Re-think Possible???

[Not Guilty]

If you're not familiar, AT&T's slogan is: Re-Think Possible. Well, it should be: Re-Think Retarded!

I don't think I've ever had the displeasure of working with a more inept company than AT&T. Please allow me a moment to vent...

When I bought my new place, I decided to try AT&T's U-Verse TV. I got a good deal for the 1st year, and was on a month-to-month contract. During that 1st year I'd say I had to re-boot the system, on average, twice a month. Each time I'd lose ~5 minutes of the show I was watching. I dealt with it for the year, but when the promotion ended, I wasn't about to pay 1 penny more, so I called and explained the problems I've had withe the service and asked if they could lower the price. When they said no, I decided to go with Dish.

I call Dish on 10/23 and schedule the install for 10/29.

I then call AT&T the same day (10/23) and ask to have my U-verse disconnected on 10/31, the last day of my billing cycle.

What does AT&T do? They disconnect it 5 minutes later...

Now I get to spend the next hour on the phone trying to get it back on until the 31st. They can't it back on that day, so they have someone come out the following day between 8A & 4P. That means I get to spend that night and the next morning at home alone with no TV...

When the tech comes out the next day, the only way he can get the system up again is with a new DVR, so I lose the recordings I had planned on watching the last week of the service...

Fast forward to 10/29 and Dish completes the install and everything is working great.

On 11/5 I follow AT&T's instructions and drop my equipment off at a UPS store, so I'm done with AT&T, right??? LOL!!! If only!

A couple weeks later I receive, what should be, my final AT&T U-Verse TV bill, and notice a $49.00 fee for re-activating the service they mistakenly disconnected. Unbeleivable!!!

Now I get to spend another 1/2 hour on the phone getting that fee reversed... They ultimately reverse the fee and I pay, what should be, my final U-Verse bill.

Finally I'm done with that mess! Right?

Oh hell no!

I receive another bill the following month for U-Verse TV...

Here we go again!!!

Again I have the great pleasure of taking time out of my day to call AT&T to explain to them the service was disconnected last month and I have returned the equipment. After 15 minutes of explaining, I hang up thinking this ordeal is over.

Nope!

Today AT&T calls me at home twice to tell me my U-Verse bill is past due.

Great!!!

After the 2nd phone call, I stop what I'm doing on the Internet (ordering parts for my car, paying bills, etc) and start a chat with AT&T. Of course the genius on the other end of the chat types: "I can help you with that!"

After 1/2 hour things are actually looking good (I should have known better). She's disconnected my U-Verse service (which was somehow still connected) so I won't be receiving any more bills, and all she has to do is adjust my account.

Things are looking up! In a couple more minutes there will be joy in my world, right?

WRONG!!!

Down at the bottom of the chat is: "the agent is typing". After a couple minutes I'm wondering what the hell she's typing, a novel?

Nope. This relaxed-mandible disconnected my internet!!!

WONDERFUL!!!

After 2 1/2 hours on the phone, I have an appointment to have my internet re-activated between the hours of 8A & 12P, tomorrow morning.

What should have been a 5 minute phone call to schedule my TV service disconnection, has resulted in, no joke, close to 4 hours of my time on the phone, and ~6 hours of waiting on AT&T technicians to restore what was mistakenly disconnected.

Sadly, I doubt it's over... Something tells me I will have another $49.00 re-activation fee on my next bill...


What really blows my mind, is I had forgotten that AT&T did the EXACT same thing to me when I was moving out of my last place 2 years ago.

At that time I was scheduling services to be disconnected from my old residence, and scheduling services to begin at my new residence. I called AT&T to disconnect my internet 5 days from the day I was calling, and they disconnected it 5 minutes later. Again I spent a couple hours trying to get my service back. Again I went without Internet for the rest of that day, and part of the next morning. In addition to not having internet, I also don't have a land-line phone, as my phone is VOIP.

ALL of the other utility companies were able to schedule their services without a hitch.


JOC, any other AT&T horror stories out there???

[richard200593]

Yea. Bought my iPhone 6 along with who knows how many other people and got the 2 year contract pricing which they didn't tell me came with a 40 dollar per month access fee per line which was bumped up from 15 dollars per line.oh yea and to break the contract that I was snaked into takes bill gates kinda money (ok not really).needless to say I will not be an att customer in two years.

[jrhagen]

I used to work for the "Death Star" company, so I know how they "work". I could have gotten tv, phone, cell and internet basically free. I paid to have Verizon Fios.

[Not Guilty]

Originally Posted by jrhagen

I used to work for the "Death Star" company, so I know how they "work". I could have gotten tv, phone, cell and internet basically free. I paid to have Verizon Fios.

I wouldn't mind discussing this in private with you if you wouldn't mind... Can I send you a PM?

What really gets me, is this is a Billion dollar, American technology company, that can't even schedule a simple disconnect without screwing it up, and then, to add insult to injury, tries to charge the customer for fixing the screwup; it's just dumb-founding...

As a proud American, not only am I disgusted, I'm embarrassed.

This is just PATHETIC...

[jrhagen]

Originally Posted by Not Guilty

I wouldn't mind discussing this in private with you if you wouldn't mind... Can I send you a PM?

What really gets me, is this is a Billion dollar, American technology company, that can't even schedule a simple disconnect without screwing it up, and then, to add insult to injury, tries to charge the customer for fixing the screwup; it's just dumb-founding...

As a proud American, not only am I disgusted, I'm embarrassed.

This is just PATHETIC...

There really is nothing to discuss. They have moron union employees screwing everything up everyday and they know they can't be fire.

[Todd in Vancouver]

I purchased a new cell phone for my wife who wanted it so she could text, this was a few years back. Anyway got the phone and it won't text, just goes on an endless loop of bouncing everything back. Call them and discuss with the tech dept, yada, yada, yada. Anyway almost a month later they fix it an turns out they didnt have the text feature turned on. So, I asked for them for a free month because we got the phone for texting and it didnt work. No way they tell me, they offered a discount on my $40 bill.

I go through all the levels of managrs and after days of going back and forth the guy in charge of Customer Service tells me very rudly there is no way he will give a month free and that they don't car what I feel is fair. So I put it really clearly that they are going to lose me as a customer forever and it will cost them a lot more than $40. And quote "We don't care" he tells me beacuse this is the first month of my 2 year contract.

So then I cancell my home phone, internet, business line for my office and fax line with Telus and get a package deal from another company, Shaw,.Then as I visit the shops I consult with, 25 of them, and switch them all from Telus to Shaw with the same pakage deal for phone, fax and Internet. Later when we added TVs to our stores we added more services, again with Shaw. This $40 pi$$ off has cost them tens of thousands of dollars and in the long run much more. Sometimes these guys are just idiots and they deserve everythong tey get, or don't get.

[ChrisBlair]

Equating AT&T with retarded people who have never hurt you is...un-necessary.

[ZED SLED]

You need to learn to speak Indian. All they heard was broken English, even in chat, lol.

[Not Guilty]

Todd, congratulations on getting rid of them and not taking their crap!

I can proudly say I removed all ATT&T services from my home this morning, and will NEVER do business with them again if I can, and that's a BIG if...

The problem is, in my area, they're the only internet service provider. I think this is part of the reason they're so bad, they have a certain amount of users that have no option. Give ALL users an option, and I'm willing to bet AT&T wouldn't last long, or their revenues would drop significantly.

What I ended up doing, is using my Verizon cell service as a hotspot. I have 4GB of data, which for me is more than enough, and this will save me ~$50.00/month. Even if I need to jump up to 6GB, I'll still be saving $30.00.

My Verizon connection appears to be at least as fast as my AT&T connection was.

[kalimus]

I'll see your ATT Uverse and raise you one Time Warner Cable.....

[Scalded Dog]

I recently dumped Verizon (due to the most inane, worthless, horrible customer service imaginable), and went to Sprint (only to find another company in a dead heat for most inane, worthless, horrible customer service imaginable).

Looks like AT&T makes three competing for stunning idiocy of the century honors.

Really, they are ALL the same... different names, same exact level of moronhood.

I could cite examples all day long, and well into the next day, but you already know. The idiocy, inanity, and poor service is absolutely stunning, and only believable to those who have actually experienced it.