that report my limit for long distance service for any one month would be $200. Now, I don't care about the $200 limit but I am trying to rebuild me credit, and as part of this effort I am making every effort to not allow any hard inquiries on any of my credit reports. In fact, if I had known AT&T was going to pull my credit reports from any of the credit reporting agencies, I would not have accepted the offer to switch carriers.

I believe that AT&T's failure to disclose to me that an inquiry would be placed on my consumer credit reports is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act which carries a $1,000 penalty.

The reason I'm a customer of yours is because your advertisements convinced me to sign up for long-distance telephone service with you. But given the nature of this problem, I'll probably take my business elsewhere from now on. And I'll probably tell other people about my negative experience so they can avoid it in the future.

Here's what I'd like to see happen: I would like AT&T to have the inquiry deleted from my Trans Union credit file and the credit files of any other agency AT&T might have checked in this matter.

After this has been done, I want AT&T to reimburse me for the cost of pulling each of my credit files to verify there is no inquiry listed from AT&T.

I hope you get back to me soon. In this age of modern communication, seemingly simple things should not go unresolved.