AT&T unlimited calling plan

Does anyone here have this plan - you pay either $24.99 or 29.99 and get unlimited long distance calling (in the US).

Since our "long distance" bill is really just toll calls (calls within the state but out of our local area- maybe 20 miles away and further), I signed up to use for that purpose. Our internet provider is also a toll call....can you see where this is going?

After about 6 months of paying the monthly fee and using the service as I have described, they have shut down my ability to make any toll calls or long distance calls and the "fraud unit" is investigating. I discovered this only after calling AT&T to find out why the phone wouldn't work, no one notified me from AT & T before they took away my service. Furthermore the person I talked to was only speculating that using it to dial the internet was the reason it was shut off, they weren't sure. They said the "fraud" folk have 48 hours to call me back and talk to me about it.

I don't recall (when I signed up months ago) that anyone told me I couldn't use the service for this purpose, and I know they never mailed me anything describing the terms of service. I feel uneasy that they consider this "fraud" though. I'm not running a business from home, this is just personal use (the AT&T lady scolded me saying that when people sign up they are informed that the service is only for personal use. I told her that is IS personal, I only have one phone line so when I dial the internet I'm not able to call anyone else, and why should they care who I'm "talking to" anyway?).

Anyone know more about this??

Eileen

I've never hear of anything so trumped up against someone by a company. We have the same plan thru SWB and use it a lot. However we don't have to use it to reach the internet as that is a local call for us. Do you have cable or satallite service? Maybe you should look into using that to contact and use the internet. I know where you live will make a lot of difference in the cost of going that route.

leaflady,
Well I still haven't gotten a call of explanation from AT&T despite leaving a message for the fraud unit, and they haven't restored my service.

I did check out satellite service and it costs around $600+ for the equipment and $100+ for installation, altho the monthly fee (approx $80) would be affordable. No cable service is offered in my small town area. That only leaves dial up, and in my town (population 1200) nothing is local. Right now I'm calling the next town for internet. Each call is 5 cents plus 2 cents per minute.

I'm going to have a hard look around and see if there's a way to raise the money for satellite over the next few months.

Eileen

Ask you local phone co if they have Circle dialing or something like that. That is what we have because everywhere we call is out of our calling area.

yardbird, what kind of plan is that?

The "Fraud unit" is often their collection service. Verify that your payments were recieved and credited to your account properly. This happened to us recently and the "Fraud" thing about scared me half to death. Turned out our payments had been applied to someone elses account by mistake. They interupted my service and scared me but when it was cleared up did they appologize? No way! So we switched carriers.

I think we pay like $6 a month and can call up to 50 miles and it isn't long distance. My computor is on dial up so if not for this plan it would be long a distance call eveytime I get on line.