Sunday, September 8, 2013

Hawk Electronic's Bankruptcy Debacle Has Messed Up My Phone Service With AT & T


I saw the above when I paid my cell phone bill last month.

For well over a decade Fort Worth's Hawk Electronics has been my billing and customer service provider for my AT & T wireless service.  The above message told me my account was in the process of being transferred to AT & T.

And that my wireless service should not be interrupted as a result of this transfer.

When I read "should not be interrupted" I thought to myself that this means the wireless service "could be interrupted."

So, today I called my mom to check in on her surgery recovery. Instead of mom answering the phone I got a recorded message from Hawk Electronics that said I could pay my bill by pressing one or wait for the beep and leave a message.

I called another number to have the same thing happen.

And then I left a very succinct message.

I got back to my computer and logged into the Hawk account to see no message about anything, confirmed the account was paid up and then Googled "Hawk Electronics problem" to learn that last month Hawk Electronics went into bankruptcy mode due to owing millions, having their loans called in and cut off from their accounts.

Yikes.

I then logged into my AT & T U-Verse account figuring they could fix it. Well, that turned into a circus. I think I went through 3, maybe 4, different AT & T customer service people. Each at first indicated this was no big problem to fix. And then some roadblock would occur. Like asking for my password to the Hawk account, which seems an odd request, but when the password was given I was told it did not match the AT & T record.

After fussing with AT & T for way too long I made my way back in to the outer world and found Miss Puerto Rico. I had Miss Puerto Rico call me. My phone did not ring. But Miss Puerto's phone told her that the number she was calling was currently not accepting calls.

What if I had been out and about and needed to make an emergency call? Or someone needed to call me? How can Hawk Electronics and AT & T do this to a longstanding customer?

The notice, above, says I will be receiving more information soon about the account transfer. I have not received any information, not a peep.

Should this bad business behavior be something the FCC frowns upon? Or law enforcement? It seems criminal to me....

3 comments:

  1. Run to another carrier ASAP and file a complaint with the FCC. I was unable to port my number - fine got another number and filed a complaint and don't plan on paying any outstanding balance either

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  2. Ok today I got a letter from Hawk asking me to pay a bill for taxes not charged to me from a phone I owned they said from 4 years ago. I haven't had a phone through these creeps for at least 10. Those creeps have my information and I am furious!

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  3. If you're with AT&T still, tell the rep to search their internal website ("MyCSP") for Hawk Electronics. Once they find the article they should be able to clear up problems with rates/features/etc though they may have to send your info to a manager if you had unlimited data on a smart phone.
    As far as the sales tax goes, Hawk owes the state of Texas. They have the right to try to collect from you, but they can't report non-payment of sales tax to the credit bureaus according to the info provided to managers before they closed their doors.
    I used to be proud to work there, but not anymore (not proud, don't work there.)

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