My private war with AT&T

[iceberg]

Currently I have directTV and it's not bad. i hate the "record" feature when I just want to watch something and that annoys me. then there's the "pregnant pause" feature. Hit the button, bring up the channels, hit "page down" and get told to bugger off. The TV wants to sit there for a bit longer. FINALLY it catches up but it's annoying and even more so on bad days. Finally, to order pay per view I just see no friggin reason to have to say "ok" to "enjoy your show" to get the crap off my tv screen. I say "yes i'll pay for this" and put the remote down only to have to get it again cause if you don't, it NEVER GOES AWAY.

That on it's own was never really enough to push me over the edge but recently, I wanted to setup my spare bedroom to be a "proper" guest room. Got it all cleaned up, new bedding and I put a 26" flat screen in. I called DirecTV to see how much it would be to put a 2nd receiver in.

The overall cost wasn't over the top but what was is that I would have to sign a 2 year agreement and "start over" with them. I did NOT want to start over just to ADD TO MY FRIGGIN SERVICES! So fine, my uverse internet has been solid for years now, maybe I'll give the TV service another chance.

I get the cards in the mail from AT&T to bundle TV back into my account and it was a pretty good deal but I wanted a few modifications. so I found the package I wanted online and called in to order it. I wanted the wireless tuner for the guest room so it would be a breeze to setup so this was a great deal all around and the perfect reason to return to u-verse.

The tech was cool and we went through all the steps and we were moving man. only, it was going to be like $150 a month for TV ALONE and I said "whoah little camper" (which can freak out people on the other line) it's $79 online and I just want to add to my existing service.

"You have to do that online"

Say what, little camper?

Of course doing it "online" means I have to do what I dread and purposefully avoid - creating yet ANOTHER account for a service provider under their rules for names and passwords that i now have to keep up with YET ANOTHER account, just to order TV service at the discount they keep telling me they'll give me. so fine. I have to now go look up account numbers, find whatever e-mail address THEY gave me I’m supposed to use (I have my own domain and don't need YET ANOTHER e-mail to have to give a damn about) and i spend a few hours setting it up and linking my internet and home phone service to it and fine. I’m ready to "add digital tv" and when I hit that i get offers from DirecTV

OF WHICH I’m trying to leave for u-verse.

This little camper is getting pretty friggin annoyed at this point.

I navigate through website hell (seriously, do you do user studies on how to make the worst interface around?) and find the U-Verse offerings I found before somehow, (AND NO I DON'T WANT TO CHAT NOW QUIT ASKING ME AT RANDOM TIMES!) and clicked on the offer I wanted and hit "next". verified everything and went to go place the order.

I'm sorry, you can't do this online you'll have to call us. We close at 4:30 EST. Hell, it's 4:30 my time cause I spent all damn day on your website because I was told that's where I have to do all this.

Little camper pops a blood vessel and calls it a day.

A few days go by and I’ve calmed down and now it's more like a mission than a desire. Come hell or high water at&t I’m going to give you more money every month so please stop fighting me on this.

Now I’m online trying again and running into the same levels of monumental stupidity of HTML design and for the love of god, what the hell do I have to do to get that chat window up? i can't find a direct link, and of course no phone number or e-mail address is easily found without paying the painful price of persistence to finally locate it.

AH HA! A CHAT WINDOW.

so I talk to the 1st dude and try to tell him what I’m adding onto my internet service and want to come back to uverse and add it back on. he keeps answering with something that makes zero sense to me and fails to even acknowledge he understands my problem. he tells me he will be glad to contact me should uverse become available in my area.

*** is this camper smoking?

i finally said "human check - what is 2+2" and that did it. I broke him off his scripted path of hell and he gave me a phone number to call.

To see if the service (which I’m currently using) is available at my home.

Finally, I get to Sheila. i go through my story once again and she understood. she got it from the word go. i can get back off my knees and restore some pride and dignity back to my online and entertainment experiences. She got me the best bundled deal she could, we set the date for Friday from 1-3pm they’d be here to put this to rest.

Well, it looked good on paper.

That Friday 1-3pm goes by and nothing. 4pm, nothing. 4:30 I call customer service and ask what’s going on. They put me on hold (after apologizing 15 dozen times during the life of the call) and got back to me and said the original one dispatched had a medical emergency, got sick, something came up, but they dispatched someone else who was on the way and would be here shortly.

Well, it sounded good over the phone.

6pm, nothing. I call back and get another lady who after another annoying series of on hold apology sessions comes back and ensures she has my home # and cell #. Cool. I love giving my digits out to women who say they’ll get to the bottom of this!

But just like my social life, no calls. No love. Just another lie and frustration suffered along the way to give a company not worth a dime in customer service over $120 a month in combined services. Like I said – I’m now possessed and their processes will not beat me.

So I wake up and call back in again and say “supervisor please” and of course, I had to tell the story again and then I got to someone who would be able to help me.

After being put on hold a dozen times and hearing “I sincerely apologize for the delay” dozens more. I was then told the reason this didn’t happen yesterday is because no one was home when the technician got here?

I was in my front office from 1pm through eternity right by my front door and kept the music low. So instantly I said “I call bull****” and asked if this was the 1st technician who had the medical emergency or the 2nd technician that was never sent?

Hold please.

Finally he comes back and says the 1st they can do this is Tuesday, what time would I like.

BULL****. You either have someone out here TODAY to put this DAMN SERVICE in or ****, I just sign back up to DIRECTV and you win.

Hold please.

“Would you like 11-1 or 1-3” today, sir?”

This strange sense of deja-vu washed over me and I honestly wasn’t sure what to do at this point. I’m not even sure it was me who said “1-3 please” but those words came out and now I’m back in the wait and see mode. But now I’ve got an e-mail link to check and see what the status of my order is and they sent that right to me. I click it and get routed to a page that talked about the service but wasn’t it.

Gotta remember AT&T won’t make anything easy.

I finally found the right link to take me to my status and guess what. I had to log in. What the hell was my ID??? Never mind.

AT&T just called me. It was an automated call to ask me when I wanted to reschedule my install.

I may never go camping again.

 

[Dallas]

Lol that's hilariously terrible bro. I feel for you. I'm an Att cell customer and refuse to do anything diff but to login and pay my bill.

Thanks for keeping me grounded so that I won't think to add services later.


Lol horrible CS at ATT...nothing has changed.


Keep us posted of what transpires. This reads like Penny Arcade. :laugh1:

 

[iceberg]

Lol that's hilariousle terrible bro. I feel for you. I'm an Att cell customer and refuse to do anything diff but to login and pay my bill.

Thanks for keeping me grounded so that I won't think to add services later.

Lol horrible CS at ATT...nothing has changed.
Keep us posted of what transpires. This reads like Penny Arcade. :laugh1:

yea, i tried to keep it as humorous as possible or i'd be dying over here. i never had to fight so hard to buy something but it's a mission now.

 

[WoodysGirl]

I have ATT cell and ATT Internet and phone. I refuse to bundle, because they drive me nuts. I will happily keep my services separate so I don't have to deal with customer service hell.


My Mom has ATT u-verse, but she told me they still charge her for her previous ATT telephone service and has been for years but she never told me. I may go postal when I get to FW to deal with this nonsense.

 

[iceberg]

I have ATT cell and ATT Internet and phone. I refuse to bundle, because they drive me nuts. I will happily keep my services separate so I don't have to deal with customer service hell.

My Mom has ATT u-verse, but she told me they still charge her for her previous ATT telephone service and has been for years but she never told me. I may go postal when I get to FW to deal with this nonsense.

well i may go back to att wireless also (even after all this) cause i like the nokia phone and have to have windows for my phone (work thing ya see). but just the hoops and lies i've had to go through are incredible.

i'll bet i don't even get an "oops offering" like 3 more months of HBO/Cinimax channels or something.

if nothing else, make the story funny and just get it out there.

good luck with your windmills.

 

[tupperware]

Is there a problem, little camper?

 

[iceberg]

Is there a problem, little camper?

i'll know in 2 hours and 38 minutes.

 

[Tabascocat]

This exact situation happened to me. What the worst part is, they say someone came to install it several times (which was untrue). After 3 weeks of fighting, I decided to go back to comcast. I HATE comcast, but it is a lot easier to deal with them.

I have never had a service make me drop F-bombs on the phone like ATT

 

[ROUSH8692]

Cliffnotes: Att is garbage

 

[iceberg]

so i get a window of 1-3pm and at 2:30 i get an automated call saying it would now be 5pm.

then just now i get a call and he's on his way and will be here close enough to 3pm for me.

somehow this can't be over yet.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

I had the same deal with them coming out to hook up my internet. Same identical deal. Took them over a week of rescheduling. Finally on the last scheduled date, when he got here, an hour late btw, I told him I was too busy and he would have to call me to reschedule. At that point, we were going to be out of town for two weeks. I had so many messages on my cell asking me to reschedule.

Thought they could use some of their own medicine.

 

[Illini88228]

It's almost worse when the customer service rep "understands" because then it's more disappointing when they lie and screw everything up.

 

[JBond]

Currently I have directTV and it's not bad. i hate the "record" feature when I just want to watch something and that annoys me. then there's the "pregnant pause" feature. Hit the button, bring up the channels, hit "page down" and get told to bugger off. The TV wants to sit there for a bit longer. FINALLY it catches up but it's annoying and even more so on bad days. Finally, to order pay per view I just see no friggin reason to have to say "ok" to "enjoy your show" to get the crap off my tv screen. I say "yes i'll pay for this" and put the remote down only to have to get it again cause if you don't, it NEVER GOES AWAY.

That on it's own was never really enough to push me over the edge but recently, I wanted to setup my spare bedroom to be a "proper" guest room. Got it all cleaned up, new bedding and I put a 26" flat screen in. I called DirecTV to see how much it would be to put a 2nd receiver in.

The overall cost wasn't over the top but what was is that I would have to sign a 2 year agreement and "start over" with them. I did NOT want to start over just to ADD TO MY FRIGGIN SERVICES! So fine, my uverse internet has been solid for years now, maybe I'll give the TV service another chance.

I get the cards in the mail from AT&T to bundle TV back into my account and it was a pretty good deal but I wanted a few modifications. so I found the package I wanted online and called in to order it. I wanted the wireless tuner for the guest room so it would be a breeze to setup so this was a great deal all around and the perfect reason to return to u-verse.

The tech was cool and we went through all the steps and we were moving man. only, it was going to be like $150 a month for TV ALONE and I said "whoah little camper" (which can freak out people on the other line) it's $79 online and I just want to add to my existing service.

"You have to do that online"

Say what, little camper?

Of course doing it "online" means I have to do what I dread and purposefully avoid - creating yet ANOTHER account for a service provider under their rules for names and passwords that i now have to keep up with YET ANOTHER account, just to order TV service at the discount they keep telling me they'll give me. so fine. I have to now go look up account numbers, find whatever e-mail address THEY gave me I’m supposed to use (I have my own domain and don't need YET ANOTHER e-mail to have to give a damn about) and i spend a few hours setting it up and linking my internet and home phone service to it and fine. I’m ready to "add digital tv" and when I hit that i get offers from DirecTV

OF WHICH I’m trying to leave for u-verse.

This little camper is getting pretty friggin annoyed at this point.

I navigate through website hell (seriously, do you do user studies on how to make the worst interface around?) and find the U-Verse offerings I found before somehow, (AND NO I DON'T WANT TO CHAT NOW QUIT ASKING ME AT RANDOM TIMES!) and clicked on the offer I wanted and hit "next". verified everything and went to go place the order.

I'm sorry, you can't do this online you'll have to call us. We close at 4:30 EST. Hell, it's 4:30 my time cause I spent all damn day on your website because I was told that's where I have to do all this.

Little camper pops a blood vessel and calls it a day.

A few days go by and I’ve calmed down and now it's more like a mission than a desire. Come hell or high water at&t I’m going to give you more money every month so please stop fighting me on this.

Now I’m online trying again and running into the same levels of monumental stupidity of HTML design and for the love of god, what the hell do I have to do to get that chat window up? i can't find a direct link, and of course no phone number or e-mail address is easily found without paying the painful price of persistence to finally locate it.

AH HA! A CHAT WINDOW.

so I talk to the 1st dude and try to tell him what I’m adding onto my internet service and want to come back to uverse and add it back on. he keeps answering with something that makes zero sense to me and fails to even acknowledge he understands my problem. he tells me he will be glad to contact me should uverse become available in my area.

*** is this camper smoking?

i finally said "human check - what is 2+2" and that did it. I broke him off his scripted path of hell and he gave me a phone number to call.

To see if the service (which I’m currently using) is available at my home.

Finally, I get to Sheila. i go through my story once again and she understood. she got it from the word go. i can get back off my knees and restore some pride and dignity back to my online and entertainment experiences. She got me the best bundled deal she could, we set the date for Friday from 1-3pm they’d be here to put this to rest.

Well, it looked good on paper.

That Friday 1-3pm goes by and nothing. 4pm, nothing. 4:30 I call customer service and ask what’s going on. They put me on hold (after apologizing 15 dozen times during the life of the call) and got back to me and said the original one dispatched had a medical emergency, got sick, something came up, but they dispatched someone else who was on the way and would be here shortly.

Well, it sounded good over the phone.

6pm, nothing. I call back and get another lady who after another annoying series of on hold apology sessions comes back and ensures she has my home # and cell #. Cool. I love giving my digits out to women who say they’ll get to the bottom of this!

But just like my social life, no calls. No love. Just another lie and frustration suffered along the way to give a company not worth a dime in customer service over $120 a month in combined services. Like I said – I’m now possessed and their processes will not beat me.

So I wake up and call back in again and say “supervisor please” and of course, I had to tell the story again and then I got to someone who would be able to help me.

After being put on hold a dozen times and hearing “I sincerely apologize for the delay” dozens more. I was then told the reason this didn’t happen yesterday is because no one was home when the technician got here?

I was in my front office from 1pm through eternity right by my front door and kept the music low. So instantly I said “I call bull****” and asked if this was the 1st technician who had the medical emergency or the 2nd technician that was never sent?

Hold please.

Finally he comes back and says the 1st they can do this is Tuesday, what time would I like.

BULL****. You either have someone out here TODAY to put this DAMN SERVICE in or ****, I just sign back up to DIRECTV and you win.

Hold please.

“Would you like 11-1 or 1-3” today, sir?”

This strange sense of deja-vu washed over me and I honestly wasn’t sure what to do at this point. I’m not even sure it was me who said “1-3 please” but those words came out and now I’m back in the wait and see mode. But now I’ve got an e-mail link to check and see what the status of my order is and they sent that right to me. I click it and get routed to a page that talked about the service but wasn’t it.

Gotta remember AT&T won’t make anything easy.

I finally found the right link to take me to my status and guess what. I had to log in. What the hell was my ID??? Never mind.

AT&T just called me. It was an automated call to ask me when I wanted to reschedule my install.

I may never go camping again.

Ice...PM me. I believe I can make all your ATT troubles go away. A friend of mine is the person that runs all the uverse ATT sales teams. He spends 90% of his time rectifying problems like this. Just please be nice to him. He would not respond well to little camper, but he can fix your problems.

 

[Faerluna]

It's almost worse when the customer service rep "understands" because then it's more disappointing when they lie and screw everything up.

To speak for the CS rep, chances are they are aware that things like that get screwed up. They would probably love to tell you how they know things are craptastic and would love to tell you what's really going to happen, but they can't because they have to give the company lines.

As someone that deals with similar in my job (not for AT&T), I can tell you that this is real talk.

 

[iceberg]

To speak for the CS rep, chances are they are aware that things like that get screwed up. They would probably love to tell you how they know things are craptastic and would love to tell you what's really going to happen, but they can't because they have to give the company lines.

As someone that deals with similar in my job (not for AT&T), I can tell you that this is real talk.

the rep in chat that set this was (sheila) was totally cool and her "non-scripted" talking to me went a long way to making my pain better.

not her fault their overall CS sucks.

btw - the rep is here, called me before 3pm and said he was on his way. once here, very pro and helpful.

 

[Faerluna]

the rep in chat that set this was (sheila) was totally cool and her "non-scripted" talking to me went a long way to making my pain better.

not her fault their overall CS sucks.

It's always so nice when you get at least one person that understands what you're saying and seems like they can help you when things are absolutely ridiculous like your situation.

Hope you get it resolved today.

 

[Hoofbite]

Proposed title change.

"My public war with ATT"

 

[iceberg]

Proposed title change.

"My public war with ATT"

headline didn't sound as good.

 

[iceberg]

technician just left and he was very pro and helpful.

 

[Illini88228]

To speak for the CS rep, chances are they are aware that things like that get screwed up. They would probably love to tell you how they know things are craptastic and would love to tell you what's really going to happen, but they can't because they have to give the company lines.

As someone that deals with similar in my job (not for AT&T), I can tell you that this is real talk.

Oh I know it may very well not be their fault. That's why I don't believe in yelling/being rude with people in customer service, but it doesn't change the fact that the company is screwing you over.