It can be very useful to be grandfathered into an old plan that isn’t available anymore. What one Reddit poster and his mother have discovered, though, is that it creates some problems. Like when someone dies, and AT&T insists that they can’t make any changes to your DSL and landline account unless you upgrade to UVerse.

So around 4 months ago my father passed away. It’s been hard, but my Mother and I are going to be okay. Today, as my mother was going through the mail, she decided to change the names on the bills we have been getting. The Department of Water and Power and AT&T internet still had my fathers name on it. She calls the DWP and within 5 minutes they tell her that her name will now appear above the shipping address. No problem. Now it was time to call AT&T. My mother explained the situation to them (I was in the kitchen making a turkey sandwhich so yes, i did actually hear this). I could tell my mother was becoming irritated. “What do you mean you can’t do it? Well how much is the upgrade? 15 dollars more a month? Well what about people who get married? They change their names too!!” For whatever reason, AT&T refuses to put her name on the bill, that is unless she upgrades her service to U-verse.. She hung up in disbelief. She called again and talked to someone else. Same results. SHAME ON YOU AT&T. Way to make a bad situation worse.

AT&T, for its part, began taking the situation very seriously as soon as the story began to go viral.

AT&T refused to take my deceased Father’s name off of our bill unless my Mother Upgraded to U-verse [Reddit]
AT&T Refuses to take deceased man’s name off of bill unless wife upgrades to U-verse. [Facebook]

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