Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

It’s about time!!

I'm a reporter with Channel Futures and have been collecting sources on this topic. If you or anyone you know has information, please reach out to me at james.d.anderson@informa.com. I can grant anonymity.

It’s about time!!!!!!

As a SP, I can say probably 97% of my deals were legit, but sometimes Att sales agents would demand additional compensation from me. My choices were pass on the business and possibly future business or su-k it up and pay them. Att could have designed a program were we both benefited working together, which at times they did, but then would remove it or make the compensation so poor for one side it became a non starter.

Saturn Wireless is another fraudulent mobility SP. That Manika btch has been paying off 5th levels at T for over a decade now. Also, Five Star does similar sht and no one bats an eye. Don't get me wrong, there are good SPs as well, but these fraud committing SPs need to go.

Someone is benefiting by churning orders, it’s become an epidemic. I cover multiple offices and see it happening a lot. We aren’t able to see who the seller is, only the customer and the facilities. It wouldn’t take an audit team long to find out though.

They used to do that to techs in the field when they placed a customer’s order. They would cancel the techs order and then immediately re-issue it with their name so they received credit for the sale and reward money. A bunch of thieves, several were eventually fired over it and the practice nearly stopped.

When will there be an audit for sellers who generate new revenue by downgrading ASEOD, like those in Platinum and Fiber who initially sell 1GB ASEOD, then return to reduce the speed for the customer, resulting in a new order number and they proceed to SIP the same sale a second time?

What about Accenture? T is a gravy train to them. We have teams in business units project managing system development that hands off to an org in Tech Dev that hands off to Accenture to develop.
The business units pad the business cases for self sustainment so that’s high labor costs internally and then more to have systems developed that never deliver a true ROI. No one doing the full checking / feedback loop. Systems teams scattered all across the country - working remote bc they’re not really doing any meaningful work - talk about kickbacks…

We see it in the CO, constantly getting a new order then it’s canceled with a disconnect. A few days or next day, it comes back in with a new CAC, CLO or both. The circuit id and everything else is usually the same. It seems that people are taking someone else’s sales and claiming it as their own or piling on. So when we get a disconnect on a new order, we just pull out one side of the fiber jumpers and wait because most times it comes right back in.

I’ve mentioned it to a few managers but nobody seems to care or investigate it. Ethics and integrity seem to be an option these days.

this was fairly public knowledge in AT&T Business Solutions about Spearhead paying kickbacks since 2014 when they owned the at&t channel is SF-San Ramon-San Jose Bay Area.

Spearhead got let go for false LOA's, turning in internet upgrades as new revenue. They were renewing existing customers without LOA's.

The fraud has been going on well over 5 Years and not just with SPs. When I started backing in 2008, it has been crazy. There have been 3 massive Fiber Upgrade Audits in Mid Markets. 2017, 2019 and 2022. You would think AT&T and Asset protection would do something if they truly wanted to increase sales and cut cost. Nope they ignore it like always because they all want to keep their jobs. Jeff Mcflesh should truly be fired as he has failed to address this for years on the business segment. On a side note asset protection looks the other way at the same time. This company is no better than your own Government. Corrupt. The books are cooked year over year which explains the horrid stock pricing.

I've been in wireless sales for 5 years and can say that If AT&T really wanted to save money all they have to do is look at the exorbitant amount of false churn being done by the alliance channel solution partners, simply run an activation report for the lines of service the SPs activate and cross reference the deactivations that are done in the same accounts.-it's glaringly obvious. Existing customer wants a data device refresh, the sp structures the offer as new activations rather than as upgrades -which pays the SP more money, Now AT&T has paid out more money than they should have for this "sale" - likely paid out a larger new activation device subsidy as well as new activation promotional credits, paid the SP way more money for the new activation rather than they would have paid out for the upgrades, also most likely the SP wrote down the revenue, and then did a side deal and took the old data devices in on trade rather than running them through the AT&T trade-in program and made large dollars on the old equipment. End result flat customer growth, lower monthly revenue, paid out a few hundred dollars in device subsidies and activation credits and wrote a large check to an SP How we continues to turns a blind eye to this and see this as a sustainable model is beyond me

It is probably AT&T not wanting to pay Spearhead anymore. Asset Protection probably found some small stuff, and they were terminated. If was an SP, there was no way I would trust doing business with AT&T. They are such bullies.

Netspark also gives kickbacks to direct teams. They made millions of dollars turning in internet upgrades as new revenue. I cannot believe a venture capitalist would give money to this company.

This sounds like another case of PAGA. Lawsuits designed to make lawyers money. Look up paga scam California.

Will any current AT&T officers get implicated?

There's already a lawsuit against them by their former employees. These guys have always been known as shady but T looked the other way. Poetic justice.

https://www.spearheadlawsuit.com/