AT&T is in trouble after former employees accused their superiors of using unethical practices to get customers to sign up for DirecTV Now.
Former AT&T Staffers Speak Up
Former AT&T employees are exposing the carrier's shady tactics and accusing managers of pressuring the sales team to sell subscriptions of the company's DirecTV Now streaming service aggressively to customers.
In a Hawaii News Now exposé, several former AT&T employees detailed some of the unethical methods their managers coerced them to use to get customers to sign up for the streaming platform.
Questionable Sales Tactics
AT&T employees were encouraged to get customers to sign up for the service by promising that they would cancel the subscription before the trial period expires. This was a violation of the company's policy, but AT&T did not take any action to dissuade it, the staffers said.
The reps would then fail to deliver on their promise and forget about canceling the trial subscriptions of the customers. Because of this, customers would be charged up to $35 a month for as many as six to seven months before they realize that they were being billed even though they had not used the service.
What's even worse is that when a $10 promo offer was going on for DirecTV Now, some of the employees used customers' credit cards to sign up for three trials at once. This allowed them to exaggerate the number of subscribers and achieve the targets given to AT&T retailers.
The employees also misled customers into signing up for a trial subscription by telling them that they would have to pay an additional, made-up fee when purchasing a new phone. The reps will then offer to waive the fee if the customer avails of the trial subscription. The customer would fall for it and agree to try the service because the $10 trial is cheaper than the make-believe fee.
Employees Fired For Doing What They Were Told
The company fired at least six employees for engaging in the behavior that their superiors encouraged. "Last fall, we detected some simultaneous customer orders and cancellations of a free product trial," AT&T told Hawaii News Now. "We determined some employees had violated our policies and based on our findings we took appropriate action."
The company added that it had reversed the unexpected charges that customers incurred. Unfortunately, this indicates that the sales reps may have been penalized for the actions of their bosses. Sources told the publication that if employees failed to meet sales targets, they could face disciplinary action.
