Death In The Family - How To Cancel An Account

Mom died and ATT landline was in her name. I now live at residence and want to remove her name from account and add my name a primary to the account.  How do I do that?  Is there a form that I can complete and mail in with death certificate?  The ATT website does not list any information on how to do this.

Thank you

 My mother passed away December 26, 2017. I need to cancel her account out. I just received your bill in the mail. Thank you Karen Stott   Power of Attourney

FYI:  Powers of attorney do not survive death. After death, the executor of the estate handles all financial and legal matters, according to the provisions of the will. An individual can designate power of attorney to his attorney, family member or friend and also name that same person as executor of the estate.

By the laws of all states, a power of attorney expires on the death of the principal. More specifically, when an agent learns of the death of a power-of-attorney grantor, he may no longer act as an agent in the principal's place.

My mother and father have both died and I would like to cancel their account. I don't want to change the name on the account, just shut down the account.

My father died unexpectedly. I have been trying to close his account for weeks and no one at AT&T is able to do so even when I offer to fax in the death certificate or send a secure email. They keep insisting I have to go to a store where I am nowhere near a store, don't have a car, and can't move. First, I had to endure the robots, then every AT&T person I spoke to on the phone or in a chat room kept giving me different instructions and passing me on to a different department. Each time I was passed on to a different department and I asked them to read the notes, they would not. I had to start all over again from the beginning. The last guy I spoke to, barely intelligible like most of the others, actually asked me to speak to my dead father not once but three times, until I had to say, "My father is DEAD. Passed on. You cannot speak to him."  He then went on over the rules of how he had to speak to the account holder unless I had a pin. Is this crazy? So if I cannot get a pin from a dead person the account will continue on indefinitely? I asked to speak to a supervisor who was super-inflexible and kept reading from a script, and REFUSED to give me a solution except "go to the store" no matter how many times I explained to her that I could not. I asked her if I could send her or somebody else a secure email. Firm NO. She simply REFUSED TO HELP THE DAUGHTER OF A RECENTLY DECEASED PERSON - WHO IS AT&T GIVING THIS JOBS TO? Katherine XPO40F should not be allowed to have a job dealing with any human. She is probably not a human but a limited-response robot. This company STINKS to the point of absurdity.

This is a wired landline phone your stores cannot do anything unless it's a cell phone account. You don't care about landlines anymore you're just trying to force people to your wireless service. I just want to change a landline service and number to my name. Even your telephone service people say there's no way to do this unless I convert the service to digital. What a scam.

Let me tell you about my ordeal.  After my father passed I went to ATT and printed out what was required to cancel my late fathers account.  Upon arriving at the ATT store I asked for the manager.  She was in a meeting, so I dealt with the assistant manager and I presented all my required information, plus some.  I also showed her the printout from ATT website about what was required.  She made the phone call to the 'standard' number and got a representative online.  She identified herself and said that I was there to close my fathers accounts and that she had a copy of the death certificate in front of her.  She had already checked my drivers license to confirm my ID and I had a copy of the account numbers involved.  Person on other end of the phone asked for my dads PIN number.  She told him that he was deceased!  Person then asked for my fathers drivers license.  She told him that the record had already been removed from GA drivers license records to prevent fraud.  Person than asked if I would like to have the account transferred to my name!  Then!  Then, I had to email a cell phone picture of my dads death certificate to some weird ATT email address, where I FINALLY got confirmation email that the account had been closed.  ATT is not a business.  ATT is a retention machine!

I feel your pain, and recently endured a very similar torture on the phone with them. Problem still not fixed, and too tired to call them again just yet after being hung up on twice.

I am having the exact same issue! I have contacted AT&T twice now and they refuse to cancel the account because I don't have the PIN.  I went to their local store, but the waiting list to be served was ridiculously long.  The "customer service" representatives as well as the "supervisor" were all very rude and equally ignorant.  They insisted that I get the PIN - from my DEAD parents - multiple times!  I find it extremely odd that of the dozens of accounts that I have had to work with, AT&T is the only one that has insisted upon me physically coming to a location.  They are also the only company that has had zero compassion or professionalism during this time.  As a consumer, I can assure you that I will not ever do business with AT&T after the way they have treated this sensitive matter.  I have spent more time and effort, and experienced more frustration, attempting to deal with this $80 per month service than was required to deal with Social Security, life insurance, annuities, IRA accounts, banking accounts, and every other utility account combined.  Shame on you, AT&T, for your poor practices and lack of service.

I have been trying for nearly a month to cancel my brother’s account. He dies in the hospital 1/7. He and his nurse talked to me over his phone a few days before he passed. He had been found incapacitated in his home by sheriff and EMS after a welfare check. The hospital had his wallet but his cell phone disappeared from beside his bed. He was in SC and I was on the west coast. He has no other family. I have been trying to get the lines on his wireless account deactivated - fearing fraud would happen using his stolen phone. I couldn’t even get a report filed because I didn’t have any required insider information on his account. After multiple attempts, I finally got a rep to accept that he is deceased, and the supervisor was going to retroactively terminate. She switched me to the retention team and was going to explain, but I was dropped into a blind queue and started over. Except this time all I get is additional usage after his death is $1150 - sorry we can’t disable the account. It feel like they are scamming the dead and people should know this. I wasted several hours on phone with them today. Several more over past 3 weeks. They claimed they are preventing fraud by keeping me from disabling the account for my deceased brother. LOL!!!! Preventing fraud by allowing use of a stolen device.

this is such a load of bull (Edited per community guidelines) that I can smell it through my phone. My mom passed, I called every company and closed her accounts, but att made me go into 2 of their stores (kinda hard without a vehicle I might add) and y’all say that the installation fee is terminated? Then explain to me why it’s still on the account and also, if the estate can’t/won’t pay then what happens? How long until the account has a $0 balance?

We have been trying to cancel my deceased father's wireless at&t service for months now... since October.  Very similar situation as all of the above.  Asked for pin, which we obviously don't have, went to the store, showed the death certificate but cannot get his account canceled!  Not only that but we are getting past due bills on the account.  When we call to again explain that he is dead and the account is supposed to be canceled - they still can't seem to cancel it!  It is beyond absurd!  Is there anyone with a brain cell who works for AT&T who reads these messages and can help?

This forum is a customer-to-customer forum. It is not official support. If the links in this thread don't work, call 800-288-2020 or start a new thread.

As this thread is very old, it will now be closed.