20 May 2011
As a medical professional in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I have ethical standards that I hold myself and my practice to as well as my associates. I advertised with AT&T Yellow Pages/AT&T Advertising Solutions/BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corporation (AT&T) for several years and find the way in which this company has conducted business, specifically over the past two years, has been completely unethical and unprofessional.
I signed a contract with AT&T for advertising with a monthly charge of $1, 153.60 and Mr. Michael Thomas was assigned by AT&T as my account representative. Mr. Thomas advertised and promoted Internet Directory, Internet Hosting, and several other internet services that directly resulted in an increase of my monthly billing from $1, 000.00 to $3, 478.00.
Mr. Thomas provided updates on the business generated by the AT&T internet advertising that proved to be inaccurate when compared to www.googleanalytics.com. When presented with this information, Mr. Thomas continuously defended the information provided in the updates from AT&T yet agreed to remove the unwanted services as I was exceedingly dissatisfied with the quality of service I was receiving. Even though I requested the removal of unwanted service, AT&T continued sending monthly bills with charges for services that I no longer wanted. When I initially established service with AT&T, I signed a contract but was unaware that business agreement where my service representative could arbitrarily disregard the requests of the client.
Recently, AT&T filed suit against me in Georgia although I reside and practice in Louisiana where there is a local branch. I contacted my attorney to investigate this case, and my next step is to file complaints with the Fair Trade Commission, the Consumer Trade Commission, and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission as I firmly believe this to be a breach in contract and unethical business practices of AT&T. Furthermore, the Better Business Bureau Code of Online Business Practices have not been upheld since AT&T did not remove the additional internet advertising charges at the request of the consumer. My intention is to find a reasonable solution to this matter.