When I moved from my apartment in Mauldin, SC to my relative's house in Taylors, SC, I was assured that my DSL had been cut off at the old address and activated at the new. I was never once told (in a 30 minute conversation) that I could not use the original modem without re-registering it. Never once was I told that I had to re-register it, or that the modem had a "go mobile" feature that allowed you to plug it in somewhere else and be billed for it.

So, in short, I was paying the phone/internet bill at my relative's house every month while unknowingly racking up a bill on the apartment's account. I only received one bill, that was the one for July of 2008. After that, the only bills I received were for my relative's account.

All of my mail had been forwarded, and I checked for nearly three months to make sure I wasn't getting anything. I never received another bill for the apartment's line.

In March of 2009, I started having issues with my service. I called and the technician said I needed to re-register my modem. We did and everything was fine after that. Then the collection calls came. For months, I was getting calls from AT&T's Atlanta Billing Office saying I owed them over $200 for internet service. I called and tried to reason with them, but they wouldn't listen and said that they couldn't prove that my service was to be terminated and that I was paying on my relative's account.

One lady said that she could take $150 off to help ease the burden I had bestowed upon myself for not paying my internet. I told her that she was going to take all of it off because I had been paying the internet on my relative's account. One time, I called to get the matter settled with a manager and the girl I talked to was very rude and made me lose my temper.

I said a few explicative terms to her and she informed me that she wasn't giving the phone to her manager if I was going to talk like that. I have stress-induced seizures and I nearly had one that day. I was shaking so much that a fellow co-worker who used to be an ER Trauma Nurse was concerned.

After arguing for months on end and not getting anywhere, (even my relative called and tried to fix it, she is retired from BellSouth- AT&T owns it now) I stopped answering the phone. It went to a collection agency and I tried to sort it out with them, but they said I would have to deal with AT&T if I wanted the charges removed. I tried again to talk to AT&T, but no one would listen.

I spoke with a woman that seemed to understand the situation, but later I found out that not even she could help me. The rule with AT&T is, if you want to dispute a bill it must be done within 90 days of receiving the bill. Because I never received a bill, I couldn't call. I didn't know about it until the account had been delinquent for almost a year.

In the end, I got so tired and so frustrated with all of the harassment from AT&T, that I paid the bill using the last of my tax return. The entire time I was agreeing to pay it with the collection agency, I was sobbing. The man on the phone was really nice and he hated that I had to pay it. I told him everything that had happened and he believed me and said I shouldn't have to, but AT&T wouldn't listen to me.

I am still paying for the DSL on my relative's account, plus her phone bill. I was billed double for the months of August 2008-March 2009. I will never see that money again.