When this Azola couple got back from their honeymoon, they had about an hour of matrimonial bliss before being forced to flee as their house was engulfed in flames. So you can understand they had some things on their mind other than the status of their AT&T | Dish receiver as they ran for their lives. When they called to cancel service, the customer service rep asked if they had “remembered to pick up the receiver” as they left the house…
After the couple said no, AT&T told them they would have to pay $300 for the receiver and would not put any forbearance on the bill as the couple tried to get their life back together. Escalating to a supervisor yielded the same result. You would think AT&T would allow for some extenuating circumstances CONSIDERING THE WHOLE PLACE IS ON FIRE OF FEDERAL EMERGENCY PROPORTIONS! Still, AT&T has a right to recoup it’s property… which makes us wonder if the couple’s homeowner’s insurance will cover it, as the receiver isn’t actually theirs. Just an unfortunate situation all around.
In contrast, Washington Mutual is refunding overdrafts and ATM surcharge fees to wildfire victims.
(Thanks to Desiree!)
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The rep said “you have to pay the bill as soon as you receive the bill”.
There is no mail being delivered to that billing address for a while, me thinks. If I was them, I’d just wait a few months until the bill “gets delivered”.
@qwickone:
I’m sure this was already addressed, but the issue here is that it must be paid on time like any other bill and not when the insurance settles after X number of months.
I’m sorta at a loss of words here. I mean, this is beyond thoughtless. Awful, AT&T. Just awful.
You people shall all understand that the AT&T employees this couple spoke to have no control over their policies.
In the immediate situation (customer still on hold) all they can do is continuely escalate the case to their immediate superior, until they reach the point in the chain that the customer will have to be called back.
Somehow I think if this couple would have waited for a return call from AT&T corperate, intead of giving up at the call center, AT&T would have delayed the fee until the insurance company had been contacted directly by AT&T.
AT&T is nothing more than a pathetic fungus growing on the telecom system in America.
I agree with PEC. These are probably people that work in a call center hundreds of miles away, get crap pay, and work off a script. When you cancel service, the computer probably prompts them to ask to return the box. Given the degree to which these fires are recent, it will probably take time to make changes in the policy to account for stuff like this. It is insensitive of AT&T to assume they were going to take the dish with them, but it is rightfully theirs, and I don’t think they’re all that wrong for asking for it back. Also, to file a homeowner’s claim you are going to need to prove to the insurance company that you had the dish, which a bill from AT&T would do.
@Pec: said: “You people shall all understand that the AT&T employees this couple spoke to have no control over their policies.”
Because California is an “At Will” labor state, these employees are free to leave their job at any time.
The employees that you refer too need to do a morality check on how they enable AT&T’s sick response to people in need by remaining on the job to work for a such a pathetic company.
@ShadowFalls: Sometimes, doing the right thing for your shareholders is far from doing the right thing for everyone else.
@CurbRunner: Mm, but the call center may not have been in CA.
@JeremyJX: Said: “it will probably take time to make changes in the policy to account for stuff like this.”
If Washington Mutual was able to give their customers a break in an expidited manner why couldn’t AT&T?
I suspect it’s because they don’t really give a shit about people in need as they have the same capabilities as Washington Mutual to make humanitarian decisions in real time.
A co-worker who worked in the insurance field for a while told me this:
FYI, based on my State Farm knowledge, their homeowners insurance will not cover it, it did not belong to the couple. However, most home owners policies cover contents at 80% of the dwelling amount. I am sure they will have enough money to pay for the dish. If you think about it, my home is insured for $190,000 (not including the land of course) which means the contents coverage is $152,000. I doubt I have the much in contents.
@magus_melchior: Said: “Mm, but the call center may not have been in CA.”
How could it matter where the call center is?
These call center employees are still aware of what the company they work for is immorally asking of people in need.
@Pec: Let me share w/you a customer service story. Last week I ordered a laptop from Dell. When I got the email confirmation it was littered w/”A” and other special characters…including in the Shipping Address section. So, I called Dell CS to confirm that they had the correct shipping info. The CS rep, who was probably working from a script herself and who was likely based in another country (I make this assumption off of her accent) not only confirmed that they had the correct info, but proceeded to give me a free upgrade to next day shipping.
I didn’t even ask for anything. Heck, I wasn’t even complaining about anything. I was just confirming some info. Then, this week, the CS rep called me to confirm that it had been shipped next day and that I had received the laptop.
I don’t know if she went above and beyond on her own or if Dell CS just has better scripts for their reps to read off of, but just as Dell gets kudos for a good job, AT&T deserves a lick off of a sweaty ball sack for their behavior in this case.
It’s going to be interesting to see how AT&T is going to send bills to thousands of homes that no longer have a mail box or a visible address.
the LAST f*cking thing i would think about taking with me if my house was about to catch on fire? the mother f*cking DISH receiver!! i don’t care if AT&T has a legal right to charge them. that is just all kinds of wrong!
maybe they can package some ash or if they are really lucky, the charred remains and send it AT&t and said it was damaged and it was not their fault but it was AT&T for not making it fireproof, and even then, sometimes you don’t need an excuse, you just return it regardless of damage
Considering AT&T is a giant monopoly you would think that they could afford to lose some of their receivers. Remember: they don’t care about you, only what’s in your wallet.
Let’s go BURN ATT’s headquarters now with the CEO included
@pinkbunnyslippers: Actually, it’s not like that at all.
@Nately: I just paid attention to your icon and was all, “Oh, NATELY!”
Just remember, any of you folks who are AT&T internet customers, unless you are discussing public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns, can have your service terminated by AT&T, for posting what they deem to be negative comments about them on this site and other blogs.
They will find you in this new AMERIKA.
This is all for the good of their shareholders, of course:
5.1 Suspension/Termination. AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns. However, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; or (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service.
It doesn’t matter whether AT&T is in the right. This is bad PR for them & shows how poor their customer service training is. AT&T should have planned to absorb the cost of lost equipment as a good will gesture & gone over the policy w/ phone reps. They would have earned many more customers in the long run. Instead, they made themselves look worse than cable companies & that’s a hard thing to accomplish.
I work for Time Warner Cable in Southern California and we actually received an email from our Executive VP that we are proactively stopping the billing for those of our customers that are in areas that houses have burned down, and putting accounts in a status that will not allow them to go to collections.
On top of that I’ve heard that we are identifying the damaged homes that cannot be occupied and pausing their service until residents can return.
I was glad to hear that we are doing what we can to assist those that have been affected.
I’m sure someone will chime in with some comments towards me and Time Warner Cable, but I’m proud to work at a company that does try to help when they can.
@Buran: After update: … yup, good ol’ media shaming works again.
Completely non-compassionate comment to follow:
You build/buy your house in a bone-dry region with artificially introduced trees and water, subject to hot, dry wind from the desert, and expect handouts when it gets crisped in the inevitable wildfires? I’d say having to cover a few expensive items lost out of your own pocket should be the price you pay for such a stupid error.
@Nately: Well it all got figured out and settled, and they needn’t have worried. So what’s the typical protocol for this type of situation? It’s good to know for future reference…I’d assume I as the consumer is liable, as I entered into an agreement to rent this equipment, but I’m not sure…
Customer service representatives are frequently wrong. Their supervisors are frequently wrong. Some of these companies such as ATT are so large, unless a directive comes down from an area manager or higher, the employee must recite what is scripted. Its ridiculous and makes no logical sense, but this is the world of corporate America. Otherwise the employee is violating the ATT code of business conduct as is terminated for making agreements without corporate approval.. Employees and their first level managers at most companies have little or no discretion. ATT is giving money and volunteer time to the victims of this fire. Lay off already. Sometimes it takes a while for the corporate ship to be turned around. ATT has over three hundred thousand employees, not all of them are evil.
So if you were to buy a car, and your house burned down with the car inside, you don’t owe the dealership anything?
Does the fact that its not your fault, or that the fire was caused by a natural disaster magically pay for your car?
We consumers will be treated like shit until we stop making excuses for these corporations – like many of the commenters on this thread. What gives, people? Maybe it doesn’t make sense to call AT&T (or its employees) evil – on the other hand this is the same company that helped the National Security Agency spy on American citizens. Is that, ya know, good? Corporations do not have to be “good citizens,” because they are filthy, filthy, filthy rich. Is that the world we want to live in, where our lives are ruled by these ginormous entities that operate outside of the law and must answer to no one? If we would not accept treatment like this from an individual then we should not accept treatment like this from a corporation, no matter how “difficult” it might be for them to “turn the ship around.” Fuck them.
Hey, Heroiclife – this is obviously not about paying for the satellite dish. It’s about AT&T not billing them until their fire insurance pays out. If it was a car, or a stack of fucking gold bricks or whatever, it’s the SAME. You think that no matter what happens to someone they should potentially go bankrupt over it (which might be the case with a more expensive item – like, a car) just because some asshole corporation wants to be an asshole?
@DanGarion:
Sounds like Time Warner Cable took the sensible and moral approach.
Too bad AT&T doesn’t have the collective corporate consciousness to figure out how to do it right. They never seem capable of getting ahead of the curve in customer service because their always to busy doing damage control after the fact.
@HeroicLife: The problem isn’t that they were forced to pay. The problem is that they weren’t given some extra time for insurance to come through. And yes, your hypothetical car dealership should have that compassion (and business sense) as well.
Hey, hey, hey! No need to get all upset over this? Really! AT&T just wants their receiver back?
Just dig through the ashes, pick up what’s left of the device and turn it in! There you go, your device, just as you asked.
Funny how your contract doesn’t say ANYTHING about it being in working order, just that it has to be returned…
AT&T whether they deserve their $300 x whatever have just lost yet another customer. They could write off the loss – not torture fire victims further for money.
I expect a lot of current customers will cancel any relationship with AT&T permanently.
@BugMeNot2: LOL, That’s the best I’ve heard yet!
@pinkbunnyslippers: I was talking about the Ground Zero reference, which was not at all relevant to this situation.
Customer service has declined tremendously since AT&T took over SBC/Cingular. I’m curious to know how many people have switched to other forms of communications and entertainment.
Yes they deserve thier monies but show some compassion. A little customer service goes a long way.
The real problem is that all Customer Service is now farmed out to robots. Or to call centers (oversees or not) where the person you are talking to is not a whole lot better than a robot in terms of their power to do anything useful for you or to think for themselves.
They can’t say “hmm, massive fire isn’t in my script, but I’ll find out how we handle this.” They have to stick to their script. Or maybe they’re just half wits.