AT&T Will Say Anything To Get You As A Customer
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)
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