Greg wants to know why AT&T doesn't feel the need to honor its quote for a Dish Network package. He notes, "I were to claim I made a mistake in agreeing to a two year commitment, I hesitate to think you would let me claim that I should not be held accountable for that." But it's not that AT&T "mistakenly" quoted him a price. An AT&T rep gave him one price, and another rep agreed to honor it and to make a note on his account. Now there's no record he ever spoke to anyone, and the rep who originally helped him won't return his calls.

Here's a copy of the letter Greg sent to AT&T's execs:

Dear Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Pund,
 
I apologize for raising my concern to your level, however after 7 months of inability to get my problem consistently resolved through the customer service centers, I felt stronger action was necessary.
 
I have been a customer of AT&T/Dish Network since July of last year.  When I agreed to leave Comcast for your company it appears (we would find out retroactively) that your sales customer service representative erroneously priced the bundled satellite, internet, and phone package.  I entered into the verbal agreement based on the price that was given to me by the representative, whether she made the mistake or not.  Over the last 7 months I have been told that while this person made a mistake, I would in the end have to pay for it.  This person was a representative of your company and if I were to claim I made a mistake in agreeing to a two year commitment, I hesitate to think you would let me claim that I should not be held accountable for that.
 
Upon finally working with a manager at your Arlington Heights, IL customer service location I was able to get the situation resolved, or so I thought.  A manager named Lenell had agreed to go into the system monthly, with a reminder on his calendar, to adjust my bill to the agreed upon amount.  This was $89.98 due to the fact that we had added services such as HBO and DVR.  Since this agreement, the bill has consistently not been corrected and I am having to spend multiple hours every month to get it adjusted.  I have left multiple messages with Lenell's desk, only to have them go unanswered.
 
When speaking with a customer service representative last night I was told that the case notes do not have any notation about Lenell crediting me this amount every month and that he gave a "good faith" credit to adjust it.  I was also told that it was outside of policy to change a bill to the price Lenell agreed to so they could only give a ~$35 credit which would put my bill at $130 versus the $89.98 that was agreed upon.  Again, as a representative of your company, Lenell agreed to adjust my bill and has failed to live up to that expectation whether it is in your policy or not, and I am now being told by your customer service team that I am incorrect that this agreement was ever made.  For this reason I am attaching the detailed notes that I have kept since October 2007.  I think you will find that these notes match precisely with the calls I have made to your Customer Service Centers and are very detailed about the exact conversations that were held.  I have also requested that every recording of every conversation I have had with your customer service team be pulled in order to verify my claim.  I do not appreciate being called a liar in a round about way since notes were not kept properly by the agents at your sites.
 
Again, I apologize for having to raise this to your level, but feel that when a company agrees to service a customer at a certain level, for a certain price, they have an obligation to live up to that.  I would not have left Comcast had I not been given such a good price quote.
 
I would also like to notify you that I will be running a comprehensive credit report and if I find any negative reports from AT&T associated with this issue, I will be filing a claim with the FCC and pursuing legal action.
 
This was an opportunity for your customer service team to make a great impression on how issues can be handled and resolved, and I believe that the entire team has failed.
 
At this point, I would like to pay my service current at the agreed upon rate and terminate my service.  I would prefer to pay more at Comcast than to have these struggles ongoing.  I am looking forward to your response.

(Photo: mrbill)

Cristy writes:

I am from Progressive and would like to respond to your posting titled "Why is Progressive Using 'Recent Military Service' to Determine Rates and Eligibility?"

First, I would like to apologize to Ceaser and anyone else who got the impression that Progressive uses military service to determine rates and eligibility. This is not true, but it's easy to see how Ceaser and others could have gotten that impression based on the language on our Web site.

The reason we would ask about military service is to make sure we are not unfairly charging a higher rate to service men and women who have had a lapse in insurance coverage.

If you've bought car insurance before, you know that most companies offer you a better rate if you have continuous insurance coverage, and it's the same with Progressive. But, someone who is deployed overseas without access to a car does not need insurance, so they may not have it. But we certainly don't want that to hurt them in terms of their rate. So, if a person had a lapse in coverage because they were in the military, we would offer them the same (better) rate they would have gotten if they had had no lapse in coverage. The majority of states require insurers to do this, but we do it voluntarily in all states regardless of whether it's required because it's the right thing to do. Please let me know if this makes sense; if not, I will try to explain it better!

As for the confusing language on our Web site, I'm very sorry about that and we are now in the process of getting it changed. That language is a disclosure about our comparison rating service, where we give you our rates and the rates of some of our competitors. The language is meant to convey that some companies may consider military service in rating, and if they do, it might make the rate we gave you for the other company inaccurate. But unfortunately, the way it's worded, it sounds like we may use recent military service as a reason not to offer insurance, which is not the case.

The last thing we want to do is make anyone in the military feel that we're treating them with anything less than the respect they deserve. We want to make sure we don't charge higher rates to people who don't have continuous car insurance coverage because they were deployed overseas. If you are in the military and have been deployed overseas, please make sure your insurance company or your agent knows this so that you are not penalized for not having continuous car insurance. Thank you for hearing me out, and again, I am sorry for the confusing language that led to this misunderstanding.

Cristy Cote
Progressive Public Relations

Sorry, TJ, guess that one didn't work out so well.

While searching for new car insurance on progressive and sadly other insurance carriers, figuring what the rate check would be I answered a few questions. Some questions asked were if I was currently in the military and in college, I am both. As an Iraq war Army vet I am currently going to school with the GI bill, and tuition assistance from the Air national guard, so I put that I am both a student and national guard.

Well before I used to call and verify information and just to see if anything was available if there was any sort of military discount available. As always I get told that the prices were low enough that not to require a discount, or that military discounts weren't available from the company, as in Progressive. Geico does give a military discount but their rates are so jacked up that there really isn't a discount, actually $300+ w/ military discount over my progressive, state farm, and sad to say allstate. Anyhow I come to the final page and in the fine print I see this:
 

Your rate may vary, or you may not be offered a quote, due to eligibility requirements (you may not qualify for that program), credit history, recent military service, or driving record (if your actual record is different than what you told us). If you have been assigned to your recent automobile insurance policy by the state, or if any of the drivers you listed requires proof of financial responsibility, your rate may be higher than those provided by this comparison service. [emphasis ours -Editor]

Now my question is this. With news that 1 in 5 soldiers coming back from Iraq have mental, health, PTSD issues, not to mention the suicide rate climbing among periods of deployments. Long term deployments having stress issues and coping when coming back. Could these news be used to proclaim that Military might be a higher risk therefore lets bend you over and take your money? I hope not but then again most of these companies don't care other than the bottom line. Any insight or help would greatly be appreciated.

"It's unlikely that readers of the Consumerist blog will pick what truly is the "Worst Company in America," but they will have fun trying."

That's from the New York Times, 2/25/06, "What's Online" by Dan Mitchell. Read here. Archival here

The article, a roundup of What s Online and business related, starts off with the officepirates.com crap and quotes Gawker.com. That s two Gawker Media properties in one article. It s true folks, Nick Denton gives payola to the New York Times to do our bidding. Respect.

What's truly awesome is that this is all made by you. You, in all your beautiful youtitude, picked the companies and placed the votes.

Appearing in the NYT means some people are paying attention to what s going on here. Some of them run companies. Some of them are even literate.

Awesome work. Next up, let s do the Wall Street Journal.