Relatives of a Belleville senior citizen say DirecTV nicked $469 from the grandmother after she canceled a service that she never really wanted. They also blame AT&T for helping the satellite-television company.

I'm not going to identify the woman, a 76-year-old widow who lives alone, at the request of her family. Hers is a complicated tale of aggressive marketing, double billing and poor customer service.

Anastasia Wylie said that about three months ago, AT&T called her grandmother trying to sell its U-Verse plan, which bundles television, phone and Internet service. The woman didn't need the Internet, but she signed up because the monthly fee still would be cheaper.

Wylie said AT&T called her grandmother with bad news. The television component of the bundle, which runs over fiber optic lines, wasn't available in the woman's area. AT&T could offer a similar package, but it would cost about $20 more and would replace AT&T's television service with DirecTV, Wylie said.

"She wasn't really comfortable with a dish, but she agreed anyway," Wylie said.

On June 7, a DirecTV technician installed the service and asked her to sign some papers. Wylie said her grandmother believed they were meant to acknowledge that the technician had done the work.

After a few days, an AT&T bill for $125 arrived at the woman's home. Then came the unexpected: a DirecTV bill for $87.

The woman didn't understand why she was being charged twice for the same service. She called to complain. Wylie said her grandmother found AT&T's response to be polite, sympathetic and unhelpful. DirecTV was just unhelpful, she said.

The woman paid the bills, hoping that the double billing was a one-time error. But after the second month of being charged twice for satellite service, she called both companies to cancel.

"She's truly on a fixed income — nothing but Social Security," Wylie said. "She always had set aside $100 for (cable and phone) bills, and now that was more like $200."

The woman dropped AT&T in order to get phone, cable and Internet service from Charter Communications. Wylie said her grandmother described the AT&T customer-service representative's response to the loss of business as respectful, good-mannered and — once again — unhelpful.

With DirecTV, the company told her that she had signed a two-year contract. Apparently, the document the woman signed was more than she realized.

Contract or no contract, the woman told DirecTV, she wasn't going to be able to pay. The account was "canceled for non-payment," Wylie said.

On Aug. 21, the woman got a call from her bank asking why her checks were bouncing.

Without the woman's knowledge or consent, DirecTV had removed $469 from her checking account. The bank said there was nothing it could do. The woman complained to Belleville police; relatives complained to DirecTV and Wylie called the Post-Dispatch.

DirecTV says it is within its rights to charge an early-cancellation penalty, and to have it withdrawn from the woman's account. She signed an agreement giving the company that power.

Still, the woman and her family aren't the only people outraged by this policy. The early-cancellation fee is a common cause for gripes against DirecTV on blogs and Internet complaint sites, and a consumer group in California has organized a class-action suit to challenge the practice.

It seems to be the down side of the satellite company's free-installation policy. Robert Mercer, a spokesman for DirecTV, said the company is careful to warn customers that they must be a customer for 24 months to avoid a penalty fee.

Maybe that's fair, but shouldn't the company make an exception for the widow of Belleville? After all, she canceled because she was being overcharged and DirecTV wouldn't correct the error. Mercer said he'd look into it.

AT&T might have some explaining to do, too.

The phone company didn't really make much money out this debacle but Ma Bell did get the ball rolling by trying sell a U-Verse package it couldn't provide. And getting DirecTV involved was the phone company's idea, after all.

AT&T spokeswoman Marisa Giller, of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm, said Friday that the phone company is looking into the woman's problem. But because it involves another company, AT&T wouldn't have any answers until next week.