Originally Posted by porky

I beg to differ. A few years ago, I got a new smartphone from AT&T. Now most people would classify AT&T wireless as a legitimate business with procedures in place. I believe, I had a monthly rate that allowed me 5GB data and 1000 minutes per month for - I don't remember - $80 or something. Being the nice guy I am, I had signed up to auto-pay AT&T from my credit card. When I received my first month's invoice, I noticed that they had charged me $1800 for data. Apparently there was a glitch in the system and they charged me by kB used. Of course, since this was auto-pay, AT&T had already charged my card this amount.

I must have spent at least 3 hours over 10 phone calls explaining to the call center #$^@% at AT&T. The most they could do was give me credit for the $1800 overcharge and not a refund. I was so pissed that I have not gone back to AT&T in the seven years since then.

Moral of the story: No more direct-debits. Or receive the invoice a good one or two weeks before the direct debit.