I have a friend with a problem.

She says AT&T, which provides her iPhone service, has made a mistake which is now impacting her credit rating. And the company’s customer service has proved to be a maze filled with false turns, dropped calls, errors, and misinformation.

I can appreciate her problem, which I’ll explain in a minute, because I’ve had a little taste of it.

Here’s the message I got when I visited the AT&T web site to check whether my phone is eligible for an upgrade. If you can’t read the fine print, it says, basically, “sorry, you’re out of luck, AT&T doesn’t provide service in your area.”

But, of course, the computer is wrong. AT&T actually does provide service in our part of the island, and has throughout the more than five years we’ve had two iPhones on a “His & Hers” account.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the “My AT&T” app on my iPhone said earlier this morning. Just click for a larger image, and note the relatively strong 3-bar signal.

Okay. For me, AT&T’s confusion is a minor nuisance. For my friend, it became a real issue when she reviewed her credit report and discovered that AT&T reported an unpaid bill dating back to 2007 which was sent to a collection agency in 2009. But she had never gotten any bill or notice of the matter. So, of course, she called AT&T to investigate. I should add that she’s been with AT&T for over 10 years.

After seven phone calls and six hours talking to customer service, she has pieced together what happened.

In early 2007, after moving from Texas to Kaaawa, she went to the AT&T store on Kapiolani to update her account information, switch to a Hawaii phone number, and upgrade her phone. Checking the same computer system, the store clerk told her that because Kaaawa is outside the service area, he would have to manually override the computer by establishing a “dummy address.”

The customer service representative at this location informed me that in order to redo the new contract and retain service with ATT/Cingluar, he would have to manipulate the system and insert a dummy address and then switch to our residential address. He stated that he could not do the direct transfer of numbers because our residential billing address was outside the coverage area. At this point he informed us that this was the normal procedure for people who wanted cellular service on that area of the island.

I have received different explanations for the bill that was sent to collections, but from what I gather when the service was transferred to the dummy address a charge was accrued (although AT&T has yet to provide documentation of what this charge entails and whether it should be a charge to begin with). ATT claims correspondence was sent to the dummy address and because payment was never received the account was sent to collections. Note that not only have I never received any notification from AT&T about the charge (despite being a customer with a known number and address for the existing billing) nor did I receive any correspondence from the collection agency about the alleged debt.

She’s experienced the AT&T whipsaw, with one representative telling her that the issue had been resolved and the error corrected, and another later saying, “no way, pay up.”

Then she comments:

I cannot fathom that a 10+ year customer is treated so poorly, especially in light of all the evidence of the company’s mistake. I’m even further astounded that the customer care representatives can’t even treat their own customers with a modicum of respect, in particular dropping calls, transferring the call to the wrong department, and even sending my call to a spanish language representative when I asked to talk to upper management.

AT&T is no longer the fabled “Ma Bell” of old, but this sounds a lot like the old days. Remember this? “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

So what should my friend do? Does she have to pay a lawyer to get the AT&T error corrected and removed from her credit history?

All suggestions and advice, including referrals, would be appreciated.