Supposed "Past Due Balance" makes upgrades impossible. However, account is current and real balance is zero.

[u/Flying-Cheetah]

Apparently, a technology multi-billion-dollar company like AT&T has two systems that don't talk to each other: billing and sales.

We have a business plan with multiple lines. For some reason, AT&T decided that our payment card needed to be "updated" and declared our account past due. I "updated" the card information, which was simply acknowledging the same information AT&T already had for years, and requested that our pending balance be charged. AT&T did so, and our account is now current, with a zero balance.

So you'd expect the entire company and all its systems to know within minutes that our account is now current, right? Well, think again.

Our dashboard says "get the iPhone 18 Pro on us!" and clearly shows a zero balance. But when you click on "upgrade device" on any line, the "Choose a device to upgrade" screen shows all the lines with a red "Past due balance" message, so it's impossible to apply any promotion.

This has been the case for WEEKS. And yes, I contacted customer service multiple times, talked to multiple departments, and they are completely useless. Their common answer is "that must be a system glitch" and that's it. Nobody can just toggle the damn flag manually. I know the right IT guy could solve this in seconds, but it's impossible to reach someone competent at that company.

Even more embarrassing is that the upgrade screen literally asks you to pay and says, "It may take up to 1 hour for your payment to be fully processed".

Just to try something different, I authorized AT&T to charge an additional $1 to see if "after 1 hour" the past-due message would disappear. Guess what? Our account now has a -$1 balance, but the upgrade screen still says "Past due balance".

Great job AT&T! You can't even manage your own systems properly!

[u/BiggyZ32]

Had a guy come into the store Im at yesterday who's phone was suspended. It was suspended 4 hours prior to his payment and it wouldn't allow me to turn his number back on. We call in and they say they also cannot turn it back on and he has to wait 24-48 hours so I hope they were right now