We’ve seen a few addresses that have fractions in our time on this planet, but we never stopped to think about what it was like to try to order internet at one of these locations. Turns out, its about as annoying as you think it would be. Meet Michael. His address is 914½. This problematic little fraction causes AT&T to completely freak out for two months.
I recently moved to a new apartment, and since I could actually get a decent speed on AT&T, I went with them instead of Comcast. I knew from the beginning that having an address of 914.5 (yes, ½) would pose problems, but I never realized how bad. Let’s go through the phases:
First phone call – I tried ordering AT&T internet, but the salesperson on the phone had a really difficult time finding my address in their system. She thought that we were listed as simply 914, and we set up the order as so with a note specifying that the address was actually 914.5, and the installation date was set for the next week. Okay, not so bad.
Second phone call – Two weeks later, still no internet. I called again, asking about service, and they told me a serviceman had been out and installed everything necessary. They offered to send another guy out to try and fix the problem, so that was the end of that.
Third phone call – I get the basic introduction letter in the mail, welcoming me to AT&T service. However, it originally went to 914, and somehow ended up in my mailbox. I tried calling AT&T again, mentioned the problem may just be the fact that they keep going to the wrong address. This time, they actually managed to get the address right in the system, and opened a new work order and dsl number for me. It would take another week for them to get a service tech out, but I waited patiently because I didn’t need internet that bad.
Fourth phone call – I got a bill in the mail for 914, the original dsl service that I never had. Call in and they say don’t worry about it, it’s just a mistake in the system and it’ll be taken care of. By this time, my internet is working on the correct dsl service, so I believe all is well.
Fifth phone call – I get an overdue notice, and a letter from collections from the original service. Now they told me to not worry about it, but a letter from collections just slightly bugs me. I call in, attempt to explain my story about having a new service number, and get treated like a liar and a criminal. She was the rudest person I have ever talked to in my life, and I don’t think she even looked at my file on their computer, just demanded payment. I asked to be transferred to someone else, and actually talked to someone helpful. She took a look at it, noticed the countless notes saying my service had been cancelled due to the wrong address, and corrected the bill. She also offered me a $50 gift card because of everything I went through, which I thought was good retribution. But yeah, I also think they lied about that because it’s been a couple months and that has never shown up.
Moral of the story – Get a good address. The ½ detail can really throw a company off for two months, and don’t trust any telecom company, they’re all a bunch of liars.
Michael
Hey, AT&T, where’s this guy’s gift card?
Do all companies freak out when your address has fractions? Or did AT&T never get past integers in grade school?
(Photo: jetsetpress )
More From Consumerist
-
T-Mobile Ends Roaming Near My House, Leaves Me With No Service, Shrugs
-
With A Data-Slorping AT&T iPhone And a Data-Sipping Sprint iPhone, I Can’t Win
-
How I Got T-Mobile To Give Me More Data For Less Money
-
Text Message Plans From AT&T: Now Unlimited Or Nothing
-
Time Warner, AT&T Miffed At Kansas City For Treating Google’s High-Speed Fiber Network So Much Better
same thing happened to us growing up. there was our house with address of 1113, vacant lot, next house was 1117. one day soemone builds a house on vacant lot and instead of giving it address 1115 it gets 1113A. so after that UPS, pizza delivery, etc always ended up at their house first.
I do not quite understand why ATT had such a problem, it is not that unusual.
OFF TOPIC BUT RELATED –
Package delivery. Where I live is structured oddly. My addres is offially “84 x Street, Front 1″ and is on x street. “84 x Street, Apt 2″ is upstairrs, but the actual door – and mailbox! – is on another separate street. Meanwhile, wjat looks like the back porch is actually a different address, “86 x Street” and physically a seperate building.
UPS and USPS seem to have no problem because they knock before trying to leave a package or a notice, but FedEX has a policy of not knocking during “workng” hours (unless “signature required” is noted on the label, which alas is not an option with most Internet orders) and leaves packages at #86, thinking it is the back porch. Annoying. And recently a new family moved into that address, and until I talked with them would refuse package deliveries and mark mail (yeah, package guy OK, but the route carrier gets ALL 3 addresses mixed up) “unknown at this address.” Luckily, once past a minor language difficulty these neighbors no longer do this.
I live on Oak Park Crossing, and there is an Oak Park Drive accross town. No problems with utilities, but can’t get UPS deliveries.
Screw the interwebs, I’m going to have some fun at Moorpark Park.
@Tzepish:
I had a similar issue when I was doing IT support for a company that hired a lot of Indian contractors. (And who doesn’t?)
One day, new on the job, I had to do account setup for someone whose legal name was “Pankaj”. That’s it. Just Pankaj. Our system completely refused to handle it.
I told my supervisor about the problem. Apparently, it had happened before, because the immediate response was to enter “F.N.U.” for the first name.
“F.N.U.?”
“First name unknown.”
“Oh. Um. Ok.”
I laughed when, the next week, I walked past his cube and saw that his newly-minted nameplate said “Fnu Pankaj”.
On the subject of awkward street names, I live on “Westmoreland Drive”. Oh the horrors trying to communicate that on the phone. “Westmoreland Drive. One word. No, not Moreland Drive West. No, no, it’s not ‘West *pause* Moreland Drive’. One ‘o’. No, not two. One.”
For a while, I tried saying “Westmoreland, like the general”, but the average CSR is not educated enough to understand.
Sigh.
My office had the suite number omitted from our billing address with AT&T. It was pretty much impossible for us to get it corrected and ultimately ended up switching to Speakeasy.
We were caught in a Catch 22 because we couldn’t change our information without a special number on our statement.. and we couldnt get our statement because our address was incorrect.
I lived on Lane Street growing up. I still wake up in cold sweats from nightmares where I’m trying to explain to CSR’s where I live.
1
I lived in an apartment complex – multiple buildings, that had a 1/2 address plus a letter to indicate which building plus an apartment number. There were also individual entrances for groups of apartments within any particular building. Getting anything delivered by anyone other than the regular USPS/UPS/FEDEX drivers usually involved multiple attempts. The most common solution was to meet the truck at the entrance to the parking lot and lead them to the proper building and door.
I had a similar problem when I lived at 917A, an inlaw unit. they kept insisting that I should be getting the same internet as 917, and I kept insisting that there has always been two separate lines for the previous tenants. They said they would attempt to connect it but believed that they would have problems doing it and would need to send out a technician, which of course, they did not, because I was right.
I had a different problem when it came to UPS/FED EX deliveries, the inlaw unit was at the top of a short staircase while the main residence (a mansion) was at the top of quite a bit more stairs. UPS would always get pissed at me when I caught them trying to leave me a package that belonged to my landlords upstairs. I did find out that my landlords were part of the bacon of the month club, however, so that was awesome.
I actually lived at a 914 1/2 59 ST. This was of course 20 yrs ago but never had a problem, from UPS or FedEX ETC. Couldn’t get cable because it was a downtown and wasn’t there at the time, though the rest of town was.
I have a few stories about addresses lol. First is with the phone company. When living at my parents house I had a stalker that would call internal phone company departments to get my information even after changing the phone #s and having them unlisted. I managed to convince the phone company that my house was newly re-renevated(spelling?) and now had 3 floors with separate tenants and a new address. I was able to change the street number and fake suite/apartment numbers to each phone line as well as change the name on the account by telling them my mother had gone back to her maiden name. Then I had all the bills going to a po box to ensure we received the bill. It’s pretty wild, I used the same trick to tell utility companies in the past that my street name was recently renamed and have them change the service address on the bill to any made up street name. The other thing is my old apartment complex was in a zipcode that shared 2 city names, you can have fedex/ups/usps send packages/mail to the other city name and everything arrives fine. Aww the joy of manipulation while protecting your privacy
I used to live on the corner of 123rd Street and 123rd Avenue. Halfway down the block one way was 123rd Place and a block the other side was 123rd Court. The USPS, UPS, Fedex, none of them had any problems at all finding my house. But I had to guide guests into the neighborhood, or they’d never find the place!
@HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak: SLC?
it takes me forever to get my mail due to a weird town naming situation
and setting up services here was a pain but TWC serves my area but not the other:
i live in willow spring
5 miles away is willow SPRINGS
the zip codes are one digit off and the digits are a 4 for one and a 9 for the other, so written in sloppy handwriting, it’s hard to tell the difference
willow spring doesn’t have a post office but willow SPRINGS does
anytime i have to give an address over the phone i say ‘willow spring’ but the CSR repeats ‘willow SPRINGS’ and we play back and forth for a minute while i explain that there’s no S on the end.
9 out of 10 – address reads willow SPRINGS and i get my mail about 2 weeks after it is sent.
i feel so bad for the post office employees in willow SPRINGS, this has to happen a few hundred times a day
My neighbor is a 1/2. I get her mail all the time from places that apparently don’t get the 1/2 so they land at 1771 instead of 1771 1/2. Not a huge deal, I just drop stuff in her mailbox, but still, kind of a pain. She probably owes me a batch of cookies or something…
Those CSRs aren’t paid enough to understand anything out of the norm.
Ugh, this is why I like to order over the internet: no CSRs *ever*, and I mean ever, can spell my street name correctly. It begins with the strange combination of “Wy-”, so whenever I spell it out to them, it sounds like I’m saying “Double-You-I”. Easiest solution is to go one.letter.at.a.time. And have them repeat it. “W.” “W.” “Y.” “Y.” and so on.
@HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak: Could be worse. In my city almost none of the streets have names – they’re all numbered. So addresses all look like “345 West 700 North” or “495 South 800 East,” with nothing that looks like a street name. It’s fun trying to explain to people on the phone that the number IS the street name. On the other hand, it makes it really easy to find places without getting directions.