Mother wanted out of my phone plan, now AT&T wants to send me to collections for her bill

Please remove the account number.  It’s personal information and no one from AT&T will read it and take action on it.  All they will do is tell you to contact them using the contact us methods at the bottom of the page.

Typically, when you’re the account holder and you want to remove people from your plan, you do a transfer of billing responsibility (TOBR), which both you and the person leaving have to agree to.  Also, the person splitting off has to get a credit check and get your own account.  Was the TOBR properly completed?

We tried to do a TOBR, but since we weren't at the store together, they wouldn't do that. This was their solution.

🤦🏼‍♀️

Well I don't know how this is all going to turn out, but for future reference: 

Different service providers have slightly different terms for it but basically it is a transfer of billing responsibility to another person. Both parties have to agree to it and usually there is a limited time to accept responsibility once the owner initiates the transfer.

Which you should have done - to your mother...

You will have to contact AT&T directly to iron this out. That's not going to happen here as this is a customer populated form only

You can contact AT&T through the contact us link at the bottom of this web page. But I'm anticipating they're not going to talk to you until you pay 

It would have been easier for her to go to Verizon. This is nuts. I'll call CS again. I bet I won't get anywhere since I still can't reset the passcode, and now that the old number is terminated, I won't even be able to get them to send me a temporary pin.

Hello @teddgram,

We do see that you have an issue and would like to investigate it further.

The Community Forums are a public support option where other users, and AT&T, will try and assist with high level support needs. This means we won’t be able to look into account specific concerns.  To get the help you need for your unique issue, please review our Contact Us page (https://www.att.com/support/contact-us/), and choose the best option to reach out to us.  You can call, chat, or reach out via social media, and we can review your specific issue and provide you support.  If you feel your issue isn’t account specific, and can be answered generally, please let us know, and we’ll be happy to help.

Thank you,
Jessica , AT&T community specialist.

Just as I suspected, when I called CS they couldn't do a thing because I don't have the passcode for the account. They directed me to go to a store. Sitting on the phone multiple times because that's exactly what every person tells you to do does absolutely no good whatsoever. This is a simple billing error and not one CS person can help.

The last time I went to a store I was told that retail stores don't have the ability to handle some of these tasks so you need to go to a corporate store. So I asked where the nearest corporate store was from the CS person. They gave me the address to the nearest retail store. When I told him that the address he gave me was a retail store (because I've tried using that store before) he said they don't have the ability in their system to tell which stores are corporate and which stores are just retail. So really they have the same tools as me googling which store is nearest to me.

Multi-billion dollar company, horrible customer service.

@teddgram 

You have two choices. Mail the bill for your mother's old phone number to your mom so that she can pay it. Or pay it yourself to avoid collections in your name under your social security number. Your choice 

Transfer of billing responsibility can be done entirely online. You never have to go to the store. It could have been done between your email and your mom's email, whichever email she was using to set up her new account. 

https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1045265/

@Gratima 

 No one ever has exactly the same problem.  Please start your own thread and post the details of your problem without personal information. This is a customer populated advice forum not how you reach AT&T 

You can't do a TOBR on a new account if it's less than 60 days old. I tried.

I went to a corporate store on Monday. They could not reset the passcode on the new account, so there was nothing they could do. He suggested I call CS, so I did that while I sat in the store. They couldn't reset the passcode either. At one point I handed the phone to the person at the store and watched the 2 of them argue that neither of them could reset the passcode, so there was nothing that either of them could do with the account.

By the time I left the store, the person at the store suggested that I file a fraud claim. You see, an account was created in my name without my permission. That's fraud. So I guess that's what I'm going to have to do. It involves getting a police report filed. Imagine a system so screwed up where you have to get the police involved because their system is so locked down that no one can reset something as so stupid as a passcode.

There's no fraud here, just someone messing up. The police and fraud department won't do anything. That was just someone in the store not being able to help and telling you something to get you to leave.

File a BBB complaint. Someone from the Office of the President will call you and that's who you'll need to get involved to having any hope of this getting sorted out.