AT&T denied it was billing the DeFazio family. (KCBS)

A Sacramento family that continued to receive bills from AT&T more than a half-year after closing their account got an interesting response when they questioned the charges: AT&T denied they were billing the family at all.

Naomi DeFazio cancelled her service with AT&T in November, but nobody told AT&T’s billing department who continued to faithfully bill her $4.84 a month for long distance service the family stopped using. The family wants the charges stopped, but that proved more difficult than they first imagined when AT&T claimed they were not, in fact, billing her at all.

That was news to DeFazio, who showed a growing pile of AT&T phone bills to a local consumer reporter.

“I think they’re just expecting me to pay it just to get them off my back,” DeFazio told KCBS. “Nobody wants to take responsibility for looking into this.”

KCBS:

AT&T, a communications company, eventually admitted it had a communication problem.

“We inadvertently billed a monthly minimum charge and the taxes and surcharges which should not have applied,” said company spokesman John Britton. “We have corrected it.”

AT&T apologized, wiping out her balance.

“It would have been a lot nicer to have an explanation a lot earlier in this process,” DeFazio said.

If you are getting the runaround from AT&T, call 1-800-791-6661 to reach AT&T’s Office of the President. Those executive level customer service representatives are empowered to get things done for customers that lower level representatives cannot.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCBS San Francisco ATT Bills Customers for Canceled Service 7-9-12.mp4[/flv]

KCBS shows AT&T’s phone bills to viewers that the phone company denied ever existed. It took a consumer reporter to finally get AT&T to stop billing a Sacramento woman for long distance service she canceled more than a half-year ago.  (2 minutes)