AT&T overdrew my bank acct tho I dont have an AT&T acct

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Logic39

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My brother asked me to pay an AT&T mobile bill for him one time a few months ago. I called, punched in his pin number and my bank card info and paid his bill through the automated system. When I was done, I just called my brother to let him know the bill was paid.

Neither one of us knew that my card info was kept on file, so when he went to pay another bill in October, he just pressed yes to paying with whatever info AT&T had on file for him. That happened to be my account and my bank account ended up getting overdrawn.

I contacted my bank to dispute the transaction because at the time, I didn't know what it was for. My bank told me that AT&T pulled the money out and that's when I figured out what happened. I contacted AT&T to let them know a mistake was made, to take my card info off the account, which they did, and that the money should be put back into my account, which, needless to say, they didn't.

The bank says this has to be resolved between me, my brother, and AT&T. AT&T says (depending on who I speak to there) I have to go through my bank or that this is a civil issue between me and my brother.

My bank did nothing wrong and my brother had no reason to believe my account was on file, so he did nothing wrong. How can AT&T keep my money knowing full well that this was an unauthorized transaction and that they pulled money from someone they know is not their customer?

I don't know what else to do. I honestly didn't think, based on using common sense (stupid me), that I would have to fight a reputable company to get my own money back. What can I do?
 
You can't complain. You put the information on file with them. Your brother used your account. The bank did nothing wrong and neither did ATT. Sorry.
 
Logic39 said:
My brother asked me to pay an AT&T mobile bill for him one time a few months ago. I called, punched in his pin number and my bank card info and paid his bill through the automated system. When I was done, I just called my brother to let him know the bill was paid.

Neither one of us knew that my card info was kept on file, so when he went to pay another bill in October, he just pressed yes to paying with whatever info AT&T had on file for him. That happened to be my account and my bank account ended up getting overdrawn.

I contacted my bank to dispute the transaction because at the time, I didn't know what it was for. My bank told me that AT&T pulled the money out and that's when I figured out what happened. I contacted AT&T to let them know a mistake was made, to take my card info off the account, which they did, and that the money should be put back into my account, which, needless to say, they didn't.

The bank says this has to be resolved between me, my brother, and AT&T. AT&T says (depending on who I speak to there) I have to go through my bank or that this is a civil issue between me and my brother.

My bank did nothing wrong and my brother had no reason to believe my account was on file, so he did nothing wrong. How can AT&T keep my money knowing full well that this was an unauthorized transaction and that they pulled money from someone they know is not their customer?

I don't know what else to do. I honestly didn't think, based on using common sense (stupid me), that I would have to fight a reputable company to get my own money back. What can I do?
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You should ask your brother for the money. The NSF fees are a separate issue. If you have a good history with your bank, and you explain the situation they MAY reverse those fees for you. If you have a history of overdrawing your account, don't even bother calling.
 
I did NOT put the information on file with them. I paid 1 bill 1 time as a favor. I had no clue that they KEPT my information on file and had no reason to believe they would keep it to continue to use as a payment option.

If I "can't complain" that means if someone actually did steal my info and put it on file with their cell phone provider (keep in mind this through an automated system) there'd be nothing I could do because I wouldn't know the person's name, number, and certainly not their pin so I could take my info off of their account like I did with my brothers. How does that make sense? All that should matter is that the person with the AT&T account is not the person with the bank account and the person with the bank account is saying this is an unauthorized charge. I can give you the key to my car 1 time, but if you take my car again without my permission and I tell you to give it back and you refuse, can I or can I not report it as stolen? How's this different?

My brother has already offered to pay me the money (I'm sure he doesn't have it though). The NSF fee was only $.04, which, of course is not an issue, but, given that I've never been overdrawn and had the money back in my account as soon as I knew it was gone, it would've been nice if they gave that back. None of that is the point though. How can this make sense to anyone and be ok to anyone? It's completey unethical and just plaine wrong. There has to be something I can do legally.
 
Anytime you do an online bill pay with any company the payment account info is stored the same as it was here. And AT&T didn't have any way to know that the info should have been used that one time only. So it's your brother's responsibility to verify what he's doing on line.

Also your argument of if someone stole your info doesn't really apply quite the same. That would be disputable with the bank since it was a case of ID theft. That's why your bank can't do anything. It was a legit payment.
 
This payment wasn't done online, it was done by phone. I pay the majority of my own bills online and never run into this problem because I have options to either make a one time payment or a reoccuring payment. My problem is not even that a phone payment didn't gave me those options, but that they kept my info on file without me knowing. Even if that's just the norm in a phone transaction, it's not right. If you walk through a bad neighborhood at night, the norm may be that you'll get robbed, does that make it right?

And yes, AT&T did not know at the time that my info shouldn't have been used again, but once they were told that it shouldn't have been used they couldn't claim ignorance anymore. If I leave something with you and you give it away 'cause you thought it was yours, can the person that now has it tell the cops "even though it was just shown and proven to me that this is owned by someone else, I'm gonna keep it anyway"? wtf?

Also, I know that my example and my actual situation don't apply the same but does it make sense to anyone that I can get my money back with little to no details in that scenario?

I know my bank did nothing wrong. I don't expect them to do anything.
My brother did nothing wrong because there was no reason to believe my info was on his account.

All that should matter is that I'm not their customer and this payment was unauthorized.
 
You provided your bank info to AT&T all on your own. Most of these companies retain payment info, if not all of them.
Your brother is at fault here for not paying attention to the next transaction and making the payment on your account. Your dispute is with him if anyone. Neither the bank or AT&T are in the wrong. Your brother simply wasn't paying attention.
 
Retaining info of your customers is one thing (I'm not even their friggin customer!!), retaining it without their knowledge is another. I don't know why everyone is acting like it's ok simply because it happens. It's wrong. Again, if I get robbed because I was in a bad neighborhood at night is it ok because most people get robbed in bad neighborhoods at night? This would not have happened if I knew they were keeping my information.

I don't know about you, but I don't know all of my account numbers by heart. I do know that if I only have 1 or a certain number of accounts on file I'm not going to expect an extra one to be there that I might charge by mistake. The same way I don't expect to trip over a couch when I walk in my front door. If I didn't put it there, I don't expect it to be there so I'm not going to look out for it.

If a law has to be changed, I'm willing to go that far. I can't settle for "well it happens, therefore it's ok." It's not ok.
 
You'll bevwasting time and money trying to get AT&T to give you back the money your brother sent them. Your action is against your brother. He used your money the second tine and not his. Why can't he give the money he hasn't spent back to you? Go ahead Don Quixote spent his time righting wrongs, too!


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