Joe's Random Ramblings

I have had AT&T U-Verse Internet access for nearly a year. I took advantage of a promotion they had to get 12MB downspeed for a decent price.
Unfortunately, their billing system isn't quite up-to-par. They always "forget" to deduct the promotional amount. I have to call them every month to get the bill corrected. The amount is then charged to my credit card automatically, something AT&T calls "autopay." For the September bill, they said the amount would get corrected by their billing system automatically. Of course, it didn't
So, this time, I disputed the amount they overcharged me on the credit card. The credit card company reverted the overcharge, and my AT&T bill showed the appropriate adjustment. So far, so good.
But then, something completely unexpected happened: They canceled the autopay, and when I went to proceed paying the bill with the credit card, they refused to accept the card. They claimed that the card issuer put the card number on some fraud prevention list. Of course, that was just some kind of heavy BS. I talked with the credit card company, and they say the card is good to use. And, AT&T continues to accept the same credit card just fine for my cell-phone payments...

So, the bottom line, what AT&T did was just retaliation for me disputing a charge. The credit card company calls this "card suppression," and they are now taking this up with AT&T.
I have no idea why some id*ot at AT&T thought retaliating against a customer would be a good idea

Update 10/31: AT&T personnel now at least confirms that they blocked my use of the credit card for payment on the account because I disputed a charge. Took them a long time to even acknowledge that
But at least now I know that it is retaliation.

Update 2, 11/07: I seem to have rattled enough on the cage that this now gets escalated. I have been talking with somebody who doesn't give me the usual boilerplate, scripted answers, who actually seems to look into the issue more.
Anyway, the latest is that because of some internal code they got with the chargeback of the amount they overcharged me, they consider that fraud and don't allow the use of the card anymore. That's apparently this mysterious "fraud prevention list" that not even their first- and second-level customer support knows anything about... They obviously try to keep that list and even the knowledge of the existence of that list pretty much a secret
It still continues to be retaliation, punishing me for exercising my right to not get overcharged. If they don't have a code for this in their computer system, they need to find better programmers, or at least provide a way to override the code, a way that doesn't involve countless hours on the phone with them. Unless they don't care about their customers, of course... All this doesn't bode well for the planned buy of T-Mobile. It shows how badly AT&T interacts with their customers...
In any case, I will take this higher if necessary.

Update 3, 11/11: This now seems to be resolved. The one friendly AT&T person I eventually ended up talking with was able to get the block removed, to get my credit card off their "fraud prevention list." Why oh why is it so hard to get more such people in their customer support?