AT&T logo (Photo : Reuters)
A California man recently received a $24,000 surprise. 83-year-old Ron Dorff received two AT&T bills totaling that amount. His AOL dial up subscription balance was not waived until he called Los Angeles Times for help.
Dorff first received a bill of about $8,600. Then he received another one for about $15,700, according to Ubergizmo.
The bills were quite high considering that Ron Dorff had a $51 per month subscription for a dial-up Internet connection, according to CNET. AT&T promised Dorff it would send a technician to his house, but one never arrived.
AT&T has sent other huge, mysterious bills before. Jose Rivera, a US soldier stationed in Afghanistan, recently received a $16,000 bill.
There are also similar cases from other telecom companies. However, often the customer service agent does not consider that the "strangeness" of the situation could be due to the company itself.
In Dorff's case, his dial-up Internet service kept calling up a long-distance number for no reason. An AT&T spokesman confirmed that the company has since "waived" the sky-high charges.
Other companies have methods for dealing with red flag bills. American Express contacts customers when unusual amounts are changed to accounts.
However, the Los Angeles Times' report of Dorff's situation does not include many details about his misconfigured modem. Also, AT&T has not explained if its system is able to detect unusually high charges.
Granted, sometimes the customers are dishonest. For example, sometimes they complain about a high bill that they know is correct.
However, how reasonable is it for an 83-year-old man to spend $24,000 for his dial-up Internet connection? That is even more surprising than the fact that over two million people in the United States are still shelling out money for dial-up service.
