Back in February, a St. Louis man’s father passed away. But that didn’t stop the folks at AT&T U-Verse from somehow opening a new account five months for the deceased five months after he’d died — all because he’d once inquired about service at some point in the past.

When the late man’s son noticed the U-Verse bill in July, he saw that the balance was $0.00, so at least his father’s ghost wasn’t running up bills he couldn’t pay.

Worried that his father’s ID might have been stolen, the son attempted to get to the bottom of the story by calling U-Verse, where no one would speak to him because he could not provide the password for an account that should never have been opened in the first place.

He was also told he could go to a U-Verse outlet and present ID to show he was the person on the account.

“I said I can’t because I’m not,” the son tells KSDK-TV in St. Louis. “I’m pretty good at handling situations but I could see I was getting nowhere on this one.”

Of course, once the TV station got involved, AT&T no longer needed to know the name of the dead man’s favorite cartoon character to investigate the account.

From KSDK:

A spokesperson would not go on camera but in a statement said a computer system clean-up generated the false bill with information [the father] had provided years ago when he inquired about service.

AT&T apologized for the screw-up and says, by golly gee, it’s going to take this as a teachable moment for its employees.

Now if only AT&T could train its computers to not open accounts for people who don’t want U-Verse service.

Thanks to Ed for the tip!

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