Urgent Notice: Network Equipment Retirement

Scam.  That is not a number for AT&T.  Perhaps it is a third party reseller.

To anyone viewing this thread after the fact... this is Not a scam.  I am an ATT employee working in our Broadband support group and am part of the team that supports callbacks for that toll-free number.

AT&T is currently retiring our copper broadband network where our fiber optic network is available...  The retirement is taking place in different phases where specific regions are migrated en masse.  If you have received a call or voicemail advising you to call that number to schedule an appointment to migrate to fiber, it is a legitimate call.  It is not a sales call and will not ask you for any payments or result in an increase to your bill (with the exceptions of your account being currently suspended for non-payment, or your choosing to upgrade to a faster speed than the one automatically included with the migration).

Furthermore, by the time you are receiving these calls/voicemails, you would have already had a letter sent to you via US Mail notifying you of the upcoming retirement of the copper facilities currently being used to deliver your equipment...  That letter would also include the cut-off date telling you when your service would be interrupted/disconnected if not completed.

Due to size of the team staffing that callback number, hold times before getting through to an employee can sometimes be upward of 2 hours during peak calling hours.  The number is open for calling from 8AM CST-10PM CST... I suggest calling early in the morning to best avoid high calling volumes.

While I appreciate "skeeterintexas's" enthusiasm for assisting our customers, in this situation, he was incorrect... 844-468-0852 is most definitely Not a scam and Is an AT&T phone number.

Please be aware that you will continue to receive calls/voicemails to migrate your service until you either speak with the person making the call, or call back...  You will either need to have an order/appointment in place to have your service line updated to fiber, or an order in place to cancel your account at a future date if you want the agents to stop trying to contact you.  Again, it's not a sales call... they're trying to prevent your services from being disconnected.

If you still require proof that the person you speak with is an employee when you call that phone number back, just ask them to remotely reboot your residential gateway (modem) or something similar to prove they are actually accessing your account from AT&T systems.

Lucas9938 if you really are an att employee, well, I called ATT support on my physical bill and they contradict the sales pitch here of "  It ... will not ... result in an increase to your bill " as I was told that it WOULD increase my bill, that the program of old copper I was in - although I can see it still active on ATT - can't be applied to the fiber. So this conflict of information from calling the direct att support furthers suspicions. Who's to trust: you who has no credentials to show you are an att employee, a 3rd party caller who can make promises that can end up bogus come the first bill, and one finds themself stuck, or ATT customer service on your internet bill telling you that it WILL cost you more? Too many conflicting and questionable info that makes this too hard to trust. I spoke to 2 different ATT persons contacted from my paper bill, and both said it WILL cost more, even the customer loyalty person. Are they BOTH mistaken? At least they I could trust were at ATT since I called them from the contact number on my physical bill. But you only have 1 post here and no credentials, so who is to know if you represent the scammers behind this number? Today one can't be too careful, as even crooks are now sending physical letters to ones homes to look even more believable. If this really is ATT, they should, as a phone company, understand how con artists can use fake numbers, so why has ATT gone and hooked up with a number that isn't their own? Surely they could have created one traceable to ATT, and then forward to a legit organization. But this raises doubts.  It isn't the first time I've gotten notice by email that 'my order was approved' from an att email and there was no order, yet it would have the ending of my account, meaning inside mistakes / games.

While not knowing anything particular about notices or letters or calls one may receive…

If you call in for an issue, repair ticket, where fiber is available an installation will be scheduled known as a FORCED MIGRATION, this is a upgrade from copper to fiber service while keeping everything else the same which means your internet speed and billing will not change. If have internet before will have internet 25 after upgrade to fiber… just the service platform is changed…. Note this is a repair order with force to fiber.

If you call for upgrade your service or someone reaches out to you (not a repair) and changed to fiber then your speed and billing will go to current fiber service order, not a migration but order installation.

Depending on where you are at from pricing standpoint may be higher or lower billing.

Example is 2015 internet 45/6 (POWER) was list price of $82 with a $7 equipment fee total $89 a month. The first year had a $17 discount for new customer so initial cost was $72 for 12 months before increasing. At that same time internet 3 (PRO) was list $47 with $17 discount or $30 per month plus $7 equipment fee net $37 12 months then $54 a month. If fiber 300 is available at $70 per month that is a significant savings from $89 for internet 45 while an increase if coming for $54 for internet 3.

SF34252…

In response to your problem of “I called the number on the bill twice and they told me my bill would go up”…. In that sentence lies the problem.

You called the number on the bill and spoke with representatives in either Billing/Sales and Retention/Loyalty.  They are not part of the migration team.  They can convert your account to fiber, but they do not process the forced migrations.  If they pull up your account, it will have what’s called a “Flash” on it… it’s like an alert that pops up and it will tell them to transfer you to Tier 2 ART because you are part of the Phase 8/9/10 migrations.  The ART team is the team 844-468-0852 with PIN routes you directly to… My team. 

The phone number to ART is specifically included in the forced migration notification letter to ensure that your price does Not change.

And to answer your question, I “do not have any credentials” because I am posting this from at home, during my own time, and cannot log into my company email from at home to reset my official account password.  I’m just trying to help & prevent your services from being disconnected when you reach the migration deadline.

Lucas9938, I absorb what you are saying, but you have to 'get' the level of phishing in tech today: it is as such a sophistication that it leaves a customer with no surety until the customer gets solid evidence. I haven't yet gotten that solid evidence everyone is on the same page from either representatives I have been able to identify are genuine ATT employees, and parties contacting me themselves claiming to be but whose credentials I just can't get verified.

The only loser in the end would be myself if I didn't get the verification, and then get tricked into cancelling my own needed program, and see on my bill that indeed 3 of the different Joe Publics I have seen between this forum and Reddit saying that their bill ended up being HIGHER despite what they had been told by the sales representatives! And I have been on the receiving end of wrong collections 18 years ago from ATT, and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth I do not want to repeat when my means are even less.

I find this very super bad public relations on the behalf of ATT. I just read another post here from TWO years ago, people wondering if the number calling them that I am wondering myself today, and I have found others wondering on the Internet t hemselves last month, if this number BELONGS to ATT or not!? And guess what? To date there is NO solid confirmation at all. This is a joke.

While I appreciate your response, what you say is just not 'solid' evidence. I have met scammers so sophisticated that if I end up with a higher bill just from the post you give me, I have only MYSELF to blame for falling so easy.

Why will ATT NOT verify if 469 421-4950 REALLY belongs to AT&T or not!?? Why so uncaring? Why the lack of transparency? In 2021 there is a post in this forum that I just looked at where customers typed in that saw Texas number wondering the same. No one posted back to confirm. This is NOT acceptable with today's electronic and us postal mail abuses going on by organized scammers.

On top of that I had been on hold with the Retention/Loyalty nearly 2 hours as this very nice fellow tried purportedly over and again to connect with the official Access Department because he told me he could not on his own cancel my Access and start the migration, but all the same, he could CONFIRM to me the pricing would be higher. There is so much conflicting info, and ATT turns out to act so ruthless and uncaring if/when billing turns out different in a verbal situation that it leaves a customer unable to deal with such potential errors paralyzed what to do. This is unacceptable for ATT who created a program in order to help the indigent to then be so callous and indifferent about the understandable suspicions of such customers in a day when scams are super high.

It is not unlikely scammers can be reading this forum, and have inside connections in order to defraud persons, I have seen that kind of crime before, including social security local offices, where crooked employees sold info of customers etc, so ATT a communication company, should not be so uncaring to not provide transparency to this LONG-HELD phone number tied to alarming customers when calling about unexpected migrations that some customers have reported end up being FALSE and CONFLICTING to what is on their BILL! Can AT&T not get that???

To date, no matter what you have typed, I cannot bring myself to answer such an out of area number. I need this in writing from AT&T with a phone number to call that I can match up really belongs to AT&T.

I wonder how many similar needy elderly or equally vulnerable population have LOST their important lifeline to the world due to such unsolved fears? The cost of living is CHOKING these days and many on fixed income cannot risk making such mistakes. Have a heart, AT&T, please provide solid transparency some place where a customer can themself proactively call back a published AT&T phone, on  AT&T website that leads to the department that makes that migration.

To be repeatedly from shaky unreliable sources be given phone numbers that simply in YEARS no one at ALL believable has verified is not good enough. PLEASE put yourself in the shoes of the very group ATT is said to want to help. This instead communicates to me that ATT really does not want to help and their silence is the truth, uncaring to never confirm and hope they get rid of many that way, despite the consequences to those persons.

I have been on the forums of other providers who have a built-in means to have real employees then have the querying customer resolve their issue through a follow through, and such doubts are resolved, but one would think ATT, the oldest of them would do the same in this issue? Nope, total silence and disowning of a forum right on their domain name! That is incredible and, really, without excuse. Really this is the first company I have seen run a forum on their OWN domain name and not take ownership of it. What does that say about how much or how little ATT really cares about really helping.

I am going to paint the picture for you a little better: this is like domestic abuse in a relationship. Some of us have been abused by AT&T in the past, when no one is looking, behind closed doors. And so, understandably, we have fear and mistrust, and are alarmed about what appears a similar set up for similar future abuse from the party called 'Bill - ing'. They have been ruthless. You get thrown to 3rd party collections. Mistakes are not fixed. Piranhas.

AT&T is not all good, just like all the other companies, everybody knows this. It is really border criminal for AT&T to continue to stay silent on giving solid confirmation to all customers in these migration situations that the customers can trust what they are being told about no billing increases will be 100% true, and that can only be by AT&T providing on either their website, or in the customer's OWN bill or online account a contact phone the customer can then call back to verify and match up the promises of no changes in the bill. 

Over the years I have read of this issue, I have not seen this happening, and to me that is only confirming this is on purpose by AT&T to bait/switch, why the silence remains, a known customer service issue, not just by AT&T but all communications company by their sales rep who gain points/commissions/etc for such trickery if it is successful to get customers to 'upgrade' higher packages.

What you can and should expect is what is offered to NEW customers listed on the website.

Once upgrade is similar to cancelling… any old pricing and promotions are not expected to be retained per the TOS, which has not changed since January 2019.

https://www.att.com/legal/terms.HSIAAttTermsofService.html

4. Pricing

Again, Retention/Sales do not handle the forced migrations.  There is no need for the Access program to be removed from accounts to process the migration orders/appointments.  The only reason the Access discount would be removed is to upgrade your speed to a tier not included with the Access program.

When we process a migration for an account enrolled in the Access program, we Only change the “transport type” from whichever copper transport you are currently on to “GPON”, aka fiber…  we do Not change the speed.  Retention and sales cannot change the transport type by itself.

Again, we’re just trying to help prevent your service from being disconnected.

Since you seem to not want to call the phone number provided, instead of calling Billing/Sales/Retention, call technical support.  They will be able to see the flash on your account and can transfer you to ART who will process the migration Properly.