AT&T broke verbal contract.

[FrankGordon]

I believe this to be the correct forum for the advice I seek. I have recently had an issue arise concerning my home phone and internet service. January of this year I phoned AT&T and negotiated a new price for my monthly services of home phone and internet. At the conclusion of the talks and before I confirmed my intention of accepting the offer, I clearly asked whether or not the said price would be valid for 12 months, to which I was answered, yes. Then I also asked whether or not I would have to follow up with AT&T after the current phone conversation had ended to finalize this agreement and with that I was told, No, everything is set and taken care of, you will not have to do anything further for this to go into effect, it will be good for 12 months.

It turns out that the price was only good for one month and then they raised my rate back up. I called AT&T the other day upon discovery of the price adjustment for this month's bill. They told me that I was wrong and that my previous talks in January never took place and they declined to answer the questions I asked and instead tried to tell me a new made up version of events that took place during my phone conversation with them in January.

I am trying to learn if there is any sort of legal action that I may undertake against AT&T for them lying to me and breaking a verbal agreement. I appreciate any thoughts or ideas that any of you have on this matter.

 

[xylene]

What was the explanation for why the bill went down?

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I don't think you had a contract, verbal or otherwise.

 

[Zigner]

I believe this to be the correct forum for the advice I seek. I have recently had an issue arise concerning my home phone and internet service. January of this year I phoned AT&T and negotiated a new price for my monthly services of home phone and internet. At the conclusion of the talks and before I confirmed my intention of accepting the offer, I clearly asked whether or not the said price would be valid for 12 months, to which I was answered, yes. Then I also asked whether or not I would have to follow up with AT&T after the current phone conversation had ended to finalize this agreement and with that I was told, No, everything is set and taken care of, you will not have to do anything further for this to go into effect, it will be good for 12 months.

It turns out that the price was only good for one month and then they raised my rate back up. I called AT&T the other day upon discovery of the price adjustment for this month's bill. They told me that I was wrong and that my previous talks in January never took place and they declined to answer the questions I asked and instead tried to tell me a new made up version of events that took place during my phone conversation with them in January.

I am trying to learn if there is any sort of legal action that I may undertake against AT&T for them lying to me and breaking a verbal agreement. I appreciate any thoughts or ideas that any of you have on this matter.

Sure - you have a great case. Assuming you are in the United States, just take all your documentation with you when you talk about your contract.

 

[FrankGordon]

I live in Illinois.

I called in January to give AT&T the chance to retain me as a customer. I was going to cancel my account with them and switch to a competitor for a lower rate along with a faster internet speed. I told them what the other company offered and AT&T gave me "retention credits" for 12 months, or they said they were going to.

 

[jgombos]

Illinois is probably a favorable state to be in (in your case) regarding verbal phone contracts. By statute, it's a two-party consent state, which means if AT&T asks for proof that they made the verbal contract, you could probably argue that you didn't have AT&Ts consent to record the conversation. (Although it doesn't prove your claim either, it would perhaps lower the standard of evidence, so your written logs of the conversation may be usable).

By case law, Illinois is effectively a one-party consent state. So in the future you could get away with making phone recordings to capture verbal contracts, which could then be used in court.

You might check out the paragraph on Illinois here: http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-america.htm

 

[ariastar]

What's your proof?