The "New" AT&T Sucks The Same
Even a TV producer with 5 years experience in doing consumer complaint stories is powerless against AT&T's incompetence. Anderson writes:
Dear Consumerist,
For five years I worked as a producer for two different television station consumer units, sorting through viewer e-mails, phone calls and letters. From this vast list of complaints, I would choose cases to investigate and feature in our on-air reports. If I were still working in TV news, I would have chronicled my two-month experience with "the new AT&T" in a multi-part report. The resulting series could have won an regional Emmy when I documented the double-speak, screw-ups and sloppy service I encountered.
This case starts with a loyal, longtime customer making a simple request to transfer existing service to a home I was buying. It ends with a frustrated customer so exhausted by his entire AT&T experience he finally cancels his $1428 a year phone/internet due to numerous billing errors, poor customer service, and five service outages in the span of 60 days. Even after the cancellation, the billing problems and nightmarish calls to "AT&T's award winning customer service" department will have to continue just to get the final bill sorted out.
Here's a summary:
I called 12 days before my move to transfer service to a new address. The next day, I had no dial tone or DSL. Seems my service was turned off. I had to call and have the phone and DSL service restored. This restoration apparently set into motion a series of events including the cancellation of my pending transfer, activation of a second transfer order (which meant I had another phone number change), cancellation of that second request and a return to the original transfer order.
Repair Service
The day the phone was turned on, it would ring in the house but callers would hear heavy static. Immediately I used my cell phone to call Repair. When I checked on my repair request the following the day, there was no record of my call. I should have gotten a name because I would have been cozy with them after six calls to the repair line. In general, the phone would be repaired on a Tuesday work fine a day or so, then heavy static would appear on the line and by Friday, it would go out all weekend. This occurred five times. During the final outage I was supposedly moved up to expedited service, only to get an automated call on my cell phone early Sunday morning: "Due to heavy work loads in your area we cannot honor your request for expedited service." Later that evening, I got a call from a technician who told me "I've fixed this line three times already. There is an underground cable going bad in that area."
Billing Errors
A few weeks ago, I had to call because I was getting a bill from my previous address. It seems service was still on at the apartment, even after I moved and called to turn it off. A rep said she was clearing the account on December 10 and my online bill showed a zero balance.
All the back and forth on the order apparently caused numerous services (such as "inside wiring maintenance plan", "PC internet security suite" and "equipment protection plan" to be added to my account without my authorization. When I called to have them removed, the first rep argued with me about the equipment protection plan. "It doesn't cover my phone which is cordless with a built-in answering machine," I said. "Oh yes it does," she said. "Lady, I'm looking right now at your terms and conditions for the plan and it does not cover this kind of phone." She continued to argue with me, so I finally asked for a supervisor. "None are available. They're in a meeting." I told her she was incompetent, hung-up and got another rep who supposedly removed the charge.
When she was finished, I asked for a supervisor. After a short delay (meeting must have ended early) I got one. She basically called me a liar saying "Our representatives are trained to go over each aspect of the order with the customer. You just didn't pay attention." As a person who reads the fine print, I know such services are essentially worthless (to me anyway), and there is no way I would agreed to having $13.50 crammed onto my phone bill (especially the internet security plan which does not work on a Macintosh).
This exchange left me so angry and frustrated I immediately called back and had my services turned off. The notes on my account must have been extensive because the rep didn't even try to convince me to keep my services.
Today, I get a letter dated January 1, 2009: "We recently sent you a final bill for your former telephone service. Our records indicate $48.86 is past due." I called about the problem, waited 24 minutes, and customer service sent me to the billing department . They tell me they only make payment arrangements, so I had to hang up and call back (27 minutes) for the rep to "make a second request to clear the account." I also asked that a supervisor call to help me clear this up. She refused to transfer ("they're in a meeting" and took a number. Two days later, still no callback.)
From October 23 to January 5, I only wish I had made all my calls on speaker phone and on-camera. My time on hold, staticy service, conflicting automated messages, flurry of mailings (Welcome to the New AT&T!) would have made a
nice series or reality show.Maybe I'll do that as I try to get Brighthouse to actually show up and install a cable modem and digital phone service. (I'm only into my fourth call to them so far!)
Sincerely yours,
Anderson W.
ESCALATE! For the love of god people, please escalate. Do not let the first-tier, outsourced reps and their always-in-a-meeting supervisors dictate the level of service you're going to receive. Ask for the supervisor's supervisor, EECB's, executive customer service, you have the powah. [sic] Otherwise, if a consumer news tv producer can't make it happen, there's no hope for the rest of us.
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
Post a comment
Comments:
I have to start documenting all the times lately I've been called a liar. Oh, they don't quite say it so brazenly, but "sir, we wouldn't have done XYZ" when I am staring at XYZ right in front of me -- that's getting really old.
Jimminy Christmas.
I'd be stabby, too. Somebody get that man a drink!
You have to love AT&T with their notoriously trite "I'd me more than happy to help you with that."
until the next sentence begins with "Unfortunately..." followed by a load of crap.
I'd be "More than happy" to take my business elsewhere. Unfortunatly, you won't be getting any more of my money.
I have to call them to fix a dead phone line in the back room. *sigh* I'm not looking forward to that.
OOH, I had this same thing happen to me but with the cable company. I said "I'm moving on X day, can you transfer my cable service?"
They said "we'll activate it at your new place on X, and we'll deactivate it at your current residence at X"
3 entire days BEFORE X, they cut the cable + the internet. Needless to say, I was pissed.
This sounds EXACTLY like what happened to me with Verizon Triple Play as well. Looks like you can't win with any of the companies. I'm now 6 months post-cancellation of Verizon and still getting bills. The latest excuse (from a supervisor) is that the higher up supervisor who needs to okay the clearing of my bill (since it is over $50) was in an accident 4 months ago and they are just now replacing her.
The New AT&T is the old SBC with a new logo.
I must be the luckiest girl ever, because anytime I've called AT&T they've been pleasant. They even delayed porting a cell phone number for me so I'd not get hit with an ETF from T-Mobile.
I filed a complaint with our local PUC (Texas) when they would not honor a price on the Interwebs because I had to talk to a CSR. I had to talk to the CSR because I didnt have 'credit' with them, even though I had an account with Ameritech in Indiana...
Anyway, a rep from the VP of complaints (seriously, I think that was what she said) called and offered me a cash rebate, but that the price would be the same. They got my information from the PUC. I couldnt believe it.
@ionerox: Yeah, they've always been really pleasant to me as well. The problem is that they've been pleasant all 10-20 times I've had to call them just to get our phone line repaired (heavy static which kills our DSL.)
I've never had a problem with ATT. I've had bellsouth internet which in turn became ATT internet, I've had ATT long distance, and cingular which in turn became ATT wireless plan. Never once had a problem... :/ and considering the only alternative I'd have on the internet or phone service side would be comcast (apartment complex won't allow satellite)... I'll stick with the lesser of the two evil's.
@ionerox: AT&T was almost always pleasant to me. (Except for the times they called me a liar.)
They'd never fix anything, but they were very pleasant about it.
Please note the past tense.
I have an AT&T cell phone and constantly love their claims about "more bars in more places" (we now know they were speaking 'earth-wide' when making that claim). Los Angeles coverage is AWFUL.
However, I had a similar issue to the OP but with Sprint as a land-line long distance carrier. Even the executive customer service group (thank you Consumerist) could not stop the incessant billing errors. It got to the point where I had to terminate service just to get the billings and incorrect autopays to stop. And I still had to make 2 calls to that rep after cancellation as they didn't handle that right either. There was definitely a ghost in the system because she could not stop the billing problems.
The good news from all that was that I used this as an opportunity to cancel all long distance on the land line. Now my wife can't be lazy and use the land line for long distance ($$$$), and instead HAS to use her cell phone (freeeeee).
If this had happened with AT&T in Kansas, I'd recommend contacting the Kansas Corporation Commission Consumer Help Line: 1.800.662.0027. They are quite effective.
Sounds almost exactly like my experience with...get this...moving across the hall in my apartment complex! What a nightmare.
@jdmba: I had a prepaid cell phone from AT&T one time when I came home from being in Germany. I had terrible service, so bad that I couldn't even get service while standing next to the AT&T kiosk in the mall I bought the plan from. I don't use them anymore.
Welcome to "churn." If you are unsatisfied and leave, there is someone aggravated by the competitor who will be along to replace you soon.
All of these monster corporations have become machines. They don't care about quality service. They care about minimizing overhead.
I used to work for these bozos for 14 years and I can personally tell you story after story of the orders they have screwed up laced with poor customer service quality and service - not to mention their DSL tech support is out-sourced to people over seas that barely speak English and can only read a flow-chart - because they have NO f'ing idea of what they are doing. Of course INSIDE the company you are constantly told about how GOOD AT&T is doing in customer service yada yada yada - but in MY personal experience in trying to help people in sales of their services, I can share more screw ups than I can of smooth orders. They suck - that's all there is to it!!!
I had a bill between 300-400 dollars due to internet useage! I have never got on the internet with my phone!
Thankfully att (a day after I called and spent close to an hour on the phone) took the charge off my bill..they are however still trying to charge me 199 dollars for canceling services when in fact all I did was change phone numbers and up grade my phone..att-cingular both have horrid billing practices, might I suggest a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT???
You should try to work for att cell. treat the employees like dirt. they make un obtainable demands of there employees. I worked for them 3 yrs. I had sprint cell phone service all the time finally I quit.
I used and loved Verizon for the past 6 years, but after moving to my new location, the only tower providing service is AT&T. So I applied, online for a phone and three weeks later I still have not received it. Three times already, I have had to call them to give them the gitty-up to get my order moving again. Just yesterday, I was told again, "it will ship tomorrow" only to receive an email today indicating that all of the products that I ordered are on backorder. ^*&%^&*$$^^& I hope the family members of AT&T suffer the same frustration....that was a hex.
I used to work for AT&T and retired from them last April after working with them for 30 years. The way they are treating their employees now is atrocious. Trying to get rid of as many of them as they can. They do not care about their employees -- all they think about is $$$$.
I had an ATT account for a cell phone and the first bill was huge with all these subscription services on it. I called to see what was up and they said it was stuff that had been ordered by me ( which I had not) and I had to pay it. I said cancel all subscriptions and paid the bill. The next month same thing. They said " their mistake and I would get a refund on my next bill but I still had to pay the entire amount on that bill. I did that and the next bill I got my refund but the subscriptions were still on it. So again I call and finally they figure out that the subcriptions were from the person who had the phone number before me. Again they say I have to pay the bill and then I will get a refund on the next bill. Next bill huge again. I cancel the service go back to sprint and pay the entire bill. Cost me hundreds of dollars. never got a refund. It was too much hassle and time consuming to pursue any further. I'm sure they count on that.
Sounds typical of At&t where I live as well. We are very rural and our landline phones are 20+ year old temporary lines. Yes temporary the at&t techs told us that the same day they told us it would take 3 weeks and $1600.00 to put in another TEMPORARY line. We said nevermind and got Alltell cells. No problems with them thankfully:)
@jdmba: I just quit AT&T Wireless for their bad reception at our house. When they phoned me a day or so later, told them that their signal was ok about 1 mile north, but that since I didn't live there, I was leaving after 8 years and many promises of better signal strength. Now with Verizon. from the pan to the fire? too soon to tell. Regards, Fat Lenie.
I called ATT and transferred my wireless contract from one phone to anothertoday. They were extremely helpful and polite. I've never had problems with their customer service.
I'm really considering leaving them. That bundling your srv is a crock. 30 30 30 Claims $30 for each srv if you bundle them. Thats if your not an existing customer.
You cant have a seperate line for you internet. They tell you can do if if existing but price will stay the same. Some savings.I'm looking into other service.
AT&T- I hate what they did to me.
1. When I moved and needed to switch my service to NC, no one could seem to "find me" in the system because they had merged with Suncom?
2. I said to the service lady- " Well I get a bill ever month, so I must be a customer.She argued on the phone and got nowhere. She responded wit an " I don't know what to do?
3. They never switched me , I was desperate for service that did not charge me roaming.
4. I went through Alltell, and I have lived happily everafter.
5. At&T called to collect, and I responded, "Gee I am not one of your customers according to my last visit"
6. I never paid the final bill ? 100.00- and I refuse to pay them a dime-I would have, if they would have acted like I was important enough to listen to as a customer- when I was a customer.
7. That is the end of my rant, as far as my service while I was with them - it was good until I moved I liked the online billing.
Just had the same experience with ATT. I am on a 12 month ATT odessy and I am filing a complaint at corpoate headquarters in Dallas even I have to present it to the CEO in person. They are, bar none, to stupidest group of people I have ever dealt with. I had a billing twit yell at me today. Her supervisor fixed the issue. ALWAYS insist on speaking to their boss. Getting the boss's boss goes a long way as well. If they won't connect get a name and contact phone or call back and speak to a different department to get the information (This is not my first rodeo). As soon as I can switch I am. My only other option right now is comcast and that would going from the frying pan into the fire. Glad I found this sight. Great information!
I switched to AT&T for phone, internet & dish network. They said my first bill would be about $150, what a load of BS that was, it's over $400. They love to lie & cheat.
When I started using sbc phone service and canceled AT&T, it was the happiest day in my life. A few years later, guess who bought SBC? You got it AT&T. that's when I started having problems all over again. My cell phone was cingular and everything was great. Next thing you know, guess who buys cingular? You got it. AT&T. Next I'm having problems with the cell phone. AT& T SUCKS BIG TIME. I can only pray they go down the toilette in this economy. It couln't happen to a better company.
Seriously....If you think being a customer sucks, you don't know how bad "sucks" is until you've worked for them. The "newer" run around crap and holds and transfers are practically a requirement to stay employed and in this job market, who wants to start at the bottom? They are a HUGE corporation and behave as such......looking at the bottom dollar. It shouldn't surprise anyone....There are no more "everybody is family, mom and pop shops".
Seriously....If you think being a customer sucks, you don't know how bad "sucks" is until you've worked for them. The "newer" run around crap and holds and transfers are practically a requirement to stay employed and in this job market, who wants to start at the bottom? They are a HUGE corporation and behave as such......looking at the bottom dollar. It shouldn't surprise anyone....There are no more "everybody is family, mom and pop shops".
Years ago, I worked as a service representative for C&P Tel co of Md, a Bell system company. Service reps were trained on specific sets of issues before they were even allowed to answer the phone; if you weren't trained on an issue a customer raised, you had to turn the call over to someone who was. We were "observed" to see how we handled our calls and got the equivalent of 'demerits' if we mistreated a customer. That kind of service no longer exists. I have worked as an IT employee and contractor for AT&T for 20 years and I can't tell you how many projects I worked on for 1 - 3 years, at great expense, only to see them cancelled because the company "priority" changed (read that as 'top management changed and didn't like what the 'old' management did. This effectively made the company directionless. I worked on systems that are used in call centers and my experience is that ONLY what AT&T management considers high priority issues are ever automated and even these are only partially automated. The outsourcing of technical work to India has gutted the once effective and well respected internal development orgnaizations. The expertise in customer facing systems and processes that once lived in the technical organizations is gone and has not been replaced.
However, this is not happening only in communications companies - it happens in every industry! AT&T Wireless sent me a bill for $0 for over two years... My Health insurance company regularly processes claims incorrectly, always in their favor. I am sure this is done purposely as most people try to get them to re-process and after the 3rd or 4th attempt, quit. Hospital billing seems to be set up to bill and collect, but NOT to credit our accounts for overpayment or overbilling. I now am patient and persistent with these organizations, but I stay on the phone for as long as I possibly can so that I can drive up the cost of doing business with me to equal or exceed the amount of money they owe me. I'd much rather resolve an issue the first time, though.
i have the exact same thing trying to deal with comcast. you see i live in an area that most people have sattellite tv. for 2 weeks i have been fighting with them to do something about my internet.they sent out a tech on 12/30 and he told me the "amplifier" at the post was bad and that he would send maintenance out to fix it. all the while i have had this service since march, they have had the wrong address.i have tried to get them to correct it 7 or 8 times. so after a series of me making 5 irate phone calls my wife calls them and gets a supervisor. that was this past monday. they set up an appt for a tech to come out between 1 and 5 on tuesday. at 440 pm that afternoon and called to find out where the tech was, only to find out that the tech had supposedly called as well as the dispatcher and that i didnt answer.noone called me! then it was set up for wednesday again between 1 and 5pm. i called them at 245pm and was told that the tech was in the area at 817am and couldnt find my house. so the appt was cancelled,again tech said they called and didnt. another appt was set up for thursday and the tech called and said he was 5 minutes out. this was at 1055 am and again my appt was for 1 to 5 pm. same tech that came last time. still having trouble! comcast sucks!!!!
I have had so much trouble with AT&T wireless!!! First of all I bought a Sony Ericsson when I switched from TMobile. I did not have the phone for 2 months and they had to replace it (with the same model, refurbished). About a month after I got the second phone it stopped letting me send picture messages. I have spent the past 3 and 1/2 weeks talking to customer support and technical support. The first guy told me it was because I had too much stored on my phone and I needed to get a memory card. $25.00 later I still can't send picture messages. The next guy I talked to said there was an outage in Indiana. I said I am in Kentucky right now. He then told me there were outages in KY as well as half the other states around. I called several times in between these two calls and was on hold so long I finally just hung up. Last week I had to call because my son could not dial out on his phone or send text messages. I was informed after I asked about the recent outage, that there had not been any outages in my area in the past month. Hmmmm...They couldn't tell me why he couldn't dial out or send texts-have him try turning the phone off then turning it back on-but they would send me to tech support to see about MY picture messaging issue. WTH? Well, I waited 40 more minutes for the guy in tech support to tell me he needed to do a master reset on my phone. Okay, the other three tech's have already done that, but knock yourself out. I called one day last week and tech support could not figure out what was wrong so they were sending me to "advanced" tech support. After being on the phone with this guy for one hour and 40 minutes, he comes back on the line and says "advanced" tech support declined to help with the issue. WTF??? So, he tells me I need a new SIM card. OKAY. I go get a new one. Guess what??? Doesn't work. Now they tell me I need to call the warranty line because I need yet another phone replaced. I said obviously there is a problem with this model phone, may I just get a different model? Oh no, I can't do that until my year is up or I will have to pay full price for a phone. good grief!!!
I work as a "residential customer retention specialist" at another landline/broadband company. This sounds like the nonsense that goes on at my company too. There are some good reps and some absolute liars and cheats who are allowed to cram and scam because they produce sales. The company espouses a one call resolution policy, but I think they want some customers to have to call in with billing issues so we can sell them more. There is a lack of accountability. We randomly monitor and grade calls, but seem to only listen to calls of average length so that the real short calls (hung up on customer or transferred them) are not reviewed. Mgt knows who the worst culprits are, but mostly turns a blind eye. Of course, the job is ridiculously complicated. The numerous systems are not well integrated, and the myriad plans and pricing along with the emphasis on managing your average call handle time discourage most reps from from taking the time to offer the services that fit the customer needs at a price they are willing to pay. I wouldn't say Anderson's experience is typical, but it definitely rings a few bells. I could go on, but want to finish up by saying that until now I had never worked in a company or industry that so frequently proclaims its appreciation of the customer (we also have to state either "I can help you with that" or "I would be more than happy to help w/that"), while allowing its reps and first level supervisors to doubt the customer's truthfulness. I thought you were supposed to give the customer the benefit of the doubt, especially when you have no evidence to the contrary.
Ugh...I know what the switch from Cingular to AT&T was like - CHAOS. I had no problems with Cingular, but when the switch happened, my $70 phone bill started increasing...up to almost $190.00!!!!!
My husband and I shut off both phones, eating a $200 cancellation fee for my added phone - and we then switched BACK to T-mobile (GREAT Customer Service in our area!).
AT&T will never get my business again...and neither will it get the business of my co-workers, friends, family, or ACQUAINTANCES.
And they will never get mine, Audrey. AllTel rocks!! I've drug that company all over the country. Those folks know customer service and they ain't afraid to use it.
On the other hand, GE Cares is really GE Doesn't Give a Crap. That story would take an hour to tell. Intersting tale of the right hand not knowing (or caring) what the left hand is doing AND the left hand doesn't have a clue either.
Stop all of the whining, we have no one to blame but ourselves. As we ( Americans ) have come to accept less than adequate products and services, the companies are more than happy to oblige us. Until all of us start filing complaints, this will not only continue, but will get much worse, remember to squeaky wheel story. I can tell you this first hand as I work for one of these giant telcom bastards and see what is going on every day from the inside. And, the more we ( some of the employees ) try to change this attitude, the more we get chastised.
BTW – I have also experienced problems with both AT&T and Brighthouse…
I was going to get att internet, now I'm going to give it a second thought. I was thinking about switching from cox to att because I've been having issues with cox's internet. The internet just drops and it works when ever it want to. Then they tell us to make sure we don't have viruses and to update our virus scanner, ON A MAC! WOW!!! right?
As for verizon, they charged me $200 for using the internet when i never got the internet service. When i called them about it they tried to convince me to keep it. In the end they only refunded $90.
Over the past few years, I've responded to a ton of consumer complaints (I work for consumer orgs in my day job) related to people moving and getting their service transferred to the new location. In 99% of the complaints, the company screwed up by not being able to deal with the "mammoth" logistical challenge of scheduling and effecting a transfer X days in the future.
I think the advice to consumers is to just not worry about trying to set up the transfer ahead of time. On moving day, make the transfer call to the phone/Internet company first thing in the morning and plan to use a cell phone/Starbucks Wi-Fi for however long it takes the company to process the transfer. In my experience, as long as a consumer says "I'd like to transfer my service now," as opposed to "I'd like to transfer my service on X date," the companies get it right more often than not.
When my cell phone was simply Cingular, I had the same identical phone bill every month. Never a problem. When they merged (or whatver they did) with AT&T, oh boy, did the problems start.....my phone bill went from a simple $79 a month to 2-3 hundred a month...with no explanation that ever made sense. In one instance, they sent me a print-out of every phone call placed on our two cells phones for one month. We had 'free service' after 9pm and on weekends. The LARGE majority of the calls listed THAT WE HAD BEEN CHARGED FOR were, guess what?, after 9pm and on the weekends! I called back again and went through about 30 minutes of mumble-jumble with some kind of 'customer representative'--those two words are a joke!---and she finally told me ' since you've been such a good customer in the past, we'll remove these charges for this month'.......
I often hear: "I want to be with one of the Big 3"
Well, there is no AT&T anymore, really, No MCI anymore, and Verizon-Puh-leeeeeeeze!
They are a horror to deal with as well
I guess I have to thank them though. I would not have a job as a communications consultant if people did not need my help because usually-THE PHONE COMPANY SUCKS!!!
Tim Hunter
Sensible Telecom
www.sensibletelecom.com
If you escalate, and remain a customer, they win. CANCEL! CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL! If everyone cancels the first time they have a major problem that customer service finds intractable, either the company fixes the systemic problems or it goes out of business.
Ain't life grand?
The only certainties in life are death, taxes, and (added recently) horrible customer service from any/all services you will have.