On November 23, 2010 I pulled up to my house after a day at the shop. There was an AT&T truck parked directly in front of my house.
I walked into my house and turned on my television. It did not work.
I looked at my modem, my residential gateway. The broadband light was flashing red. No sync. I rebooted. No success. I found the tech next door who was doing a new install of Uverse service. He said my problem had nothing to do with what he was doing.
I looked at my modem, my residential gateway. The broadband light was flashing red. No sync. I rebooted. No success. I found the tech next door who was doing a new install of Uverse service. He said my problem had nothing to do with what he was doing.
I tried to engage in technical discussion with him as I have over two decades of communications experience. He did not understand the basics. He would not call anybody for me. He would not help. He did say that he would "take a look" IF he had time after his install but he jumped in his truck after his install and drove off without saying a word to me.
My Uverse and Internet is up at the moment but I am not hopeful that it will remain up. I had talked to the billing department part way through these events about a credit for the month. They said they could not issue a credit until the issue was resolved. Reading between that line I would bet what they are saying is they will give me pro-rated credit for the days of lost service. I already explained to AT&T billing that they sold me and charge me for monthly service not day to day service.
I expect credit for one entire month. That is what I paid for. I asked more than one of the folks in AT&T billing if they would accept a pro-rated deal on a new four door car if it only had three doors? If a burger was served without half of the bun? I paid for monthly service.
I did not receive what I was sold. I am not even taking into account my lost time waiting around for multiple service calls, schedules and appointments I had to cancel or alter due to their inability to resolve the issues the first time or the aggravation of dealing with their customer service. I will accept nothing less than a full month of credit as this is what I deserve.
I expect credit for one entire month. That is what I paid for. I asked more than one of the folks in AT&T billing if they would accept a pro-rated deal on a new four door car if it only had three doors? If a burger was served without half of the bun? I paid for monthly service.
I did not receive what I was sold. I am not even taking into account my lost time waiting around for multiple service calls, schedules and appointments I had to cancel or alter due to their inability to resolve the issues the first time or the aggravation of dealing with their customer service. I will accept nothing less than a full month of credit as this is what I deserve.
Since November 23 I have been documenting the events of my problems with AT&T on twitter and facebook. I had promised a blog entry to some of my friends and this is it.
Most folks reading this are not as old as I am. They do not recall when the Bell Telephone Company was a company that was looked on with pride as one of the largest and finest companies in the world.
As America grew the Bell Telephone Company went through many changes. There were splits of the big Bell company. Pacific Bell, Atlantic Bell, Southern Bell and others.
As America stumbled with blindness into a world economy where jobs were be outsourced and worker expected more money and more benefits with long term retirement as many did less work and took less pride in their job the level of products and service became the norm at the phone company.
At this point the Bell Telephone Company is now known at AT&T.
Many people may not realize that AT&T stands for American Telephone and Telegraph. If you want to know what a telegraph is look on wikipedia.
American? When I called AT&T Customer Service at 1-800-288-2020 I spoke to people in Canada. I may have spoken to people in other countries as well but when I talked to somebody without an accent I asked him where he was located. As a side note, his name was John and he played guitar. He was the only one I spoke to that had any degree of skill in troubleshooting. All the other folks, over a dozen of them, did nothing more than follow a check list and schedule a service call. None of them escalated the problem or showed any initiative or empowerment to do anything outside of their script.
Actually, other than the thought of an American company being part of the outsourcing problem in this country and going off tangent I will say that in the end, this American company was the poster child of an example of what is one of the things wrong with America.
I made dozens of calls to the customer service number over almost a week. None were of ANY value.
Four AT&T customer service representatives are now following me on twitter. Three did nothing at all. One send me a direct message and we then talked on the phone. She said she would escalate the problem. There was a slight problem with her offer.
My second upcoming service call was a four hour window from 12-4pm and it was now 10am in the morning. My four hour window was two hours away. I was trying to get a firm time from dispatch as I had other things to do (working on things to help the homeless of Los Angeles). I was told by Customer Care (as AT&T calls these folks) that she would have an answer for me in 24 hours.
Zero help.
I told her that AT&T customer care, customer service, tech support at the 2020 number were all people who did nothing for their salary, took no pride in their work and were nothing of a buffer between an upset and dissatisfied customer and a possible solution to a problem.
I had two premise technicians come to my house. Both were nice and found outside line problems.
Two different appointments over a few days were made. The first "fix" worked from 9pm one night until 8:20am the next morning. I was on the Internet at 8:00am on that morning and at 8:20 the system went back down with a flashing red broadband light. This happened yesterday again.
A second service call for premise created a second service call for line work. At the moment things are working but this blog entry might be updated if things fail again. Just because things are working now I am not confident. It is now the weekend and the traffic patterns are different than during the business week. There is noise on my line and crosstalk. Two different problems.
Bottom line; AT&T Customer Care continue to provide the worst level of service and satisfaction that can be found in any industry. AT&T phone service and tech support at the 2020 service number are just as bad if not worse because they are supposed to have some degree of technical training or knowledge. With the exception of one person in Canada this was not the case.
I can be found on twitter at www.twitter.com/myles111us where I documented these events in real time. I also documented them on facebook where I am at www.facebook.com/mylesr I will post a few of the highlights below. The main points have been covered above.
I will continue this post below with additional information. At the bottom of this post I will continue to add updates until there is final resolution which means a full month credit issued to me. I will also track the effort required to receive this credit. At this point effort has been futile.
Addional material and updates below.
I will continue this post below with additional information. At the bottom of this post I will continue to add updates until there is final resolution which means a full month credit issued to me. I will also track the effort required to receive this credit. At this point effort has been futile.
Addional material and updates below.
The first premise tech arrives. This photo and more were sent in real time to twitter and facebook
Even before the premise tech asked to enter the house, which he never needed to do, he found the problem was outside on their lines. He called their own support to work issues with them. As a side note, he was on hold for at least 15 minutes before his call was answered.
AT&T not only has a LOT of people that that do nothing for their salary but does not have enough of them?
The tech in the above shots was Brian. He was well trained and a good fiend tech. I would have been happy to hire him in my past when I was in the communications business.
As a side note, EVERY customer service person I talked to on the phone during the course of my problem would have been fired after I heard any of the call recordings of the conversation between myself and customer service.
Shots above are from the first on premise service call.
The two shots above are from the second service call. Once again, the problem was isolated to a line problem and not in the house. The first line tech that had "fixed" the problem did NOT fix anything. Thankfully one does not have to sit and wait at their house for a line tech as long as there is access to the box where the wires enter the premises.
The first line tech did not leave any form of contact information at the house which he was supposed to do. He did call me on my cell as I was driving. I tried to call him back but his phone number did not work.
A few of my twitter posts that also went to facebook. Most recent are at the top.
Four AT&T Customer Care folks are following me on twitter. One of them started to follow me when I starting posting things with @ATT in the tweet. I mentioned that my experience would be posted on my blog. After they saw that over a million folks read my blog three more AT&T Customer Folks began to follow me on twitter.
@ATTCustomerCare @mzmartipants - to be more accurate, ATT customer care has NO impact over anything. They are a buffer and little more. This was a comment from me to a user that had made a comment about the lack of impact that customer care has on a problem.
@ATTCustomerCare - Line folks have to come out AGAIN as the tech from the other day accomplished nothing. 4 days down, 4 techs so far.
New @ATT motto. Not working? Downgrade! Idiots. Criminals.
They are downgrading my port profile. Reducing level of service @ATT
Last @ATT line tech did nothing.
One more service call from @ATT later today needed
Broken again. @ATT uverse - internet http://twitpic.com/3afjs0
This will be the 2nd line call and 2nd house call @ATT.
One more service call from @ATT is needed.
Problem is on line again. Sat here for NOTHING. @ATT
Problem is on line again! http://twitpic.com/3afhcg
Here we go again. http://twitpic.com/3aff5o
Call from @ATT tech. 20 min he said to arrive.
Last time it took 2 techs. Fix lasted a few hours @ATT
Automated message system @ATT is sending out messages in error. This added to my concern with my current @ATT problems. Side note - My second service call was less than an hour away when I received an automated message to my cell phone asking me if my service was restored and would I please call to reschedule my service call. I was upset to say the least. The same thing had happened in the past on an initial install. I called and they said they were sorry, the recordings are going out to everybody but ignore them as it is a problem they are having. Seems as if their systems are equal to their people.
Rcvd phone msg fm @ATT 10 min ago. Automated message that I need to reschedule my appt. Called ATT. Message was sent in error.
I just spoke to @ATTJenn and she said she would escalate but would have no reply for 24 hours
@ATTJenn - you mention you have my contact number. I still have not had a call from you, or anybody else come to think of it.
Internet and #uverse still down thanks to @att
@ATTJason - you are a manager with customer care? You should be ashamed.
@ATT - that is the least reliable network with the worst customer service in ANY industry or business.
@Jim4 @Indy_Anne - My uverse has been down since 11/23 :-) - This was in reply to another unhappy AT&T customer. Many of us started to exchange information on twitter.
They are not ALL worthless @ATT - employee JH767E at 1-800-288-2020 didn't fix it but was helpful and technically astute which is a first
@chrisdancy @attcustomercare - Chris - if you send me the youtube links I will post on my blog IF my
@ATT service is ever restored - Some of the twitter dialogue where folks contacted me with their tales of their own problems. This fellow has a series of events on youtube.
@roserot @joe_hollywood Even at the height of the BP oil disaster the #1 spot for bad service was firmly held by ATT @ATTCarolyn - my reply to some folks talking about AT&T customer service in general.
@HighTechDad @attcustomercare - a trouble ticket means nothing. I have had three of them since 11/23 and two techs. I am documenting - reply to somebody who thought having a trouble ticket meant something
@dougjoe @ATTCustomerCare - 20 hours of problems with ATT. You are at the back of the line! I am documenting my own adventure on twitter - Dialogue on twitter with somebody who thought that their problem had been going on a long time.
Lots of messages from @ATTCarolyn saying she will help folks. I have not seen anybody thank her yet 4 help and has not helped me yet either - One of my replies to a mobile alert. I had mobile alerts being sent to my phone to keep an eye on some AT&T Customer Care people who were pretending to help or be concerned. It turns out that they did nothing and were little more than a buffer or stalling tactic.
My @ATT uverse and Internet are still down. Phone call their 2020 help line folks promised NEVER came. One of many expected calls from people who said they would call me back.
Recorded shows on Uverse do not play back if network connectivity is lost on @ATT Just hangs in black. Keep your VHS? No thanks to @ATT !
Employee jm398m @ATT was of no help.
Employee ms531y @ATT was of no help at all this am
Employee rc176t @ATT was just now of no help at all
Prior to the above three people - Four @ATT people at 800-288-2020 no help today.
When @ATT fixes something it does not stay fixed.
Wednesday fix by @ATT lasted less than a few hours. Down again.
Dozens of people involved. Only 1 helped but not a solid fix @ATT
Hey @ATT change my port profile back to last nights config!
Internet and TV down again until Sunday. Thanks @ATT
My @ATT worked last night and this AM but just died now.
I will be writing up my @ATT experience of the last two days in the next few days in a blog post.
@ATTCarolyn - I will let you know how things go once I get back home and see if problem is resolved as 1st tech assured.
The answer was ... No. Still waiting for things to be fixed by second tech. I was "assured" it would happen today. This was in response to Carolyn.
@ATT - one more reason the USA cannot compete in a global economy? One of the largest companies who offer no value or service for the $$$
In a half dozen phone calls to @ATT 1-800-288-2020 customer service number today nobody was of ANY help. All referred me elsewhere.
Even at the height of the BP oil disaster @ATT still took a back seat to @BP in regard to public opinion.
@ATT - 1st tech assured me that by the time I get home this evening my Uverse and Internet will be back up. I am doubtful
@ATT - first tech gone. He called 2nd tech. He assured me that I did not have to be home as problem is outside.
@ATT still down. Second tech called to come out by first
@ATT does not consider install next door yesterday caused my problem. Fools.
@Att does not to listen to tech advice from my two decades of comm exp.
ATT one reason America cannot compete in a global market.
@ATT talked to 5 people so far today. Zero help.
@ATT - worst in any industry.
I think I made some point with some of the twitter posts above. There is a lot more dialogue on facebook where many people were adding their own commentary to my posts which went from twitter to facebook in real time.
In conclusion; is AT&T a company that embodies all of the worst that American labor, enterprise and industry has become? Do their people do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay? Do they take pride in their craft? Do they show any signs of creativity or initiative or are they just "calling it in" each day?
Again, ask yourself; is AT&T a company that embodies all of the worst that American labor, enterprise and industry has become? Each of you may ponder that if you wish.
Continuing updates:
11/28/10
@ATTCustomerCare - 5,974 reads since yesterday on my ATT blog entry and I continue to document so please reply on my credit issue.
@myles111us @ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - I want confirmation that I will see a full credit on my next bill.
4 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - as I said, what I need now is a full credit. I already paid my Nov bill in full the other day.
4 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - Uverse is no longer needed - unless service fails yet again - it is working at the moment
6 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - I have personally observed that you DO NOT know what is going on MANY times during this issue.
6 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html is my blog post url
8 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - but I do expect a full credit. My logic is in my blog post.
8 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - please don't let them take it down again as it is working at the moment.
9 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - service is up at the moment but that has been the case multiple times in the last few days.
9 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - at this point I just want my service to stay up and a full month credit on my bill.
10 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare @ATTJason @ATT - not surprised to see you have no idea what is going on.
11 minutes ago
@ATTCustomerCare - Molly, who is customer care west if you are customer care east?
12 minutes ago
@ATTJason - You are manager in the Pacific? That is probably my area and I heard zero from you.
19 minutes ago
@ATTJason - I see your last contact with a customer was four days ago. You think you are on top of problems? @ATT @ATTCustomerCare
20 minutes ago
11/29/10
Any word on my credit? @ATTCustomerCare @ATTJenn @ATT - http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html
Direct twitter message back from them: ATTCustomerCare ATTJenn will be in shortly. She is working on your issue and will follow up accordingly. Thanks for your patience!
Just got the above via twitter. This is in regard to a credit for my AT&T Uverse and Internet being down for five days where it took dozens of conversations to the help line (which resolved nothing) twitter messages (which resolved nothing) two premise service calls and two line service calls over the period of four days where I had to reschedule appointments where I was helping the homeless of Los Angeles.
Direct message sent back from me in response: I will be waiting. I expect credit as I described in my ATT blog entry.
ATTJenn I'm following up with our U-Verse team regarding your request for a full credit. Are you still able to be reached at 818.xxx.xxxx ?
myles111us 1-818-xxx-xxxx is my only contact number but at my shop during the day the AT&T cell reception is very poor. After 6pm the number OK
ATTJenn Thanks, Myles. I passed along that information, and our U-verse team will contact you as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience. -Jenn
11/30/10
ATTJenn Your request was given to our U-Verse team. They will contact you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
myles111us I will count the days until I hear something. I do not expect prompt service even though this has been explained to many regarding credit
12/1/10
No word back from AT&T as of 11am this morning. Left word with all of the folks again via twitter.
I received a reply - same thing - no help:
ATTCustomerCare @myles111us @ATT @ATTCustomerCare @ATTJenn continues to work on your concerns. We appreciate your continued patience
My reply: @ATTCustomerCare - Continue to work on my concerns? A simple credit? This is not rocket science!
2:10pm PST - I just tried to call back the executive offices of AT&T at 1-888-958-3030. Maria or Malita or somebody with a name like that left me a message asking me to call her back. I called back. She is not available. I was routed to voicemail. What a surprise? I then followed the voice message prompts to get to an operator. There was no operator available either and was routed to their voice mail for the operator.
Before you ask ... yes, the call was made during their recorded "normal business hours".
I had taked to AT&T Customer care and told them that my cell reception at the shop was useless. Also an ATT product as a side note. I requested that what I was requesting was a month credit and all I was asking for was an phone text or message telling me this was going to be done and when I could expect the credit.
So far, ATT has not done one single thing that I have requested even though I have had numerous pieces of information from them telling me they were on top of things and asked me to "please be patient".
ATTJenn Our U-Verse team needs to speak to you by phone. They'll contact you tonight after 6pm.
The above was sent to me by ATTJenn. I had received a call from ATT Executive offices earlier asking me to contact them. They left me a number (noted below). I called the number and started the ride in their automated call system. I entered the extension number I was given was directed to the voice mail of who had contacted me initially. I left a message. No reply. I tried to call the operator at the ATT executive office number I was given. It also went directly to voice mail.
I sent some messages back to ATTJenn
ATTJenn I just tried to call them again three minutes ago. Nothing but voicemail. I will be on the subway at 6pm so I would like to talk now
ATTJenn Please send me a number that will really connect to somebody other than 1-888-958-3030 x5995
ATTJenn I am available now. I have been waiting on ATT folks continually at this point.
ATTJenn Perhaps you can just message me here with an answer to this question: Am I going to receive a credit and if so, when?
ATTJenn ATT has all the info it should need in your records and in my blog post which documents things event by event
ATTJenn I am leaving the shop shortly. You may text me at the 9904 number with a viable contact number at AT&T exec offices.
Can somebody just text or tweet me as I asked to confirm a credit for a month will be issued on my next bill? @ATTJenn @ATTCustomerCare
Latest details at the blog post end @ATT @ATTCustomerCare - http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html
At this point I am still waiting to hear something. I do not understand why they cannot just tell me, in a text or voice mail or in twitter, IF I will receive a credit for all of the nonsense they put me through, the delays, the two premise techs, the two line techs and the total lack of help in dozens of calls to their 1-800-288-2020 help number. Why do they need to talk to me? It is all documented here. My logic for a month of credit is documented here. What is there to discuss? I do not need to hear reasons on why these problems happened. I do not need to hear that the policy is ... or ... if you read your contract. I pay for monthly service. Not only did I NOT receive the service I paid for but I lost many hours interacting with people who did nothing for me, lost hours waiting for technical folks who could not fix the problems without calling other technical folks. I even lost time waiting while the premise technicians were on hold with ATT waiting for support from them. Pro-rated refund? Would they accept a pro-rated price on a freezer than only cooled down to 50 degrees? A four door car with only three doors which opened?
I entered into a relationship with AT&T in good faith. This turned out to be a one way street.
This is not the way to run a business and is one more example of why America cannot compete in many markets anymore.
Six o'clock has come and gone. @ATT was supposed to call me at 6:00. They did not call as I was told they would.
12/2/10
I never received my call last night as @ATT promised. @ATTJenn @ATTCustomerCare Issue is still unresolved.
I received a call from ATT at about 10am while I was shopping. They are going to issue a credit. They said they would send me notification. I will post notification when I receive it here in the blog post and will let folks know when the credit is applied.
12/6/10
I am still waiting for some sort of email confirmation I was supposed to receive on my Uverse credit. Perhaps the credit will just be applied on the next bill. I won't be too shocked if it does not happen on the next bill. It took months to get a reward card AT&T told me they would send on another issue.
BUT ... we're not done YET!
On 12/4/10 I was at my boy's house. I was using one of their PCs. They pay for 6mb service. I decided to check the speed. 5mb on the download, not too far off, probably within their contract terms. Upload speed should be 25% of download speed at a minimum or in this case, 1.5mb. 0.64mb is all that could be measured.
I contacted AT&T on the 4th - They pay for 6mb service. upload spd is .64mb. Should be 1.5mb at the least.
On the 5th they asked me to send them details. Which had already been sent in the first message. Sending details again - The home no. is xxx-xxx-xxxx They pay for 6mb service. upload spd is 0.64mb. Should be 1.5mb at the least.
5 Dec at 15:56
ATTMollica Thank you for your kid's information, I also need the name on their account and best contact number for them and I will get their issues escalated.
6 Dec
Even though this information had already been sent two times I sent it a third time on the evening of December 6.
The saga continues.
Earlier today I read a story with the title -
AT&T is rated worst cellphone service provider by Consumer Reports
A few highlights:
The magazine, known for independent testing of consumer products, said AT&T came in last behind top scorer U.S. Cellular. Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile also scored higher than the exclusive service provider of Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone.
AT&T's data and voice services and its customer service — including staff knowledge and the ability to resolve issues — were all deemed lacking.
Consumer reports AT&T - the only carrier rated by the magazine to have its overall satisfaction level fall this year.
The report, based on 58,000 responses, reached the same conclusion in 2009 when the provider, which was found to offer the most expensive plans with or without data, was given a rating of 66.
Consumer Reports is also declining to recommend the iPhone to readers, citing lingering concerns about the smart phone's reception problems and Apple's decision in September to cancel its giveaway of free cases to address a signal strength issue.
I will continue updating this blog post with information on my Uverse credit and on the slow speed issues at my boy's home until both issues are resolved.
myles111us Seems as if you could have gotten the name, account number and all else from the phone number I have sent three times.
51 seconds ago
myles111us Name on account is xxxxx xxxxxxx
1 minute ago Delete
ATTMollica Can I get the name of the account?
6 minutes ago Delete
myles111us I do not know their account number but the phone number of the line is xxxxx Their mothers cell is xxxxx
37 minutes ago Delete
ATTMollica Sorry I didn't receive a DM with the phone number for the account until today, but now that I have all the details I need to help get
1 minute ago
ATTMollica your kid's services looked into I will get this escalated and off to my DSL team. Thanks. Mollica
1 minute ago
myles111us One of my issues with you folks - people do not pass along information. I sent all that info on 12/4.
12/9/10
myles111us No word from anybody from @ATT or @ATTCustomerCare for three days.
I received a call via voice mail from ATT as I was on the subway. I had told them to contact me after 6pm my time and they said they would do that in the message but in the past they said they would call after 6pm and NEVER did so.
I have something of an issue with them calling me at all. I expressed this in twitter back to them using direct messages. That is how they have been contacting me.
The speed problem is at the home of my boys. I do not live there. I had already explained that to AT&T multiple times and I had sent them the number of the line with the substandard service and sent them the name on that account. I have received NO confirmation that ANYBODY has pass along that information or understood what I have told them.
The most recent messages sent back to them on 12/9/10 at 4:30pm or so PST from me:
ATT left me a voicemail today. They said they would call back this evening. BUT, I wanted them to contact
the people at the house that has the problem! I gave you the number there which is also the account
I do not understand why you folks cannot follow simple directions and requests or pass on information
I gave you the phone number of the problem and the name on the account
Please get people to get their act together and just DM me when this is done and the problem is addressed.
6:45PM PST - Talked to Sam @ATT - a technical fellow who knows his stuff and resolved the issue. No more open issues @ATTMollica
Thank you Sam at ATT.
12/17/10 update - The other day I received a card in the mail that explained that my Uverse TV package will have a price increase in January. There will be less channels in January. My Internet cost will be more expensive in January. The ATT slogan of more bars in more places should be "more dollars for fewer services".
12/20/10 Update
Last month Marie Johnson in the AT&T Executive offices at 1-888-958-3030 x5995 assure me that I would be issued a FULL credit for a month of Uverse services.
Today my online invoice showed NO credit. The last payment was my payment to them for the prior month invoice.
I tried to call Marie Johnson during their normal business hours a few minutes ago. I was routed to her voicemail which has always been the case. If one calls the operator they are also routed directly to voicemail.
I have sent twitter messages to ATT folks and will be sending out this blog again with the updates from twitter.
myles111us Myles Rose
Last month Marie Johnson 1-888-958-3030 x5995 @ATT exec offices promised a credit for this month. Credit did NOT come as promised.
8 minutes ago
myles111us Myles Rose
There is NO credit on my @ATT bill. The money there was my payment last month on 11/26. My full invoice here rather than promised credit
9 minutes ago
myles111us
You can have her follow ME. I am not about to bring somebody new up to speed on all of this!
54 seconds ago
ATTCustomerCare
Please follow and DM ATTNatasha. She'll try to help. Thanks!
8 minutes ago Delete
myles111us
My online bill shows a credit yet says I owe charges that were promised by Marie Johnson to be credited.
16 minutes ago
Now one more new ATT person is involved and the bad service and broken promises continue. I am going to pay my invoice as I am concerned that if one of the folks promise me AGAIN that it will be credited and when it is not credited I will then probably be sent to some ATT department for collections for overdue payment. I have already documented dozens of examples where AT&T people do not talk to each other, share information or work together. ATT is not communication, it is MISSED communication.
ATTNatasha
@myles111us I have engaged U-verse billing team to sort this out for you. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - You people are a nightmare. Broken promises. Bad service. I do not have hope for rational resolution
3 minutes ago
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - Please see updates in a few minutes on my blog at the bottom. About 15 minutes.
myles111us Myles Rose
Tried to pay my @ATT bill but it says account cannot be paid online at this time. Screen snapshot will be added to blog.
12-20-10 9:32pst
I wonder
myles111us Natasia has been of no help. Sent a brief tweet and went to lunch.
ATTCustomerCare Natasha has already escalated your issue to your Uverse counterparts. Thanks for your patience! - this was in the late morning on 12/20
myles111us You may want to go back and count the times this has been escalated to Uverse management with no result. 12/20/10 10:15pst
myles111us My blog post on @ATT problems has risen back to 4th most read post this week, Last week it was almost out of the top 10. @ATTCustomerCare\
myles111us I get passed from one rep to another. @ATTMollica did not help. @attjenn did not help. @ATTCustomerCare no help. Now @ATTNatasha ?
@ATTNatasha did nothing. Said she was out for the evening and to contact @ATTCustomerCare Natasha had send DM that she would resolve. Lies - This was at 2:15pm pst 12/20. There has been no progress.
My account is still locked.
Just got off the phone with Lisa Domino on a NEW @ATT problem. How long will it take to resolve this one? There is service at my old home address for my two boys and their mother which has nothing to do with my account. I have Uverse. They do not have Uverse. They have a landline. I do not have a landline. They have dish network through an ATT bundle package.
Over the weekend there was a change of service in the house where I no longer live. The ATT account is not even in my name. Seems as if when the service was modified AT&T attached their service to my bill as I received an email message and text stating that there were changes to MY account ending in a four digit number that is the account of the house where I have not lived in over two years.
Side note, this is NOT the first time they have messed up the billing addresses or accounts.
So ... the text I receive says to call a number if there is a problem. I call the number and talk to Lisa Domino. She tries to help but is left on hold by AT&T even when she uses the back door number.
I give her the entire story and she says she will make the call, get things fixed after she hears about the nightmares I have been having with what seems now to be every single department and aspect of AT&T. She said she would get this resolved and send me a text message when it is resolved. Why the text message? Because I am in the shop with AT&T cell service and there is no reception in the shop even though there are two cell towers over the fence in our parking lot. T-Mobile works, Verizon works, Sprint works. AT&T drops calls or cannot connect.
Back to the credit issue ..the latest twitter dialogue....
ATTCustomerCare Molly
@myles111us Hi sorry about that, ATTNatasha wil respond. Thank you
I have lost track of "sorry" and lost track of how many times Molly has told me Natasha will respond.
Back to Molly at 6:45pm pst 12/20:
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTCustomerCare - you mean she will send me a DM again and do nothing tomorrow? My @att blog is now in 2nd place this week. @ATTNatasha
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - Nothing has been done. Heard from you once and then you left for the day. Nothing accomplished. You maintained @ATT practices
Yes, it seems like Natasha has set the AT&T bar to even lower standards and expectations. I base that statement on verifiable fact. Look above in this post at some of the other AT&T reps that opened a dialog with me in the past. At least they would uphold their actual job description seems to be:
The objective and purpose of ATT Customer Service is to act as a buffer between a customer problem and any possible solution to the problem.
Yes, Natasia has had less dialog with me than any Customer Service rep in the past. She also handed off the problem to somebody else after our first brief exchange on twitter, never gave me any sort of status update and then went home at the end of her shift without so much as a word. At least the others were professional enough to give me some sort of information.
If somebody at AT&T who writes the performance reviews on folks needs some hard data on Natasia just follow the above. Natasia is anything but an asset. Since I just received notice in the regular mail that my Uverse service will cost more next month, my Internet service is going up $5 more each month and you are removing even more channels that were part of the sales package when I signed up, all I can assume is you need to strengthen your bottom line.
How about getting rid of some of your Customer Service staff? Just a suggestion. Earlier in this blog post I even note employee ID numbers and an audit trail of the events to make this easy for you.
Yesterday morning the AT&T blog post had almost fallen from the top ten most active and read posts. Today it had moved into 4th place, 3rd place and is now in 2nd place from the running one week period from 2010 Dec 13 20:00 – 2010 Dec 20 19:00
Perhaps they are shooting for the famed #1 position. If I were a betting man I would bet they will make it, especially if they keep Natasia on my problem tomorrow on 12/21/10.
12/21/10
The morning started with a phone call from 1-800-288-2020 that when I went to answer the call on the first ring the call disconnected.
Voice mail was left for me from Jeff Harman at AT&T Executive Offices. You remember, the office where Marie Johnson worked and never sent me confirmation or email for my promised credit.
I called back the number on voicemail left by Jeff Harmon, the Executive Offices number and his extension. He did not answer the phone. My call went to his voicemail. I left a message. In my message I told him that this call back and non-answer to voice mail was what always had happened to me in the past. I felt it was a stall tactic. When folks finally did connect with me they said they received the voice mail on their end the day after I had left the VM.
Jeff called back and we went through the issues.
The address conflict on accounts seems as if he has resolved the problem. Only time will tell. Hopefully my boy's mom will get her own AT&T bill for her home services without interruption or change.
My credit in full has been issued and from what I can see from my account page it looks like there is now a credit on the account status page.
I will hope for the best but expect something far short of the best in the future. If there are any more problems I will post them here and notice will be sent out if this post is updated. 26,751 people have read this blog post since it was created on November 27, 2010.
Over on my facebook page, Mike Franceschini left a comment: Myles, they are never going to give you money back- just let it go and go on with your life. They can out last you....
Mike knows me pretty well and I would think he would understand that very few can outlast me. Fighting evil is a part of my life. My reply to Mike's comment was simply: Mike - evil can only flourish when good men do nothing.
Here we go again - 1/18/11 - a new ATT problem
Last month my ex-wife made some changes to her home service. I do not have conventional land line at my house. She does.
When I would log into my own account online I used to see pull down tabs for my Uverse and my cell phone. The ONLY two services I have with AT&T. After my ex made changes I then saw a new tab in the pull down for Home Phone and Internet. I called Customer Service and they assured me that the accounts are separate and there is no concern. They said the third pulldown is always there. It wasn't.
Today I received an email telling me there was an amount due on my account ending in the account number for my ex-wife's account. Yup. AT&T screwed things up AGAIN, lied to me again.
Here we go again. Another round of AT&T lack of service and multiple steps to attempt to resolve one more problem that they caused.
myles111us @ATTCustomerCare @att - ATT screws up again. I talked to them last month when they combined my ex-wife's account and mine.
Blog updated at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html New problems @ATT @ATTCustomerCare
The first dialogue on facebook after my blog was updated (and sent to facebook, twitter, Google Buzz, etc)
John: It's truly incredible how moronic & unprofessional AT&T has been to you Myles!!! I've followed your updates on this & hoped you'd finally gotten everything resolved - as best it could be when dealing with a business that obviously doesn't care. You'd think they'd pay special attention to your account now after the "exposure" you gave them but proved again they have NO CLUE!!! Good luck (again) Myles!!!
Myles: John - the Uverse issues were finally resolved. The Internet issues were finally resolved. The billing credit issues were finally resolved. A month and a half later we have a new issue. I have a lot of words I could apply to them but will refrain here on facebook. But, I do have a mechanism that will send my blog post to folks that are on twitter reporting their own problems to ATT so they know what they might expect.
Jan 19 2011 - Day 2
No response from AT&T telling me why the phone bill for someone other than me is being sent to me.
11:00pst - AT&T called me. I spoke to fellow who has promised to get things resolved. I asked him to text me when the issue is resolved and then follow up with an email which I can forward on to the proper person who is the actual owner of the account. I will then check to assure I can still log into my own two AT&T accounts and that the third account which is not my account is not in my account data.
I will update this blog as things unfold.
11:45 PST - received a call from AT&T Dallas Corporate Offices from Kevin Smith. Seems as if they prior promise from this morning was passed on to somebody else.
I had to explain EVERYTHING AGAIN. Typical. Once again I was promised resolution. I was told I would be texted and emailed. We will see. Not much confidence as my problem has already been passed along two times in less than one hour where the information was not even passed along.
12:03 PST - Kevin Smith called me back again to ask some additional questions. None of what he asked seem to address the problem, only reasons on who dropped the ball at AT&T in the past on three accounts accounts on their end.
I informed Kevin that I was leaving the shop as they had been calling me there (no AT&T cell reception in the office but that is another old issue and not any of my current issues). I told Kevin to send me texts and emails. He asked if I could be contacted to verify account changes and I said yes but I only can be contacted via cell as I have no land line. I had already explained the poor cell coverage issues but once I am out of the shop my cell works fine.
I am concerned that if and when they fix one problem that my accounts that currently have no problem will develop problems.
7:30pm PST - well, no text from AT&T. No email from them. No word since noon. No fix. No surprise.
Maybe more interesting stuff tomorrow? Probably.
As a side note, 10,381 folks have read the updates to this saga since I updated the post yesterday. Last night my AT&T post was off the list that follows the top most read posts in a rolling week which is continually updated. Now they are back in first place.
Well done AT&T. At least you can be number one in two places ... my blog posts and holding the number 1 position for the worst customer service in any industry. Don't believe me? No problem. Check recent surveys from many current news stories.
To Kevin Smith at the Executive AT&T Offices in Dallas ... Just a suggestion. When you tell somebody you will text and email them it sort of doesn't actually mean to most folks that you can just go silent on them until the issue is resolved. It is much better customer service to keep folks informed. Maybe a text with a status update would have been nice?
The saga will continue tomorrow.
Day 3 - 1/20/11
11:30am Call from @att about an hour ago. No progress yet. No surprise.
40 minutes later another call from Kevin at the AT&T Dallas HQ offices
Kevin @ATT Dallas may have my issue resolved. Only time will tell but I will hope for the best. I will keep updating this blog entry when there is any change.
5:30pm - My ex-wife just called me. AT&T has called her close to 10 times today. Did Kevin fix things? Nope. Made it even more complex. The guy does not listen. He does not write things down. On top of that, when my ex-wife got home her latest AT&T bill had arrived today. The changes she made in December to her home phone plan to reduce costs, the changes that started this chain of events in the first place, did not take place. Her bill is the same as before, changes were not implemented.
Earlier in this blog post on my Uverse and Internet experiences I mentioned that AT&T does not pass info along and makes it virtually impossible for a customer to resolve problems without dozens of phone calls and dozens of hours of wasted time. Same thing here. We have Kevin Smith in the Executive Offices of AT&T in Dallas Texas that told me and my ex-wife that he cannot address billing issues or account issues. So what can HE do? So far he has done nothing but make promises that he has not kept and complicated the problem to a new level.
Kevin Smith has also informed me that he could care less about social media and could care less if I post my issues with AT&T on facebook, twitter and on blogs. It seems he could care less about how this reflects on AT&T.
So, as of the moment, 1/20/11 at 5:45pm PST, not only has the problem not been resolved but it has been made more complex and has taken dozens of calls and hours of myself and my ex-wife. My ex-wife's bill is now messed up, her account changes were not implemented. She has been charged excessive charges for a month of service she did not receive.
Kevin Smith assured her that he would get to the bottom of the billing problem tomorrow (as they are closed now) even though he told me earlier today that he could not get to the department that does billing and accounting. I told him that was unacceptable for the "Office of the President" which is how the phone is answered and it is also unacceptable that a customer is expected to make calls from one department to another. By the time a problems is escalated to the AT&T Executive Offices it seems to me that folks in that office should be empowered to resolve problems.
Side note... My ex-wife has her home phone, Internet, and Dish Network combined with AT&T in some sort of package. When she made her changes in December (which started all this) it seems that Dish Network made the change properly and that portion of her AT&T bill reflects the proper charges. So it seems that Dish Network can do things right when AT&T cannot.
Day 4 - 1/21/11
Received an email from Kevin Smith this morning that states that he can guarantee things have been fixed. I will wait for confirmation on the billing charges from my ex-wife and will also assure that my two AT&T accounts still work properly on billing on the next billing cycle.
I will update this blog post with the results when available.
11:25 PST - Kevin Smith just called me from AT&T Corporate. The last thing he was saying before I hung up on him was that I have a high level of frustration. Really? Maybe he needs to go back and READ the entire post here.
He tried to pass off problems on somewhere else in the case of AT&T phone / billing changes. I informed him, once again, that the other services bundled with AT&T accomplished things fine and the bill was also adjusted properly. The AT&T services were NOT done properly.
I told him that in order for them to improve service he should find out who took the order for changes and who made the mistake. Either training or some other form of attention is indicated. I asked Kevin to follow up on this and keep me informed. I also asked for further correspondence with him be done in writing because he does not remember, or seem to even note problems. The same issues keep coming up over and over with new issues and complications tossed in for good measure by Kevin.
At this point I have asked for email updates on status. His email that I received yesterday did not mention anything about the improper billing charges as a side note. The email was signed:
Kevin J Smith
AT&T
Office of the President
Appeals Manager
Appeals Manager? How is this an appeal?
In any case, I will keep updating this post. If Kevin cannot grasp why I may seem frustrated he may want to go back and read this from the beginning. Hopefully he will look at the hours of phone calls and dialogue and the scores people who could not resolve problems. In all of this activity there were perhaps two or three folks that helped. The folks that helped were mentioned above at some point. As far as Kevin Smith, he has made some progress but the amount of effort it has taken from the customer side has been nothing short of insane. At this point I am actually starting to take a personal dislike to the guy. Hopefully he will go back and reflect on on some of the dialogue here, keep some of the promises he made and perhaps my view of him will move back into a positive direction.
Kevin - FYI. Please address the issue of who dropped the ball on your side. Overlooking problems with people and procedures will only lead to AT&T providing even worse service. Please refrain from calling me anymore. You just piss me off as we go over as you go over things we have covered again and again, and again and again. Send an email as we agreed. Send a text as we agreed followed by an email. Side note ... I still have NEVER received a single text from you as you promised.
4:25pm - Just got a call from my ex-wife. She had a difficult day at work which was turned into a miserable day due to constant calls from AT&T during her lunch time (she is a teacher and did not get to even eat her lunch). Like I have been saying all along, AT&T can make even the most simple problem close to impossible to resolve. I need to tell her that the more she actually talks to folks on the phone the more things degrade. I should suggest that all conversation should be done via email as at least there is an audit trail of their pathetic excuse for customer service.
Day 7 - 1/24/11
At this point only partial credit has been issued. When the remaining portion of the credit has been received I will report that fact. Like I said ... it is a LONG road to problem resolution with AT&T.
Day 8 - 1/25/11
This morning I received this email from Kevin Smith from the Office of the President of AT&T in Dallas:
From: SMITH, KEVIN (ATTSI)
Subject: RE: FW: Phone and DSL service at xxxxxxxx RESOLUTION
To: "Myles S. Rose"
Cc: "SMITH, KEVIN (ATTSI)
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 2:18 AM
Hello,
All credits take 1-2 billing cycles to appear on the phone bill.
I just spoke to xxxxxx, she understands her bill and she knows when to expect the credits. xxxxxxx will contact me if the credit does not appear on her next bill and I will take appropriate action.
Xxxxxxx is satisfied with my feedback.
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply back to Kevin:
I am not satisfied with this. Your response does little more than affirm to me that it takes moments for AT&T to cause a problem yet it takes months for them to resolve the problem.
Dish Network is bundled in her AT&T services. She made changed with them at the same time she made changes to her phone service. Dish had no problems. They made no mistakes and her changes went into effect immediately. Her credit was already received.
My request to you is that I wish somebody from billing to send her an email which will confirm that her credit is either in the mail to her in form of a check or is issued as a credit card credit this business week. Waiting two more months is not an option in my mind.
I will await your reply to me via email. I do not want you to call me and would prefer if you did not call my ex-wife during her work hours. I would think she would also prefer you to email her rather than call.
Myles
2/19/11
I received an email today from Yahoo. I was having an email issue and signed up for automated alerts. I received an alert this morning.
I am still waiting to see if the credit and account changed promised to my family will show up on the next bill so at this time this post has not officially ended but .... I found this email interesting in regard to AT&T who provides the phone service for Yahoo.
I might take a few seconds to mention that the price on my AT&T Internet increased by $5.00 per month for 2011. I will also mention at this time that I am keeping an eye on outages and will be asking them for credit. I intend to keep an eye on their performance very closely. They have already downgraded my profile once due to old copper that has not been replaced. I do not understand how they feel it is fair to raise the price of my service on older and weaker physical infrastructure.
Please call me at xxx/xxx/xxxx.
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply in part to Kevin who is the Office of the President at AT&T Corporate Headquarters in Texas:
Kevin,
In the past when we talked on the phone there is little accomplished. The last time we talked on the phone I told you that I did not wish to speak to you again on the phone, that all dialogue would be in written form as you did not recall details or promises which you made verbally.
This is a simple matter of DSL outages which can be confirmed by your technical people. There is nothing to talk about.
If you go to the bottom of the blog post at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html the outages are documented in a way your technical people will understand.
I expect a credit for this month's Internet service.
I await your reply.
Myles
5:45pm PST
Six o'clock has come and gone. @ATT was supposed to call me at 6:00. They did not call as I was told they would.
12/2/10
I never received my call last night as @ATT promised. @ATTJenn @ATTCustomerCare Issue is still unresolved.
I received a call from ATT at about 10am while I was shopping. They are going to issue a credit. They said they would send me notification. I will post notification when I receive it here in the blog post and will let folks know when the credit is applied.
12/6/10
I am still waiting for some sort of email confirmation I was supposed to receive on my Uverse credit. Perhaps the credit will just be applied on the next bill. I won't be too shocked if it does not happen on the next bill. It took months to get a reward card AT&T told me they would send on another issue.
BUT ... we're not done YET!
On 12/4/10 I was at my boy's house. I was using one of their PCs. They pay for 6mb service. I decided to check the speed. 5mb on the download, not too far off, probably within their contract terms. Upload speed should be 25% of download speed at a minimum or in this case, 1.5mb. 0.64mb is all that could be measured.
I contacted AT&T on the 4th - They pay for 6mb service. upload spd is .64mb. Should be 1.5mb at the least.
On the 5th they asked me to send them details. Which had already been sent in the first message. Sending details again - The home no. is xxx-xxx-xxxx They pay for 6mb service. upload spd is 0.64mb. Should be 1.5mb at the least.
5 Dec at 15:56
ATTMollica Thank you for your kid's information, I also need the name on their account and best contact number for them and I will get their issues escalated.
6 Dec
Even though this information had already been sent two times I sent it a third time on the evening of December 6.
The saga continues.
Earlier today I read a story with the title -
AT&T is rated worst cellphone service provider by Consumer Reports
A few highlights:
The magazine, known for independent testing of consumer products, said AT&T came in last behind top scorer U.S. Cellular. Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile also scored higher than the exclusive service provider of Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone.
AT&T's data and voice services and its customer service — including staff knowledge and the ability to resolve issues — were all deemed lacking.
Consumer reports AT&T - the only carrier rated by the magazine to have its overall satisfaction level fall this year.
The report, based on 58,000 responses, reached the same conclusion in 2009 when the provider, which was found to offer the most expensive plans with or without data, was given a rating of 66.
Consumer Reports is also declining to recommend the iPhone to readers, citing lingering concerns about the smart phone's reception problems and Apple's decision in September to cancel its giveaway of free cases to address a signal strength issue.
The entire story can be found here -
I will continue updating this blog post with information on my Uverse credit and on the slow speed issues at my boy's home until both issues are resolved.
myles111us Seems as if you could have gotten the name, account number and all else from the phone number I have sent three times.
51 seconds ago
myles111us Name on account is xxxxx xxxxxxx
1 minute ago Delete
ATTMollica Can I get the name of the account?
6 minutes ago Delete
myles111us I do not know their account number but the phone number of the line is xxxxx Their mothers cell is xxxxx
37 minutes ago Delete
ATTMollica Sorry I didn't receive a DM with the phone number for the account until today, but now that I have all the details I need to help get
1 minute ago
ATTMollica your kid's services looked into I will get this escalated and off to my DSL team. Thanks. Mollica
1 minute ago
myles111us One of my issues with you folks - people do not pass along information. I sent all that info on 12/4.
12/9/10
myles111us No word from anybody from @ATT or @ATTCustomerCare for three days.
I received a call via voice mail from ATT as I was on the subway. I had told them to contact me after 6pm my time and they said they would do that in the message but in the past they said they would call after 6pm and NEVER did so.
I have something of an issue with them calling me at all. I expressed this in twitter back to them using direct messages. That is how they have been contacting me.
The speed problem is at the home of my boys. I do not live there. I had already explained that to AT&T multiple times and I had sent them the number of the line with the substandard service and sent them the name on that account. I have received NO confirmation that ANYBODY has pass along that information or understood what I have told them.
The most recent messages sent back to them on 12/9/10 at 4:30pm or so PST from me:
ATT left me a voicemail today. They said they would call back this evening. BUT, I wanted them to contact
the people at the house that has the problem! I gave you the number there which is also the account
I do not understand why you folks cannot follow simple directions and requests or pass on information
I gave you the phone number of the problem and the name on the account
Please get people to get their act together and just DM me when this is done and the problem is addressed.
6:45PM PST - Talked to Sam @ATT - a technical fellow who knows his stuff and resolved the issue. No more open issues @ATTMollica
Thank you Sam at ATT.
12/17/10 update - The other day I received a card in the mail that explained that my Uverse TV package will have a price increase in January. There will be less channels in January. My Internet cost will be more expensive in January. The ATT slogan of more bars in more places should be "more dollars for fewer services".
12/20/10 Update
Last month Marie Johnson in the AT&T Executive offices at 1-888-958-3030 x5995 assure me that I would be issued a FULL credit for a month of Uverse services.
Today my online invoice showed NO credit. The last payment was my payment to them for the prior month invoice.
I tried to call Marie Johnson during their normal business hours a few minutes ago. I was routed to her voicemail which has always been the case. If one calls the operator they are also routed directly to voicemail.
I have sent twitter messages to ATT folks and will be sending out this blog again with the updates from twitter.
myles111us Myles Rose
Last month Marie Johnson 1-888-958-3030 x5995 @ATT exec offices promised a credit for this month. Credit did NOT come as promised.
8 minutes ago
myles111us Myles Rose
There is NO credit on my @ATT bill. The money there was my payment last month on 11/26. My full invoice here rather than promised credit
9 minutes ago
myles111us
You can have her follow ME. I am not about to bring somebody new up to speed on all of this!
54 seconds ago
ATTCustomerCare
Please follow and DM ATTNatasha. She'll try to help. Thanks!
8 minutes ago Delete
myles111us
My online bill shows a credit yet says I owe charges that were promised by Marie Johnson to be credited.
16 minutes ago
Now one more new ATT person is involved and the bad service and broken promises continue. I am going to pay my invoice as I am concerned that if one of the folks promise me AGAIN that it will be credited and when it is not credited I will then probably be sent to some ATT department for collections for overdue payment. I have already documented dozens of examples where AT&T people do not talk to each other, share information or work together. ATT is not communication, it is MISSED communication.
ATTNatasha
@myles111us I have engaged U-verse billing team to sort this out for you. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - You people are a nightmare. Broken promises. Bad service. I do not have hope for rational resolution
3 minutes ago
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - Please see updates in a few minutes on my blog at the bottom. About 15 minutes.
myles111us Myles Rose
Tried to pay my @ATT bill but it says account cannot be paid online at this time. Screen snapshot will be added to blog.
12-20-10 9:32pst
myles111us Natasia has been of no help. Sent a brief tweet and went to lunch.
ATTCustomerCare Natasha has already escalated your issue to your Uverse counterparts. Thanks for your patience! - this was in the late morning on 12/20
myles111us You may want to go back and count the times this has been escalated to Uverse management with no result. 12/20/10 10:15pst
myles111us My blog post on @ATT problems has risen back to 4th most read post this week, Last week it was almost out of the top 10. @ATTCustomerCare\
myles111us I get passed from one rep to another. @ATTMollica did not help. @attjenn did not help. @ATTCustomerCare no help. Now @ATTNatasha ?
@ATTNatasha did nothing. Said she was out for the evening and to contact @ATTCustomerCare Natasha had send DM that she would resolve. Lies - This was at 2:15pm pst 12/20. There has been no progress.
My account is still locked.
Just got off the phone with Lisa Domino on a NEW @ATT problem. How long will it take to resolve this one? There is service at my old home address for my two boys and their mother which has nothing to do with my account. I have Uverse. They do not have Uverse. They have a landline. I do not have a landline. They have dish network through an ATT bundle package.
Over the weekend there was a change of service in the house where I no longer live. The ATT account is not even in my name. Seems as if when the service was modified AT&T attached their service to my bill as I received an email message and text stating that there were changes to MY account ending in a four digit number that is the account of the house where I have not lived in over two years.
Side note, this is NOT the first time they have messed up the billing addresses or accounts.
So ... the text I receive says to call a number if there is a problem. I call the number and talk to Lisa Domino. She tries to help but is left on hold by AT&T even when she uses the back door number.
I give her the entire story and she says she will make the call, get things fixed after she hears about the nightmares I have been having with what seems now to be every single department and aspect of AT&T. She said she would get this resolved and send me a text message when it is resolved. Why the text message? Because I am in the shop with AT&T cell service and there is no reception in the shop even though there are two cell towers over the fence in our parking lot. T-Mobile works, Verizon works, Sprint works. AT&T drops calls or cannot connect.
Back to the credit issue ..the latest twitter dialogue....
ATTCustomerCare Molly
@myles111us Hi sorry about that, ATTNatasha wil respond. Thank you
I have lost track of "sorry" and lost track of how many times Molly has told me Natasha will respond.
Back to Molly at 6:45pm pst 12/20:
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTCustomerCare - you mean she will send me a DM again and do nothing tomorrow? My @att blog is now in 2nd place this week. @ATTNatasha
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNatasha - Nothing has been done. Heard from you once and then you left for the day. Nothing accomplished. You maintained @ATT practices
Yes, it seems like Natasha has set the AT&T bar to even lower standards and expectations. I base that statement on verifiable fact. Look above in this post at some of the other AT&T reps that opened a dialog with me in the past. At least they would uphold their actual job description seems to be:
The objective and purpose of ATT Customer Service is to act as a buffer between a customer problem and any possible solution to the problem.
Yes, Natasia has had less dialog with me than any Customer Service rep in the past. She also handed off the problem to somebody else after our first brief exchange on twitter, never gave me any sort of status update and then went home at the end of her shift without so much as a word. At least the others were professional enough to give me some sort of information.
If somebody at AT&T who writes the performance reviews on folks needs some hard data on Natasia just follow the above. Natasia is anything but an asset. Since I just received notice in the regular mail that my Uverse service will cost more next month, my Internet service is going up $5 more each month and you are removing even more channels that were part of the sales package when I signed up, all I can assume is you need to strengthen your bottom line.
How about getting rid of some of your Customer Service staff? Just a suggestion. Earlier in this blog post I even note employee ID numbers and an audit trail of the events to make this easy for you.
Yesterday morning the AT&T blog post had almost fallen from the top ten most active and read posts. Today it had moved into 4th place, 3rd place and is now in 2nd place from the running one week period from 2010 Dec 13 20:00 – 2010 Dec 20 19:00
Perhaps they are shooting for the famed #1 position. If I were a betting man I would bet they will make it, especially if they keep Natasia on my problem tomorrow on 12/21/10.
12/21/10
The morning started with a phone call from 1-800-288-2020 that when I went to answer the call on the first ring the call disconnected.
Voice mail was left for me from Jeff Harman at AT&T Executive Offices. You remember, the office where Marie Johnson worked and never sent me confirmation or email for my promised credit.
I called back the number on voicemail left by Jeff Harmon, the Executive Offices number and his extension. He did not answer the phone. My call went to his voicemail. I left a message. In my message I told him that this call back and non-answer to voice mail was what always had happened to me in the past. I felt it was a stall tactic. When folks finally did connect with me they said they received the voice mail on their end the day after I had left the VM.
Jeff called back and we went through the issues.
The address conflict on accounts seems as if he has resolved the problem. Only time will tell. Hopefully my boy's mom will get her own AT&T bill for her home services without interruption or change.
My credit in full has been issued and from what I can see from my account page it looks like there is now a credit on the account status page.
I will hope for the best but expect something far short of the best in the future. If there are any more problems I will post them here and notice will be sent out if this post is updated. 26,751 people have read this blog post since it was created on November 27, 2010.
Over on my facebook page, Mike Franceschini left a comment: Myles, they are never going to give you money back- just let it go and go on with your life. They can out last you....
Mike knows me pretty well and I would think he would understand that very few can outlast me. Fighting evil is a part of my life. My reply to Mike's comment was simply: Mike - evil can only flourish when good men do nothing.
Here we go again - 1/18/11 - a new ATT problem
Last month my ex-wife made some changes to her home service. I do not have conventional land line at my house. She does.
When I would log into my own account online I used to see pull down tabs for my Uverse and my cell phone. The ONLY two services I have with AT&T. After my ex made changes I then saw a new tab in the pull down for Home Phone and Internet. I called Customer Service and they assured me that the accounts are separate and there is no concern. They said the third pulldown is always there. It wasn't.
Today I received an email telling me there was an amount due on my account ending in the account number for my ex-wife's account. Yup. AT&T screwed things up AGAIN, lied to me again.
Here we go again. Another round of AT&T lack of service and multiple steps to attempt to resolve one more problem that they caused.
myles111us @ATTCustomerCare @att - ATT screws up again. I talked to them last month when they combined my ex-wife's account and mine.
Blog updated at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html New problems @ATT @ATTCustomerCare
The first dialogue on facebook after my blog was updated (and sent to facebook, twitter, Google Buzz, etc)
John: It's truly incredible how moronic & unprofessional AT&T has been to you Myles!!! I've followed your updates on this & hoped you'd finally gotten everything resolved - as best it could be when dealing with a business that obviously doesn't care. You'd think they'd pay special attention to your account now after the "exposure" you gave them but proved again they have NO CLUE!!! Good luck (again) Myles!!!
Myles: John - the Uverse issues were finally resolved. The Internet issues were finally resolved. The billing credit issues were finally resolved. A month and a half later we have a new issue. I have a lot of words I could apply to them but will refrain here on facebook. But, I do have a mechanism that will send my blog post to folks that are on twitter reporting their own problems to ATT so they know what they might expect.
Jan 19 2011 - Day 2
No response from AT&T telling me why the phone bill for someone other than me is being sent to me.
11:00pst - AT&T called me. I spoke to fellow who has promised to get things resolved. I asked him to text me when the issue is resolved and then follow up with an email which I can forward on to the proper person who is the actual owner of the account. I will then check to assure I can still log into my own two AT&T accounts and that the third account which is not my account is not in my account data.
I will update this blog as things unfold.
11:45 PST - received a call from AT&T Dallas Corporate Offices from Kevin Smith. Seems as if they prior promise from this morning was passed on to somebody else.
I had to explain EVERYTHING AGAIN. Typical. Once again I was promised resolution. I was told I would be texted and emailed. We will see. Not much confidence as my problem has already been passed along two times in less than one hour where the information was not even passed along.
12:03 PST - Kevin Smith called me back again to ask some additional questions. None of what he asked seem to address the problem, only reasons on who dropped the ball at AT&T in the past on three accounts accounts on their end.
I informed Kevin that I was leaving the shop as they had been calling me there (no AT&T cell reception in the office but that is another old issue and not any of my current issues). I told Kevin to send me texts and emails. He asked if I could be contacted to verify account changes and I said yes but I only can be contacted via cell as I have no land line. I had already explained the poor cell coverage issues but once I am out of the shop my cell works fine.
I am concerned that if and when they fix one problem that my accounts that currently have no problem will develop problems.
7:30pm PST - well, no text from AT&T. No email from them. No word since noon. No fix. No surprise.
Maybe more interesting stuff tomorrow? Probably.
As a side note, 10,381 folks have read the updates to this saga since I updated the post yesterday. Last night my AT&T post was off the list that follows the top most read posts in a rolling week which is continually updated. Now they are back in first place.
Well done AT&T. At least you can be number one in two places ... my blog posts and holding the number 1 position for the worst customer service in any industry. Don't believe me? No problem. Check recent surveys from many current news stories.
To Kevin Smith at the Executive AT&T Offices in Dallas ... Just a suggestion. When you tell somebody you will text and email them it sort of doesn't actually mean to most folks that you can just go silent on them until the issue is resolved. It is much better customer service to keep folks informed. Maybe a text with a status update would have been nice?
The saga will continue tomorrow.
Day 3 - 1/20/11
11:30am Call from @att about an hour ago. No progress yet. No surprise.
40 minutes later another call from Kevin at the AT&T Dallas HQ offices
Kevin @ATT Dallas may have my issue resolved. Only time will tell but I will hope for the best. I will keep updating this blog entry when there is any change.
5:30pm - My ex-wife just called me. AT&T has called her close to 10 times today. Did Kevin fix things? Nope. Made it even more complex. The guy does not listen. He does not write things down. On top of that, when my ex-wife got home her latest AT&T bill had arrived today. The changes she made in December to her home phone plan to reduce costs, the changes that started this chain of events in the first place, did not take place. Her bill is the same as before, changes were not implemented.
Earlier in this blog post on my Uverse and Internet experiences I mentioned that AT&T does not pass info along and makes it virtually impossible for a customer to resolve problems without dozens of phone calls and dozens of hours of wasted time. Same thing here. We have Kevin Smith in the Executive Offices of AT&T in Dallas Texas that told me and my ex-wife that he cannot address billing issues or account issues. So what can HE do? So far he has done nothing but make promises that he has not kept and complicated the problem to a new level.
Kevin Smith has also informed me that he could care less about social media and could care less if I post my issues with AT&T on facebook, twitter and on blogs. It seems he could care less about how this reflects on AT&T.
So, as of the moment, 1/20/11 at 5:45pm PST, not only has the problem not been resolved but it has been made more complex and has taken dozens of calls and hours of myself and my ex-wife. My ex-wife's bill is now messed up, her account changes were not implemented. She has been charged excessive charges for a month of service she did not receive.
Kevin Smith assured her that he would get to the bottom of the billing problem tomorrow (as they are closed now) even though he told me earlier today that he could not get to the department that does billing and accounting. I told him that was unacceptable for the "Office of the President" which is how the phone is answered and it is also unacceptable that a customer is expected to make calls from one department to another. By the time a problems is escalated to the AT&T Executive Offices it seems to me that folks in that office should be empowered to resolve problems.
Side note... My ex-wife has her home phone, Internet, and Dish Network combined with AT&T in some sort of package. When she made her changes in December (which started all this) it seems that Dish Network made the change properly and that portion of her AT&T bill reflects the proper charges. So it seems that Dish Network can do things right when AT&T cannot.
Day 4 - 1/21/11
Received an email from Kevin Smith this morning that states that he can guarantee things have been fixed. I will wait for confirmation on the billing charges from my ex-wife and will also assure that my two AT&T accounts still work properly on billing on the next billing cycle.
I will update this blog post with the results when available.
11:25 PST - Kevin Smith just called me from AT&T Corporate. The last thing he was saying before I hung up on him was that I have a high level of frustration. Really? Maybe he needs to go back and READ the entire post here.
He tried to pass off problems on somewhere else in the case of AT&T phone / billing changes. I informed him, once again, that the other services bundled with AT&T accomplished things fine and the bill was also adjusted properly. The AT&T services were NOT done properly.
I told him that in order for them to improve service he should find out who took the order for changes and who made the mistake. Either training or some other form of attention is indicated. I asked Kevin to follow up on this and keep me informed. I also asked for further correspondence with him be done in writing because he does not remember, or seem to even note problems. The same issues keep coming up over and over with new issues and complications tossed in for good measure by Kevin.
At this point I have asked for email updates on status. His email that I received yesterday did not mention anything about the improper billing charges as a side note. The email was signed:
Kevin J Smith
AT&T
Office of the President
Appeals Manager
Appeals Manager? How is this an appeal?
In any case, I will keep updating this post. If Kevin cannot grasp why I may seem frustrated he may want to go back and read this from the beginning. Hopefully he will look at the hours of phone calls and dialogue and the scores people who could not resolve problems. In all of this activity there were perhaps two or three folks that helped. The folks that helped were mentioned above at some point. As far as Kevin Smith, he has made some progress but the amount of effort it has taken from the customer side has been nothing short of insane. At this point I am actually starting to take a personal dislike to the guy. Hopefully he will go back and reflect on on some of the dialogue here, keep some of the promises he made and perhaps my view of him will move back into a positive direction.
Kevin - FYI. Please address the issue of who dropped the ball on your side. Overlooking problems with people and procedures will only lead to AT&T providing even worse service. Please refrain from calling me anymore. You just piss me off as we go over as you go over things we have covered again and again, and again and again. Send an email as we agreed. Send a text as we agreed followed by an email. Side note ... I still have NEVER received a single text from you as you promised.
4:25pm - Just got a call from my ex-wife. She had a difficult day at work which was turned into a miserable day due to constant calls from AT&T during her lunch time (she is a teacher and did not get to even eat her lunch). Like I have been saying all along, AT&T can make even the most simple problem close to impossible to resolve. I need to tell her that the more she actually talks to folks on the phone the more things degrade. I should suggest that all conversation should be done via email as at least there is an audit trail of their pathetic excuse for customer service.
Day 7 - 1/24/11
At this point only partial credit has been issued. When the remaining portion of the credit has been received I will report that fact. Like I said ... it is a LONG road to problem resolution with AT&T.
Day 8 - 1/25/11
This morning I received this email from Kevin Smith from the Office of the President of AT&T in Dallas:
From: SMITH, KEVIN (ATTSI)
Subject: RE: FW: Phone and DSL service at xxxxxxxx RESOLUTION
To: "Myles S. Rose"
Cc: "SMITH, KEVIN (ATTSI)
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 2:18 AM
Hello,
All credits take 1-2 billing cycles to appear on the phone bill.
I just spoke to xxxxxx, she understands her bill and she knows when to expect the credits. xxxxxxx will contact me if the credit does not appear on her next bill and I will take appropriate action.
Xxxxxxx is satisfied with my feedback.
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply back to Kevin:
I am not satisfied with this. Your response does little more than affirm to me that it takes moments for AT&T to cause a problem yet it takes months for them to resolve the problem.
Dish Network is bundled in her AT&T services. She made changed with them at the same time she made changes to her phone service. Dish had no problems. They made no mistakes and her changes went into effect immediately. Her credit was already received.
My request to you is that I wish somebody from billing to send her an email which will confirm that her credit is either in the mail to her in form of a check or is issued as a credit card credit this business week. Waiting two more months is not an option in my mind.
I will await your reply to me via email. I do not want you to call me and would prefer if you did not call my ex-wife during her work hours. I would think she would also prefer you to email her rather than call.
Myles
2/19/11
I received an email today from Yahoo. I was having an email issue and signed up for automated alerts. I received an alert this morning.
I am still waiting to see if the credit and account changed promised to my family will show up on the next bill so at this time this post has not officially ended but .... I found this email interesting in regard to AT&T who provides the phone service for Yahoo.
Note "Small Business Phone Support" above.
I might take a few seconds to mention that the price on my AT&T Internet increased by $5.00 per month for 2011. I will also mention at this time that I am keeping an eye on outages and will be asking them for credit. I intend to keep an eye on their performance very closely. They have already downgraded my profile once due to old copper that has not been replaced. I do not understand how they feel it is fair to raise the price of my service on older and weaker physical infrastructure.
If you look at the screen snapshot above, taken 9:30am PST on 2/19/11, which can be verified by AT&T technical services, it shows that this month the physical service was down.
One can see the the outage (loss of signal) and the DSL unavailable seconds. There are other errors as well. In the last 35 days there 38 occurrences of a loss of broadband (your network) signal. DSL was not available for over 12 hours over the 35 day period.
2/21/11 - 1600pst
I received a reply from Kevin Smith from AT&T
Hi,
Before we issue any credit on your account I will need to discuss the issue with you.
Please call me at xxx/xxx/xxxx.
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply in part to Kevin who is the Office of the President at AT&T Corporate Headquarters in Texas:
Kevin,
In the past when we talked on the phone there is little accomplished. The last time we talked on the phone I told you that I did not wish to speak to you again on the phone, that all dialogue would be in written form as you did not recall details or promises which you made verbally.
This is a simple matter of DSL outages which can be confirmed by your technical people. There is nothing to talk about.
If you go to the bottom of the blog post at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html the outages are documented in a way your technical people will understand.
I expect a credit for this month's Internet service.
I await your reply.
Myles
5:45pm PST
I received another email from Kevin at AT&T:
Hello,
Re this…I am not involved with uverse I will not be able to give you a credit based on your blog.
What is your account number? Once I have that info I will refer your email to uverse billing…
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply:
Kevin,
Once again I find it interesting that you are referring my problem elsewhere. Last time I had problems you told me to call on you anytime for future problems.
I expressed my concern as to the lack of empowerment which somebody at your level had. We shared verbal dialogue in regard to the lack of ability the President's Office seemed to have from my point of view.
In any case, my account number (it seems you kept none of my past information) is xxxxxxxxxx.
I am also surprised that you even asked for my account number as I provided my name and address in the earlier email.
As in the past, I do not intend to make multiple phone calls, be left on hold or have dialogue with anybody other than somebody in your office. When my problems could not be resolved in the past you were assigned to me to resolve my problems. Eventually ... my problems were resolved.
Hopefully you kept enough information and have enough information now, along with the error reports in my blog entry, that the next email I have from you will tell me the amount of my credit on this billing cycle which is coming to a close.
You said you were not involved with Uverse in your email? My last problems were Uverse. My Internet is Uverse. You were who I was passed on to last time for my Uverse problems. Hopefully you are not going to pass me on to somebody else. Hopefully you will take some pride in your company and help a customer rather than cause me to waste more time on this simple issue.
In any case, if you do decide to pass this off to somebody else at least I have this all documented and it will be easy to provide them a link to all of the information that has been collected.
I will look forward to a reply that shows improved customer service compared to the last time you tried to address some of my problem issues.
Myles S. Rose
In case folks in the Presidents Office need a little more information, here are some of the errors over the last month or so. I am removing some of the addresses for security reasons but the full data is available from the technical folks in your network control center.
INF 2011-01-17T13:00:05-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-17T13:00:50-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-18T05:30:24-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-18T05:31:10-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T00:42:19-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T00:43:04-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T05:18:54-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T05:19:39-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T11:15:09-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T11:15:54-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-21T04:44:56-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-21T04:46:04-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T13:31:39-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T13:32:24-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:17:39-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:18:24-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:19:32-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:20:17-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
At 8:00pm I replied to a comment on facebook about BP. There was a news story about how most of the oil that was supposed to be gone was found on the ocean floor. Some folks think BP is pretty poor when it comes to fixing problems, customer service or their way of spinning the media.
I am waiting to hear from Kevin Smith at AT&T in regard to a simple Internet credit. There has already been dialogue (see above) which is making me think that resolution on this issue will be just as complex as past issues even though the problem is about as simple as it can be.
My dialogue in regard to BP brought to mind that AT&T still holds the #1 spot for the worst customer service of any industry. Here is some of my facebook dialogue from a few minutes ago.
The issue of BP was brought up in the post. My reply:
But, you have to give them some credit.... their customer service is one level higher than that of AT&T :-) When the folks in the gulf were out of work and had no income they were on top of things in days or weeks (even though it should have been hours). If AT&T had been running the show it would have taken much longer. BP may be in the top ten worst (but they did not intend to spill oil even though their safety standard were questionable and they tried to spin the media) but there are many banks and lending institutions that are currently still throwing people out of their homes for problems they had a big hand in causing. Banks like B of A will still hang onto electronic fund transfers for days to inflate their average daily balance which is reported to the Fed. Prior to the bank crash these transfers from one account to another happened immediately or within less than an hour. Now it takes days.
So .... BP has done some serious media spin and cost reduction measures at the expense of others but some banks are worse and AT&T still holds the #1 spot as their customer service tends to be little more than an obstruction between a simple problem and the eventual solution. The technology is within their hands. It is not a matter of drilling a slant well a thousand feet below the ocean surface. It is not a complex game of digging yourself out of financial trouble to support your bad loans at the expense of others. AT&T has simple matters where one person who knows what they are doing sitting at a PC can resolve a problem in minutes rather than in weeks where the customer is passed from one person who has no ability or empowerment and who takes no responsibility to make a customer happy to the next.
BP hurt a lot of people at one time. It made news. It put them in the spotlight. AT&T makes the lives of people more difficult one customer at a time. Sort of flying under the radar. Not much to report in the news. They raise their rates as they drop services or performance. The remove unlimited data plans from their cell service as they add a new cost tier. They remove channels on their Uverse packages that were part of a package they sold to people to sign them up. They increase the price of their Internet service as the quality goes down and the error counts go up. If there is a problem it takes days, weeks or even longer to resolve the problem as they expect the customer to make multiple phone calls and take collective hours of being on hold as they are passed from one person to another or asked to call other numbers.
BP .... I am not happy at what they did but they are not the worst out there.
Hmmm ... I just might copy and past this into my AT&T blog.
As a side note, I recently had three problems with Sprint. I thought the problems were going to be a great opportunity to compare Sprint customer service to AT&T. There were some technical issues and two billing and accounting issues in regard to Sprint.
Bottom line, Sprint resolved things in short order. My family said their phone support was professional and helpful. They followed up with email confirmations and answers rather than the simplistic dialogue and excuses that you can read above from AT&T. Part of my family switched to Sprint from AT&T because AT&T no longer had an unlimited data plan. Sprint also has free calls starting at 7pm rather than 9pm. Sprint also has free calls from their cell service to all other mobil services. AT&T has none of these features.
My problems have been with Uverse which provides my Internet. I also have AT&T cell service as my contract has over a year left on the contract. My cell experience has been acceptable but the cost is typical AT&T practice ... more $$$$ for fewer services. I will review the cell picture when my contract is complete. Even if AT&T can match the services of Sprint I may opt to leave AT&T based on their level of customer service over the years which continues to decline.
2/22/11 10:00am PST - No email or word from AT&T.
11:00am PST
A bit of dialogue on twitter earlier today. Some things from AT&T and my responses on twitter:
ATT AT&T
@myles111us Hey! What's up? We'll try to help ya.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATT - all the information is here at the bottom of the post - http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html
ATTNicole Nicole
@myles111us I spoke with Kevin and, your issue has been referred to our U-verse billing group.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNicole - such a simple issue that has not been resolved with a simple phone call from Kevin to billing.
I have received nothing from Kevin Smith today from your executive offices in Dallas Texas. He does not do a very good job at keeping people informed.
1:00pm PST
I just received a voicemail from AT&T. Could not call them back as their number is restricted. The voice mail said that my problem has been turned over to the billing folks in the executive offices and I will hear something in two to three days. Yes, two to three days for this simple issue that has already been around since last week.
I also was very specific in asking AT&T to send information to me in writing either via email or text message. Some have been able to follow these simple instructions in the past and some AT&T folks seem to have problems following this simple request.
I still have no email from Kevin Smith and in fact have no email from anybody at AT&T.
Seems as if their two to three day comment to get to my problem added to the time already spent by them doing nothing on such a simple issue tells me that it may be a good idea to post this blog again.
2/23/11
Some of my twitter posts this morning:
Just reporting that I have had no word today from anybody @ATTCustomerCare @ATT #ATT 31 minutes ago
22 minutes after posting that I have heard nothing from @ATT #ATT I received messages from two @ATTCustomerCare people.
ATTJessica Jessica
@myles111us ATTNicole has forwarded your info to our Uverse folks to assist you. Please bear with us.
ATTCustomerCare Molly
@myles111us Don't worry we didn't forget about you. We are still working the issue.
Twitter has proven to be more effective in talking to #ATT than direct contact to me from the President's Office at @ATT HQ in Dallas
10:50am PST
Hello,
Re this…I am not involved with uverse I will not be able to give you a credit based on your blog.
What is your account number? Once I have that info I will refer your email to uverse billing…
Thanks,
Kevin
My reply:
Kevin,
Once again I find it interesting that you are referring my problem elsewhere. Last time I had problems you told me to call on you anytime for future problems.
I expressed my concern as to the lack of empowerment which somebody at your level had. We shared verbal dialogue in regard to the lack of ability the President's Office seemed to have from my point of view.
In any case, my account number (it seems you kept none of my past information) is xxxxxxxxxx.
I am also surprised that you even asked for my account number as I provided my name and address in the earlier email.
As in the past, I do not intend to make multiple phone calls, be left on hold or have dialogue with anybody other than somebody in your office. When my problems could not be resolved in the past you were assigned to me to resolve my problems. Eventually ... my problems were resolved.
Hopefully you kept enough information and have enough information now, along with the error reports in my blog entry, that the next email I have from you will tell me the amount of my credit on this billing cycle which is coming to a close.
You said you were not involved with Uverse in your email? My last problems were Uverse. My Internet is Uverse. You were who I was passed on to last time for my Uverse problems. Hopefully you are not going to pass me on to somebody else. Hopefully you will take some pride in your company and help a customer rather than cause me to waste more time on this simple issue.
In any case, if you do decide to pass this off to somebody else at least I have this all documented and it will be easy to provide them a link to all of the information that has been collected.
I will look forward to a reply that shows improved customer service compared to the last time you tried to address some of my problem issues.
Myles S. Rose
In case folks in the Presidents Office need a little more information, here are some of the errors over the last month or so. I am removing some of the addresses for security reasons but the full data is available from the technical folks in your network control center.
INF 2011-01-17T13:00:05-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-17T13:00:50-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-18T05:30:24-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-18T05:31:10-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T00:42:19-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T00:43:04-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T05:18:54-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T05:19:39-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T11:15:09-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-19T11:15:54-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-21T04:44:56-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-01-21T04:46:04-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T13:31:39-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T13:32:24-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:17:39-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:18:24-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:19:32-08:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-02-12T22:20:17-08:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
At 8:00pm I replied to a comment on facebook about BP. There was a news story about how most of the oil that was supposed to be gone was found on the ocean floor. Some folks think BP is pretty poor when it comes to fixing problems, customer service or their way of spinning the media.
I am waiting to hear from Kevin Smith at AT&T in regard to a simple Internet credit. There has already been dialogue (see above) which is making me think that resolution on this issue will be just as complex as past issues even though the problem is about as simple as it can be.
My dialogue in regard to BP brought to mind that AT&T still holds the #1 spot for the worst customer service of any industry. Here is some of my facebook dialogue from a few minutes ago.
The issue of BP was brought up in the post. My reply:
But, you have to give them some credit.... their customer service is one level higher than that of AT&T :-) When the folks in the gulf were out of work and had no income they were on top of things in days or weeks (even though it should have been hours). If AT&T had been running the show it would have taken much longer. BP may be in the top ten worst (but they did not intend to spill oil even though their safety standard were questionable and they tried to spin the media) but there are many banks and lending institutions that are currently still throwing people out of their homes for problems they had a big hand in causing. Banks like B of A will still hang onto electronic fund transfers for days to inflate their average daily balance which is reported to the Fed. Prior to the bank crash these transfers from one account to another happened immediately or within less than an hour. Now it takes days.
So .... BP has done some serious media spin and cost reduction measures at the expense of others but some banks are worse and AT&T still holds the #1 spot as their customer service tends to be little more than an obstruction between a simple problem and the eventual solution. The technology is within their hands. It is not a matter of drilling a slant well a thousand feet below the ocean surface. It is not a complex game of digging yourself out of financial trouble to support your bad loans at the expense of others. AT&T has simple matters where one person who knows what they are doing sitting at a PC can resolve a problem in minutes rather than in weeks where the customer is passed from one person who has no ability or empowerment and who takes no responsibility to make a customer happy to the next.
BP hurt a lot of people at one time. It made news. It put them in the spotlight. AT&T makes the lives of people more difficult one customer at a time. Sort of flying under the radar. Not much to report in the news. They raise their rates as they drop services or performance. The remove unlimited data plans from their cell service as they add a new cost tier. They remove channels on their Uverse packages that were part of a package they sold to people to sign them up. They increase the price of their Internet service as the quality goes down and the error counts go up. If there is a problem it takes days, weeks or even longer to resolve the problem as they expect the customer to make multiple phone calls and take collective hours of being on hold as they are passed from one person to another or asked to call other numbers.
BP .... I am not happy at what they did but they are not the worst out there.
Hmmm ... I just might copy and past this into my AT&T blog.
As a side note, I recently had three problems with Sprint. I thought the problems were going to be a great opportunity to compare Sprint customer service to AT&T. There were some technical issues and two billing and accounting issues in regard to Sprint.
Bottom line, Sprint resolved things in short order. My family said their phone support was professional and helpful. They followed up with email confirmations and answers rather than the simplistic dialogue and excuses that you can read above from AT&T. Part of my family switched to Sprint from AT&T because AT&T no longer had an unlimited data plan. Sprint also has free calls starting at 7pm rather than 9pm. Sprint also has free calls from their cell service to all other mobil services. AT&T has none of these features.
My problems have been with Uverse which provides my Internet. I also have AT&T cell service as my contract has over a year left on the contract. My cell experience has been acceptable but the cost is typical AT&T practice ... more $$$$ for fewer services. I will review the cell picture when my contract is complete. Even if AT&T can match the services of Sprint I may opt to leave AT&T based on their level of customer service over the years which continues to decline.
2/22/11 10:00am PST - No email or word from AT&T.
11:00am PST
A bit of dialogue on twitter earlier today. Some things from AT&T and my responses on twitter:
ATT AT&T
@myles111us Hey! What's up? We'll try to help ya.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATT - all the information is here at the bottom of the post - http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2010/11/at-so-wrong-is-every-way.html
ATTNicole Nicole
@myles111us I spoke with Kevin and, your issue has been referred to our U-verse billing group.
myles111us Myles Rose
@ATTNicole - such a simple issue that has not been resolved with a simple phone call from Kevin to billing.
I have received nothing from Kevin Smith today from your executive offices in Dallas Texas. He does not do a very good job at keeping people informed.
1:00pm PST
I just received a voicemail from AT&T. Could not call them back as their number is restricted. The voice mail said that my problem has been turned over to the billing folks in the executive offices and I will hear something in two to three days. Yes, two to three days for this simple issue that has already been around since last week.
I also was very specific in asking AT&T to send information to me in writing either via email or text message. Some have been able to follow these simple instructions in the past and some AT&T folks seem to have problems following this simple request.
I still have no email from Kevin Smith and in fact have no email from anybody at AT&T.
Seems as if their two to three day comment to get to my problem added to the time already spent by them doing nothing on such a simple issue tells me that it may be a good idea to post this blog again.
2/23/11
Some of my twitter posts this morning:
Just reporting that I have had no word today from anybody @ATTCustomerCare @ATT #ATT 31 minutes ago
22 minutes after posting that I have heard nothing from @ATT #ATT I received messages from two @ATTCustomerCare people.
ATTJessica Jessica
@myles111us ATTNicole has forwarded your info to our Uverse folks to assist you. Please bear with us.
ATTCustomerCare Molly
@myles111us Don't worry we didn't forget about you. We are still working the issue.
Twitter has proven to be more effective in talking to #ATT than direct contact to me from the President's Office at @ATT HQ in Dallas
10:50am PST
I just ended a call from AT&T, their President's office at their Dallas Texas headquarters. I taked with a lady named Diana for about 20 minutes.
Bottom line .... Diana was technical. She was professional. She was helpful. She even brought up a few questions on some account confusion as I have had AT&T services at multiple locations and she was heading off potential problems such as those of the past when two accounts were confused.
She resolved my problem.
As I have stated many times before, if you get to the right people this sort of problem can be resolved in minutes.
Thank you Diana. Hopefully somebody at the AT&T Corporate level will see this and compensate you in some manner. Perhaps a raise, promotion or two weeks of comp time. If I were still at http://www.bt-alliance.com/ and you worked for me I would find some way to compensate you. It was very clear to me that you have excellent communication skills and technical skills. I think that looking back on this entire blog up to this point is clear documentation which could be used for your next performance evaluation which will show that you are indeed far above your peers from my personal point of observation.
In the end, the only way to raise the level of customer service is to raise customer perception of the service. This is accomplished one customer at a time. As far as I am concerned Diana, today you made me believe that there are some people at AT&T that are able to make changes.
Looks as if this incident has come to an end until the next incident.
3-19-2011 - Well folks, here is the "next incident"
The billing cycle on one of my AT&T services is coming to a close for the month so I thought I would go online at http://www.att.com/ as I have done in the past for years. I tried to log on to my cellphone account. No success. I tried my Uverse account with no luck. The application just times out.
I have posted that the application is not working to @ATT on twitter as I typically do. Now I will wait to see how long it will take them to respond to my twitter post and how long it will take to resolve the problem.
Will there ever be a point in time where ATT will not have some sort of problem for any reasonable length of time?
The above screen snapshot was taken 3/19/11 at 10:25am pst
At 10:50pst I tried to log on again after posting some info on twitter. This time I received a different screen when trying to log in. No help really but at least a confirmation that they are at least aware there is a problem. I find it humorous that for some of their services they suggest the 2020 number where there is generally no help on any problem.
The above screen snapshot was taken 3/19/11 at 10:50pst
3/20/11 - Online pages now working. I never received any update from AT&T though, discovered it myself.
3/29/11 - Perhaps you already know that AT&T is in the process of acquiring T-Mobile. Many people are upset with this and there have been many news stories on this subject. My own view is that when a huge company such as AT&T cannot provide a reliable or cost effective series of products (cell service, Uverse, or any offering) AND they have what has been documented as the worst customer service in ANY industry, they lose customers. Well, it seems as if they have a great business plan. Buy the companies their old customers have gone to and put off the inevitable for a bit longer. From my own point of view this is just criminal of not only AT&T but our government if this is allowed to happen.
The purchase of T-Mobile is not the issue of this blog update. The change of contract is the issue. AT&T signs folks up for cell, phone and Uverse services with a feature set of offerings which they advertise on television, on the web, in direct mail. People sign up and a short time later the channel lineup drops channels, prices increase, features are removed or charged additional fees.
Here is the latest.
AT&T Internet customers, your service contract is changing
By David Lazarus March 29, 2011
All eyes might be on AT&T's pending acquisition of T-Mobile, but AT&T Internet customers shouldn't overlook some significant changes the company has just made to their service contract.
Perhaps the most noteworthy addition is a new provision that allows AT&T to limit the online activities of heavy users. Customers who hog bandwidth by downloading high-definition movies or vast quantities of digital music slow the pipeline for everyone else, said AT&T spokesman John Britton.
So now AT&T says it will impose caps on data use or limit a customer's download speed — or even impose additional fees — if they're slurping too much online soup.
"People have a right to behave however they want online," Britton said. "But we have a right to manage the bandwidth so that everyone has a good experience. This is targeting the top 2% of people who use about 20% of the bandwidth."
As of May 2, AT&T will crack down on any DSL user who exceeds 150 gigabytes per month, which is the rough equivalent of downloading 50 high-definition movies. Customers who receive the company's U-verse broadband service will have a cap of 250 gigabytes.
That may sound like plenty of bandwidth, but factor in digital music, pictures and other content, and some people may see their allotted usage go quickly.
Art Brodsky, a spokesman for the digital-rights group Public Knowledge, said the onus should be on network providers to provide enough bandwidth for customers, not on customers to accommodate the provider's shortcomings.
"Lopping off the top 2% of users seems like blunt-force trauma," he said.
AT&T's growing clout has been closely scrutinized since the company announced last week that it would spend $39 billion to acquire T-Mobile and create the country's largest wireless service, with about 130 million customers.
At the same time, AT&T is one of the biggest providers of broadband Net access. The company is duking it out with cable giant Comcast for first place among high-speed Internet service providers.
Comcast now heads the pack with nearly 17 million subscribers, according to Leichtman Research Group. But AT&T is a close second with 16.3 million Net customers (twice as many as rival Verizon).
Comcast already has similar network-management rules in place. Representatives of Verizon and Time Warner Cable said that although they're closely following what AT&T and Comcast are doing, they have no such limitations planned — at least for the moment.
Meanwhile, AT&T's contract changes include a few other eye-opening provisions.
The company has inserted language allowing it to unilaterally upgrade a DSL user's service to U-verse.
On the one hand, this is cool because U-verse is faster and more versatile than DSL.
On the other, AT&T says U-verse would come with "applicable rates, terms and conditions, which may differ from your previous DSL service rates, terms and conditions."
In other words, AT&T might charge you more for a level of service you never wanted or asked for.
Britton said he couldn't imagine the company actually doing this to customers, but he acknowledged that this is what the new contract says.
One other provision of note: AT&T's contract now stipulates that the company can cancel your service "if you engage in conduct that is threatening, abusive or harassing" to the company's workers, or for "frequent use of profane or vulgar language" when dealing with service reps.
AT&T won't charge early termination fees to anyone it decides to cut off. I don't want to put ideas into anyone's head, but if you're cheesed about usage caps, higher fees or a forced march to U-verse, some strategic cussing might come in handy.
Just saying.
David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
3/31/11 - The new Internet policy from AT&T. Like I said, they sell you one thing and then change the game. Bait and switch in classic form. If our government and the PUC allows this nonsense it will be nothing short of criminal.
Feel free to copy and paste this section or share this link with everybody you know including the PUC. These folks have gone too far.
AT&T U-verse SM Support
The below was copied directly from an email I received today from AT&T
Broadband Usage FAQs
Are there any usage limits for my broadband service?
Yes. As of May 2, 2011, AT&T's residential DSL High Speed Internet plans will have a usage allowance of 150 Gigabytes ("GB") per month, and its residential U-verse High Speed Internet plans will have a usage allowance of 250 Gigabytes ("GB") per month. The usage allowance is the amount of data you can send and receive each month.
Why is AT&T implementing a usage allowance?
AT&T has experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of data that is sent and received over its wireline broadband networks. This dramatic increase is driven primarily by a small fraction of our customers. In fact, the top 2% of customers use about 20% of the total capacity on our network. A single high traffic user can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers' access to and use of the network.
What is a gigabyte?
A gigabyte is a unit of measurement of the amount of data that is transmitted over the Internet. Approximately 50,000 single-page e-mails (without attachments), for example, equate to about 1 GB. It is important to remember that a GB represents the amount of data sent over the network, and not the amount of time spent using the Internet.
How much is 150 GB?
150 GB is far more data than most customers ever use in a month. Our average DSL customer uses only about 18 GB per month. In fact, less than 2% of DSL users utilize more than 150 GB per month. We estimate that 98% of our customers will not be affected by this change because the monthly usage allowance includes so much bandwidth. (side note from me - what about professionals who do a lot of photography work or folks that play online games? I would think that 2% would be a HUGE number of individual users. I also suspect their statistics as they continually lie to their customer base. There are a lot of folks I know that watch streaming TV and the chart below will indicated how this would impact those people)
How much do I get with 150 or 250 GB?
You can do a lot with 150 or 250 GB. Here is an example.
Will spending a lot of time on the Internet cause me to exceed my monthly usage allowance?
Time alone is not the determining factor; it is the activity that matters. You could spend several hours reading e-mails, for example, and use less than 1 GB of data. You could spend 30 minutes downloading a movie, on the other hand, and use 2 GB of data. It is important to remember that it is what you are doing on the Internet, not how long you do it, that determines the amount of data that you use.
Can anyone other than someone in my immediate household affect my bandwidth usage?
If you have not secured your wireless gateway/router, someone nearby with a computer or Wi-Fi enabled device could access your home network and use your High Speed Internet Service, which could increase your monthly usage. AT&T recommends that you secure your wireless router/gateway to prevent others from using your High Speed Internet Service. We suggest that you use common encryption protocols, such as Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) for security. Check www.att.com/esupport for support with AT&T provided devices, or your manufacturer's support website for help with securing your wireless router/gateway.
What will happen if I exceed my monthly usage allowance?
You will receive a notice the first time your usage exceeds the applicable monthly allowance.
In the following months, we will send you additional notices each month when your usage exceeds 65%, 90% and 100% of your monthly usage allowance. If you exceed your monthly allowance a second time, AT&T will send you a notice advising you that the next time you exceed your allowance - the third time - you will be billed $10 for each 50 GB of data over your allowance.
We will continue to send you courtesy notifications when your usage exceeds 65%, 90% and 100% of your monthly usage allowance to keep you informed about your usage patterns. All of these notices will remind you of what your monthly usage allowance is, provide you with information to help you understand broadband data usage, offer you tips on how to effectively control your usage to stay below your monthly allowance, and explain what your options are if you exceed your allowance in future billing periods. For example, you can modify your usage patterns to stay below your monthly usage allowance; continue your normal usage patterns and pay $10 for each additional 50 GB of data over your monthly allowance; or terminate your service, consistent with the terms of any special pricing offer that you previously accepted.
Importantly, if you do not receive a notice from AT&T, it means that you have not exceeded your monthly usage allowance. In some cases, it may mean that we cannot measure your usage yet. Either way, you should not be concerned about your usage patterns for billing purposes.
Where will I receive notices about my broadband usage?
You will receive notices about your broadband usage at the primary e-mail address that you set up when you registered for Service. We will send a letter by U.S. mail if we cannot reach you by e-mail or do not have your e-mail address.
How will AT&T help me to monitor my usage?
AT&T will provide a website with two options to assist customers in managing their High Speed Internet usage.
First, AT&T will provide a personal usage report at http://www.myusage.att.com/ where customers can view how much actual data they have used in a given month from the January 2011 bill cycle to the most recent billing cycle. To protect confidential customer information, this site is password-protected. The login process requires your Internet access login and password. The login is your AT&T primary account email address (e.g., John_smith@att.net). The password is the same password
AT&T initially will report usage data on a weekly basis. When a customer uses 70% of their monthly usage allowance, we will supplement their personal usage report on a daily basis. A customer's usage will be posted on the website within 1 - 4 days after it is collected.
Second, AT&T will provide a website with examples of what kind of Internet activity can impact your actual usage. In addition, on the same site AT&T will provide a usage calculator, which will enable customers to input data about how they typically use their Service and calculate an estimate of how much data they are likely to use in a given month. This website will be available in late April 2011.
I can't seem to access the usage tool. What should I do?
Many of our customers have access to this tool already. For those who don't today, until your usage is available for viewing on http://www.myusage.att.com/, you should not be concerned about your usage patterns for billing purposes. Once the tool is available, you will be notified if you exceed your allowance.
These folks are nothing short of criminals and when you think that things cannot get worse they go and pull another stunt like this.
4/1/11 - Will there ever be a month without problems?
I tried to look at my cell bill online and could not log on. Tried my Uverse account as well, same problem. Posted the problem to customer service on twitter. This problem is not a new issue, it has happened in the past.
ATTJason Jason @ @myles111us I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Our technicians are working to resolve a login issue right now. Should be soon!
Above was a reply from Jason. There were many other twitter replies to other people reporting the same issue.
Looks like Jason has his hands full this morning....
ATTJason Jason
@ @MetaCipher I'm sorry. Our technicians are currently working to restore access to your online account. Many customers cannot log in.
14 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @gossersales I'm with @ATT and saw your tweet. Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having. Please let me know if I can help.
37 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @BrittineyZ I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Try the upper right-hand corner of www.att.com and select "AT&T U-verse"
46 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @Absolut_Pablito I'm with @ATT and saw you were having trouble logging in to our website. I'm sorry - can I help?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @MetaCipher I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Sorry you're having trouble. What are you trying to do when you get this message?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @clayton251 I'm with @att and saw you were having trouble with your wireless network experience. I'm sorry - can I help?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @WiedaIT I'm with AT&T - please let me know if your installation appointment isn't properly met. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
.... as I said, the issues seem to continue ....
Since this piece is getting so long I will write additional posts with the latest information and post the links below:
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html - 4/2/11
4/11/11 - Just a bit of a status update .....
I am waiting to hear whether proper credit was given to my family. Seems the cancelled AT&T cell services a month or two ago and there is a question if they received proper credit or not on their bill.
At my own residence I am keeping an eye on my typical outages. This is to be expected on an old copper infrastructure. What is not expected is the increase in rate and change of their program where home data usage will be restricted in the future.
So, lets take a look at April so far and the service which I will pay more for in the future.
INF 2011-04-01T02:00:26-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T02:01:12-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:08:21-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:09:05-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:57:50-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:58:35-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-02T14:21:35-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-02T14:22:20-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-05T15:17:50-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-09T00:55:32-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-09T00:56:18-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-10T03:01:58-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-10T03:02:43-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
4/14/11 Update
I was just notified of a comment on my wordpress blog of this post. I am copying and posting the comment here. This issue has been reported by more than a few folks to me.
I cancelled early with AT&T, fully expecting to pay the ETF. To my surprise, I was told I would have to pay the entire last month of service, although I was only a few days into the billing cycle. I don't see how these companies (specifically speaking of AT&T, but am aware there are many, many, more just like them) can get away with what they do. We don't have the right to use a full month of service and only pay partial, so why do they have the right to collect a full month of service and only provide partial. I am not paying them the last "full" month of service as a matter of principal. I'm sick of big corporate America stomping on the little guy..I refuse to say "uncle" and if they turn it over to a collection agency, I'll gladly have my day in court because I don't recall ever agreeing to those terms. They can say what they want, but if they change their policy to include such a material change, it needs to be BIG BOLD and PUT DIRECTLY IN MY FACE and not slid under a rock like a worm.
I am still keeping my eye open on the AT&T T-Mobile merger, other buyouts of competition, service and policy changes, cost increases, etc. I update that post now and then at:
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html
4/25/11 - Here we go again, more problems for my friends and family
Bottom line .... Diana was technical. She was professional. She was helpful. She even brought up a few questions on some account confusion as I have had AT&T services at multiple locations and she was heading off potential problems such as those of the past when two accounts were confused.
She resolved my problem.
As I have stated many times before, if you get to the right people this sort of problem can be resolved in minutes.
Thank you Diana. Hopefully somebody at the AT&T Corporate level will see this and compensate you in some manner. Perhaps a raise, promotion or two weeks of comp time. If I were still at http://www.bt-alliance.com/ and you worked for me I would find some way to compensate you. It was very clear to me that you have excellent communication skills and technical skills. I think that looking back on this entire blog up to this point is clear documentation which could be used for your next performance evaluation which will show that you are indeed far above your peers from my personal point of observation.
In the end, the only way to raise the level of customer service is to raise customer perception of the service. This is accomplished one customer at a time. As far as I am concerned Diana, today you made me believe that there are some people at AT&T that are able to make changes.
Looks as if this incident has come to an end until the next incident.
3-19-2011 - Well folks, here is the "next incident"
The billing cycle on one of my AT&T services is coming to a close for the month so I thought I would go online at http://www.att.com/ as I have done in the past for years. I tried to log on to my cellphone account. No success. I tried my Uverse account with no luck. The application just times out.
Will there ever be a point in time where ATT will not have some sort of problem for any reasonable length of time?
The above screen snapshot was taken 3/19/11 at 10:25am pst
At 10:50pst I tried to log on again after posting some info on twitter. This time I received a different screen when trying to log in. No help really but at least a confirmation that they are at least aware there is a problem. I find it humorous that for some of their services they suggest the 2020 number where there is generally no help on any problem.
The above screen snapshot was taken 3/19/11 at 10:50pst
3/20/11 - Online pages now working. I never received any update from AT&T though, discovered it myself.
3/29/11 - Perhaps you already know that AT&T is in the process of acquiring T-Mobile. Many people are upset with this and there have been many news stories on this subject. My own view is that when a huge company such as AT&T cannot provide a reliable or cost effective series of products (cell service, Uverse, or any offering) AND they have what has been documented as the worst customer service in ANY industry, they lose customers. Well, it seems as if they have a great business plan. Buy the companies their old customers have gone to and put off the inevitable for a bit longer. From my own point of view this is just criminal of not only AT&T but our government if this is allowed to happen.
The purchase of T-Mobile is not the issue of this blog update. The change of contract is the issue. AT&T signs folks up for cell, phone and Uverse services with a feature set of offerings which they advertise on television, on the web, in direct mail. People sign up and a short time later the channel lineup drops channels, prices increase, features are removed or charged additional fees.
Here is the latest.
AT&T Internet customers, your service contract is changing
By David Lazarus March 29, 2011
All eyes might be on AT&T's pending acquisition of T-Mobile, but AT&T Internet customers shouldn't overlook some significant changes the company has just made to their service contract.
Perhaps the most noteworthy addition is a new provision that allows AT&T to limit the online activities of heavy users. Customers who hog bandwidth by downloading high-definition movies or vast quantities of digital music slow the pipeline for everyone else, said AT&T spokesman John Britton.
So now AT&T says it will impose caps on data use or limit a customer's download speed — or even impose additional fees — if they're slurping too much online soup.
"People have a right to behave however they want online," Britton said. "But we have a right to manage the bandwidth so that everyone has a good experience. This is targeting the top 2% of people who use about 20% of the bandwidth."
As of May 2, AT&T will crack down on any DSL user who exceeds 150 gigabytes per month, which is the rough equivalent of downloading 50 high-definition movies. Customers who receive the company's U-verse broadband service will have a cap of 250 gigabytes.
That may sound like plenty of bandwidth, but factor in digital music, pictures and other content, and some people may see their allotted usage go quickly.
Art Brodsky, a spokesman for the digital-rights group Public Knowledge, said the onus should be on network providers to provide enough bandwidth for customers, not on customers to accommodate the provider's shortcomings.
"Lopping off the top 2% of users seems like blunt-force trauma," he said.
AT&T's growing clout has been closely scrutinized since the company announced last week that it would spend $39 billion to acquire T-Mobile and create the country's largest wireless service, with about 130 million customers.
At the same time, AT&T is one of the biggest providers of broadband Net access. The company is duking it out with cable giant Comcast for first place among high-speed Internet service providers.
Comcast now heads the pack with nearly 17 million subscribers, according to Leichtman Research Group. But AT&T is a close second with 16.3 million Net customers (twice as many as rival Verizon).
Comcast already has similar network-management rules in place. Representatives of Verizon and Time Warner Cable said that although they're closely following what AT&T and Comcast are doing, they have no such limitations planned — at least for the moment.
Meanwhile, AT&T's contract changes include a few other eye-opening provisions.
The company has inserted language allowing it to unilaterally upgrade a DSL user's service to U-verse.
On the one hand, this is cool because U-verse is faster and more versatile than DSL.
On the other, AT&T says U-verse would come with "applicable rates, terms and conditions, which may differ from your previous DSL service rates, terms and conditions."
In other words, AT&T might charge you more for a level of service you never wanted or asked for.
Britton said he couldn't imagine the company actually doing this to customers, but he acknowledged that this is what the new contract says.
One other provision of note: AT&T's contract now stipulates that the company can cancel your service "if you engage in conduct that is threatening, abusive or harassing" to the company's workers, or for "frequent use of profane or vulgar language" when dealing with service reps.
AT&T won't charge early termination fees to anyone it decides to cut off. I don't want to put ideas into anyone's head, but if you're cheesed about usage caps, higher fees or a forced march to U-verse, some strategic cussing might come in handy.
Just saying.
David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
3/31/11 - The new Internet policy from AT&T. Like I said, they sell you one thing and then change the game. Bait and switch in classic form. If our government and the PUC allows this nonsense it will be nothing short of criminal.
Feel free to copy and paste this section or share this link with everybody you know including the PUC. These folks have gone too far.
AT&T U-verse SM Support
The below was copied directly from an email I received today from AT&T
Broadband Usage FAQs
Are there any usage limits for my broadband service?
Yes. As of May 2, 2011, AT&T's residential DSL High Speed Internet plans will have a usage allowance of 150 Gigabytes ("GB") per month, and its residential U-verse High Speed Internet plans will have a usage allowance of 250 Gigabytes ("GB") per month. The usage allowance is the amount of data you can send and receive each month.
Why is AT&T implementing a usage allowance?
AT&T has experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of data that is sent and received over its wireline broadband networks. This dramatic increase is driven primarily by a small fraction of our customers. In fact, the top 2% of customers use about 20% of the total capacity on our network. A single high traffic user can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers' access to and use of the network.
What is a gigabyte?
A gigabyte is a unit of measurement of the amount of data that is transmitted over the Internet. Approximately 50,000 single-page e-mails (without attachments), for example, equate to about 1 GB. It is important to remember that a GB represents the amount of data sent over the network, and not the amount of time spent using the Internet.
How much is 150 GB?
150 GB is far more data than most customers ever use in a month. Our average DSL customer uses only about 18 GB per month. In fact, less than 2% of DSL users utilize more than 150 GB per month. We estimate that 98% of our customers will not be affected by this change because the monthly usage allowance includes so much bandwidth. (side note from me - what about professionals who do a lot of photography work or folks that play online games? I would think that 2% would be a HUGE number of individual users. I also suspect their statistics as they continually lie to their customer base. There are a lot of folks I know that watch streaming TV and the chart below will indicated how this would impact those people)
How much do I get with 150 or 250 GB?
You can do a lot with 150 or 250 GB. Here is an example.
Time alone is not the determining factor; it is the activity that matters. You could spend several hours reading e-mails, for example, and use less than 1 GB of data. You could spend 30 minutes downloading a movie, on the other hand, and use 2 GB of data. It is important to remember that it is what you are doing on the Internet, not how long you do it, that determines the amount of data that you use.
Can anyone other than someone in my immediate household affect my bandwidth usage?
If you have not secured your wireless gateway/router, someone nearby with a computer or Wi-Fi enabled device could access your home network and use your High Speed Internet Service, which could increase your monthly usage. AT&T recommends that you secure your wireless router/gateway to prevent others from using your High Speed Internet Service. We suggest that you use common encryption protocols, such as Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) for security. Check www.att.com/esupport for support with AT&T provided devices, or your manufacturer's support website for help with securing your wireless router/gateway.
What will happen if I exceed my monthly usage allowance?
You will receive a notice the first time your usage exceeds the applicable monthly allowance.
In the following months, we will send you additional notices each month when your usage exceeds 65%, 90% and 100% of your monthly usage allowance. If you exceed your monthly allowance a second time, AT&T will send you a notice advising you that the next time you exceed your allowance - the third time - you will be billed $10 for each 50 GB of data over your allowance.
We will continue to send you courtesy notifications when your usage exceeds 65%, 90% and 100% of your monthly usage allowance to keep you informed about your usage patterns. All of these notices will remind you of what your monthly usage allowance is, provide you with information to help you understand broadband data usage, offer you tips on how to effectively control your usage to stay below your monthly allowance, and explain what your options are if you exceed your allowance in future billing periods. For example, you can modify your usage patterns to stay below your monthly usage allowance; continue your normal usage patterns and pay $10 for each additional 50 GB of data over your monthly allowance; or terminate your service, consistent with the terms of any special pricing offer that you previously accepted.
Importantly, if you do not receive a notice from AT&T, it means that you have not exceeded your monthly usage allowance. In some cases, it may mean that we cannot measure your usage yet. Either way, you should not be concerned about your usage patterns for billing purposes.
Where will I receive notices about my broadband usage?
You will receive notices about your broadband usage at the primary e-mail address that you set up when you registered for Service. We will send a letter by U.S. mail if we cannot reach you by e-mail or do not have your e-mail address.
How will AT&T help me to monitor my usage?
AT&T will provide a website with two options to assist customers in managing their High Speed Internet usage.
First, AT&T will provide a personal usage report at http://www.myusage.att.com/ where customers can view how much actual data they have used in a given month from the January 2011 bill cycle to the most recent billing cycle. To protect confidential customer information, this site is password-protected. The login process requires your Internet access login and password. The login is your AT&T primary account email address (e.g., John_smith@att.net). The password is the same password
AT&T initially will report usage data on a weekly basis. When a customer uses 70% of their monthly usage allowance, we will supplement their personal usage report on a daily basis. A customer's usage will be posted on the website within 1 - 4 days after it is collected.
Second, AT&T will provide a website with examples of what kind of Internet activity can impact your actual usage. In addition, on the same site AT&T will provide a usage calculator, which will enable customers to input data about how they typically use their Service and calculate an estimate of how much data they are likely to use in a given month. This website will be available in late April 2011.
I can't seem to access the usage tool. What should I do?
Many of our customers have access to this tool already. For those who don't today, until your usage is available for viewing on http://www.myusage.att.com/, you should not be concerned about your usage patterns for billing purposes. Once the tool is available, you will be notified if you exceed your allowance.
As a point of interest, the above is what happened today when I tried the tool.
These folks are nothing short of criminals and when you think that things cannot get worse they go and pull another stunt like this.
4/1/11 - Will there ever be a month without problems?
I tried to look at my cell bill online and could not log on. Tried my Uverse account as well, same problem. Posted the problem to customer service on twitter. This problem is not a new issue, it has happened in the past.
ATTJason Jason @ @myles111us I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Our technicians are working to resolve a login issue right now. Should be soon!
Above was a reply from Jason. There were many other twitter replies to other people reporting the same issue.
Looks like Jason has his hands full this morning....
ATTJason Jason
@ @MetaCipher I'm sorry. Our technicians are currently working to restore access to your online account. Many customers cannot log in.
14 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @gossersales I'm with @ATT and saw your tweet. Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having. Please let me know if I can help.
37 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @BrittineyZ I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Try the upper right-hand corner of www.att.com and select "AT&T U-verse"
46 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @Absolut_Pablito I'm with @ATT and saw you were having trouble logging in to our website. I'm sorry - can I help?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @MetaCipher I'm with @ATTCustomerCare and saw your tweet. Sorry you're having trouble. What are you trying to do when you get this message?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @clayton251 I'm with @att and saw you were having trouble with your wireless network experience. I'm sorry - can I help?
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
ATTJason Jason
@ @WiedaIT I'm with AT&T - please let me know if your installation appointment isn't properly met. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
.... as I said, the issues seem to continue ....
Since this piece is getting so long I will write additional posts with the latest information and post the links below:
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html - 4/2/11
4/11/11 - Just a bit of a status update .....
I am waiting to hear whether proper credit was given to my family. Seems the cancelled AT&T cell services a month or two ago and there is a question if they received proper credit or not on their bill.
At my own residence I am keeping an eye on my typical outages. This is to be expected on an old copper infrastructure. What is not expected is the increase in rate and change of their program where home data usage will be restricted in the future.
So, lets take a look at April so far and the service which I will pay more for in the future.
INF 2011-04-01T02:00:26-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T02:01:12-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:08:21-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:09:05-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:57:50-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-01T18:58:35-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-02T14:21:35-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-02T14:22:20-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-05T15:17:50-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-09T00:55:32-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-09T00:56:18-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-10T03:01:58-07:00 sys dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-04-10T03:02:43-07:00 sys dnstest0: connection lost, reconnecting...
4/14/11 Update
I was just notified of a comment on my wordpress blog of this post. I am copying and posting the comment here. This issue has been reported by more than a few folks to me.
I cancelled early with AT&T, fully expecting to pay the ETF. To my surprise, I was told I would have to pay the entire last month of service, although I was only a few days into the billing cycle. I don't see how these companies (specifically speaking of AT&T, but am aware there are many, many, more just like them) can get away with what they do. We don't have the right to use a full month of service and only pay partial, so why do they have the right to collect a full month of service and only provide partial. I am not paying them the last "full" month of service as a matter of principal. I'm sick of big corporate America stomping on the little guy..I refuse to say "uncle" and if they turn it over to a collection agency, I'll gladly have my day in court because I don't recall ever agreeing to those terms. They can say what they want, but if they change their policy to include such a material change, it needs to be BIG BOLD and PUT DIRECTLY IN MY FACE and not slid under a rock like a worm.
I am still keeping my eye open on the AT&T T-Mobile merger, other buyouts of competition, service and policy changes, cost increases, etc. I update that post now and then at:
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html
4/25/11 - Here we go again, more problems for my friends and family
A member of my family was having their house remodeled. During the period of remodel they lived in a house a few blocks away for almost a year.
For 20 years they have had the same phone number which is the number in the address books of countless friends, contacts and family.
Last week AT&T gave them a temporary phone number when they moved back into their original house. They were told that on Monday (today) they would be switched back to their original phone number.
They were just informed that their original number was given to somebody else.
What the F... What you jerks at AT&T need to do pronto is take back the number you gave away, apologize to everybody and put the number back in service with the original folks that had the number for decades at the the SAME residence.
You also need to find out who made this mistake and take some sort of action against them. Employees like this one are the reason you are hated, yes ... HATED by more people each and every day.
Shame on you AT&T for doing something this stupid.
Fix it.
4/25/11 @ 10:37 pst - Jason on twitter provided contact with John at ATT in Bakersfield who is working the issue. Resolution is expected today. I will keep folks updated if that is not the outcome. Maybe I found a few good folks at AT&T.
4/29/11
I received the following message from Jason;
ATTJason Hello! I'm checking in to see if Lisa's issue has been satisfactorily resolved by John in Bakersfield. Please let me know. Thanks!
Lisa's issue was resolved within 24 hours as John promised.
I would like to take a moment to thank you in this blog which usually notes failures within AT&T. You are one of the good guys. There have been a few folks noted in this blog that are the good folks.
Thanks again and thank John in Bakersfield as well.
Side note about Jason:
Jason is a member of AT&T's social media care team. We're here to help you M-F 7am-10pm CST, Sat 7am-4pm. You can also find help at http://support.att.com/ http://twitter.com/attcustomercare Jason is on the Pacific side of the country.
6/5/11
Here we go again.
I received my May cell bill today and the charges were higher than the April bill, or any other bill due to being charged TWICE on the tax.
I will post this on twitter and we can see how long it takes them to credit me for their mistake.
There has been a lot of stories recently on all sorts of overcharges by AT&T.
Just think how much money this will be from millions of customers. And ... they get to hang onto the money and collect interest and ... look better financially for that AT&T / Tmobile merger as it will be days, weeks or even months before anybody sees a credit on their account.
Crooks. Nobody caught this billing error? Like I have said countless times, the worst customer service in the business.
To folks at AT&T - fix this pronto!
Later in the evening 6/5/11 - looks like this is not just a cell issue but also Uverse issue for folks too.
I was at dinner telling folks about being charged double tax on my current (May) AT&T cell phone bill. A friend of mine had some Uverse install work done where they were told there would be a $100 service charge. The bill came and seems as if they were charged $100 .... TWICE. They called customer service and were told this sort of thing never happens. They are still waiting for this to be resolved.
AT&T cannot even run one company, network or service. What do you suppose is going to happen when they merge with T-Mobile? Actually, I have a post on some of that merger nonsense as well at
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html Feel free to pass along that link or the link to this piece as well.
Received this at 8:20pm from another friend:
sonyakeith Sonya Keith @myles111us @ATTCustomerCare. They have never cleared up my old cell bill bundled with home.
I told her I would add her complaint to this blog.
If others have complaints feel free to add them as a comment or send them to me on twitter @myles111us
6/6/11
This is what is going on today. Some messages on twitter. I don't want to talk to AT&T on the phone. The problem is simple and needs no discussion. They overcharged me and the double tax is shown on my bill. I am on paperless billing. I paid immediately as I was worried that if I did not pay the full invoice amount this would trigger off all sorts of later billing problems.
I expect my credit card to be credited with the over payment immediately, not in the next billing cycle next month. They charged me now, I paid now, I expect credit now. If they hang onto these over charges for the next month or two (so they can receive huge income via interest) it is a form of fraud from my point of view.
So far I am the third person I know of since yesterday with billing problems. The issues span both their cell services and Uverse services.
Messages from ATT:
ATTMikeT Mike @ @myles111us DM me your account number and a number to call you on and I will get your billing issue resolved. (This was at 8:00am pst)
ATTCustomerCare Molly @ @myles111us Please follow and DM account names and account numbers to @ATTMikeT. He already reached out. Thanks!
Sent to ATTCustomerCare from me:
http://bit.ly/lPb8Vt - I was overcharged. So were friends. Cell for me and Uverse for my friend. Details at bottom of post.
I just sent DMs to Mike as you asked. I expect my credit card to be credited today NOT in a month or two as you generally do.
Sent to ATTMikeT
I am on paperless. My number is xxx-yyy-zzzz. Details are at the bottom of my blog. My account number is not handy as I am paperless. I expect to see a credit posted back to my credit card immediately as you took the payment immediately.
One more person has passed me some info:
One more story on 6/6/11 from the media - Consumer Complaint: AT&T U-Verse Internet Download Speeds Uneven Connecticut Watchdog: http://bit.ly/iIK9nN
6/6/11 at 1:15pm pst - Just got a message from @ATTMikeT and a call from Lisa who had a major billing issue with Uverse. Mike at AT&T just resolved my friend's billing problem. Thanks Mike! - just shows some can help @ATTCustomerCare sometimes.
On a side note, my double tax charges on my own cell bill have not yet been resolved.
6/7/11
Latest update on my issue via twitter: ATTMikeT @myles111us @ATT @ATTCustomerCare We are still workign on this will get it resolved for you, DM me if you have any questions.
15 minutes ago
I have no questions. Just waiting for problem resolution.
6/8/11
ATTCustomerCare: @myles111us Hi, ATTMikeT is working on this for you. He will be in touch. Thank you
Received the above message via twitter at about 3:45pm pst. Meanwhile, AT&T collects the interest on the money of mine that they hold onto. What do you think would happen if you paid them late?
6/10/11
No word back from AT&T since 6/6/11 when I was told "they were working on it".
They will take your payment in an instant but resolving billing problems and getting back credit in my own case is coming to the close of one full buisness week since I reported the problem.
At this point I may expect more than a simple credit, I may expect some form of interest just as they collect on the money of ours they hold.
I wonder what the amount of the money the many people using their cell service or Uverse services who were double charged for state and local taxes might be?
I wonder if there is some sort of additional legal issue as the overcharge were charges indicated to be state and local taxes?
At 9:00am 6/10/11 Mike at AT&T called me. He resolved my issue. I will verify this on my next bill from AT&T and if there is a problem I will post an update but for the moment it looks as if things have been resolved by Mike. I will also mention that it was Mike at AT&T that resolved my friends billing problem as well. I will keep track of Mike as he has been somebody who has resolved problems.
7/9/11 - All you have to do is .....
Well here we go again.
Last week my youngest son and his mother called AT&T to provision Internet into a house they were moving into this week. Their old house had AT&T phone and DSL service. The new house had AT&T service by the last folks in the house.
AT&T said they would UPS a gateway and told my son and his mom there were easy instruction to self install. She asked me if I could do the install and I said sure, except .... I would bet there would be problems as I cannot recall any AT&T install, move, change, upgrade, downgrade etc., that did not have a problem.
We were assured that on 7/8/11 at 8:00pm pst the line would be live and ready to go.
The morning of 7/9/11 I set up the 2 wire gateway and applied power. After a bit of time the broadband light flashed red. It kept flashing red. No sync, no signal. I had a way to get into the gateway and look at what was going on. Working with AT&T in a professional capacity for a decade taught be that as bad as things were back then they have continued to get worse year after year.
I called Tech Support and talked to Judie on 7/9/11 at 11:21pst. She was no help. She had no technical expertise. She had no knowledge of simple technical terms or procedures. If she worked for me back in my network days I would have given her a written technical test to perhaps transfer her to some other department. On second thought, since she was of no help, offered no suggestion and told me that if a technician was dispatched there would be a $75 charge to be BECAUSE THE LINE WAS DOWN as it had NOT been provisioned as promised. I was expected to pay $75 because AT&T did not do what they said they were going to do? Technical test with possible re-assignment? I also informed Judie that if somebody called their network control center it took moments to provision a line that was still in the queue to be provisioned. She said "no, it is not as simple as that". I told her, "yes, it is as simple as that" and once again gave her a bit of update on my communications background. She did not understand much about any comm services and understood few if any terms. Perhaps she knows words like "telephone"?
On second thought the only thing Judie accomplished was to prove that the purpose of her job was to act as a road block between a problem and a possible resolution AND have the customer think even less of AT&T.
At 11:42 I was handed off to a higher level of tech support; Jamie. She worked with me on and off for the next few hours. Nothing was resolved and I was in a mode of using my gateway to let them know what was not working with their network
Jamie told be she was passing me up the line to the highest level of tech support. I was passed on to Latisha at 1:45pm. Did I mention that Judie had no technical chops? Cut Judie's chops in half and subtract 150 points and you have Latisha. Turns out Latisha was not tech support. She was a Tier 2 Agent. Tier 2 must be BELOW Tier 1 as this AT&T person was the least helpful person yet. She did nothing other than waste more time.
To this point no AT&T person had any level of empowerment, could not make anything happen and passed me on to others.
At 1:47pm I was called by David; Social Media Manager. He is on the same team as Molly, Jason and Mike. These are the folks you talk to interactively on social media such as twitter. There are a number of these folks but the ones I have mentioned in this paragraph HAVE made things happen, they HAVE resolved problems and they HAVE provided service. I am just taking a moment to thank them in this paragraph. If AT&T wants to save some money AND provide better service get rid of Judie and Latisha and split 50% of their salary between David, Molly, Jason and Mike as a bit of a raise. More will get accomplished and fewer customers will be disgusted.
So the bottom line at this point?
There is still no live connection at the house. There is still no service. There is a service call scheduled for 7/11 between 12-4pm. AT&T should be able to perform a loop back test on the line before any tech is dispatched to at least verify that the line is live.
I have requested a credit as things were not provisioned and live as promised.
I will update this post as things move along. At the moment this particular blog post is not in the top 5 most active posts for the running week but I would bet it will show up again in the top 5 pretty quickly.
![]()
AT&T Tech arrived the scheduled appointment time and got down to business.
![]()
Art checked out everything and got the line provisioned. He made changes to wiring and to the box from the prior AT&T install which was part of the hardware left from the prior Uverse installation. Third AT&T change and this time Art did it properly this time.
Art worked for a couple of hours and had great technical chops. If he had been one of my folks in my past data comm life I am sure he would be high level tech support person, instructor or supervisor. Kudos to Art. Like I have said before (unfortunately all to rarely) there are a few good folks at AT&T.
I would also like to thank Sam in the President's Corporate Office for following this issue through and finding that the line which was promised to be provisioned last Friday was "stuck" in the AT&T process and was not provisioned until today.
Hopefully there will not be any sort of install charge as what was promised was not what was received. If my son's mom has a charge on her bill for any sort of install I am sure there will be another entry on this blog. For now I will give AT&T the benefit of the doubt and take a leap of faith in a hope that one problem will not breed others. Unfortunately my experience has shown this not to be the case but perhaps .... ????
7/27/11
There are two new issues with billing on the account at the house of my boys mother. This is tied into the activity done on 7/11/11. One AT&T problem generally leads to another and this is the case here.
The account holder was told that if she signed up for 12mb Uverse Internet service for one year her monthly bill would be $29.95 per month for the first year. Her first bill was charged at $48.00. I expect a credit and this problem resolved.
She cancelled her old Internet service in early July. She had told AT&T to shut down and disconnect service on July 8. She received a bill for Internet service covering a period from July 2 to August 1 2011 for $40.00. I expect this to be credited immediately as well.
A few hours after these problems were reported
I was going to refrain from posting this if AT&T would have resolved the issue in a matter of hours rather than possible days, or longer. Since they said "likely 24-72 hours" for contact, not even talking resolution, and I find it unlikely (based on past experience) I have added this latest incident to this ongoing piece.
7/28/11
Stall tactics? Perhaps. Setting up for more potential problems? You can probably bet on it.
A member of the President's Office at ATT left me a voice message at about noon PST. As a side note, when they call their number is shown as restricted so you cannot call them back.
The message said that "somebody would contact me in 24-72 hours". Seems as if I heard this before? Yes, yesterday. I guess the clock is reset. AT&T can hang onto your money to show a higher daily balance to investors but cannot seem to resolve simple issues in a timely manner. In fact, simple billing issues which could be resolved in moments take longer than most technical problems to resolve.
Potential problems? The message said that somebody would contact ME. They called ME. I had left specific contact information and instructions with the folks at ATT Customer Care. Seems as is all too common, there was a breakdown in communication between Customer Care and the AT&T Executive offices. Not the first time. Not the tenth time. I have lost count.
So will the proper person be contacted? Will their confusion and continual blunders impact areas or accounting that has nothing to do with this problem? How long will it take to resolve the problems? Time willl tell.
Hats off to AT&T Customer Service again for being little more than an obstacle in the path to problem resolution.
At 4:30pst I was informed that the billing issues have been resolved. If that turns out not to be shown on the next bill I will update on the subject again.
On a new subject, I received a text message from AT&T to my cell phone that offered a free upgrade to my current unlimited message plan. The upgrade keeps all aspects of the original text plan but allows unlimited calls to other cell phones (like Sprint does) on other networks.
I changed my text/message service plan to this new plan online. As I was in process of doing this a chat window popped up with an AT&T representative. I copied the dialogue just in case there is a problem in the future:
AT&T sales representatives are happy to assist you with your questions. Click below to begin your live text chat.
AT&T sales representatives will not have access to your personal account. This service is provided to you under AT&Ts Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
You are now chatting with Jessica Su., an AT&T sales representative.
Jessica Su.: Welcome to AT&T online Feature Sales. How may I assist you with your features today?
Myles: Am I to understand that this upgrade from unlimited text msg to unlimited text message and cell to cell regardless of carrier has NO increase in charges and will not impact my bill in any way in the future?
Jessica Su.: Hi Myles!
Jessica Su.: I will be happy to assist you.
Myles: Hello. I am waiting for an answer
Jessica Su.: Yes the Unlimited Messaging with Unlimited mobile to any mobile allows you to call any carrier and will not increase your bill if you already have Unlimited Messaging.
Myles: The text sent to my phone said the upgrade was free
Jessica Su.: I can walk you through switching to this plan today if you are logged in!
Myles: I am already logged in and am in process of upgrading
Jessica Su.: Awesome! I can confirm the changes go through.
Jessica Su.: You will need to submit once you Review.
Myles: OK - almost done
Myles: Done.
Jessica Su.: Looks like the changes went through!
Jessica Su.: Are there any other Feature I can assist you with?
Myles: I expect no charges added to my monthly invoice as I was already paying $20 for unlimited text services and this upgraded free service was advertised to replace that service.
Jessica Su.: Yes, that is correct.
Myles: Thank you. I have printed out the details in case there is a future problem (which is usually the case with AT&T)
Jessica Su.: You're welcome!
Jessica Su.: Thank you for choosing AT&T. Have a great day!
Myles: One more thing ...
Myles: Just to confirm,
Jessica Su.: Sure!
Myles: I now have unlimited text, unlimited photo and video text, and unlimited calling to any mobile phone in the USA regardless of carrier. Can you please confirm that as the confirmation of the service change is misleading.
Jessica Su.: Yes that is correct Myles.
Myles: Thank you.
I will keep this updated.
For the moment that is all I have to report.
8/27/11
8/30/11
Added HD Uverse service today as I am thinking of getting a new TV. I know... foolish to think this would be a slam dunk.
In any case, I can view HD channels now but the blue HD light on my receiver does not come on. So... I contacted ATT via twitter (no reply yet) and in ATT chat. The chat session is copied here:
I will update as there is additional info....
The evening session:
9/28/11 - below; seems as if they are generally having some problem with their online systems. Went on to look at my last bill. Also wanted to see if their usage tool is ready. It has never worked as far as I know.
10/10/11
Thought I'd take a look at the ATT Usage tool that has never worked since they said they would charge more if one went over the data use limits. I would think there is not a legal, or at least ethical way to charge folks when they said they would supply a tool to keep an eye on you data usage but as of today have not supplied the tool and do not show you usage in any format.
4/25/11 @ 10:37 pst - Jason on twitter provided contact with John at ATT in Bakersfield who is working the issue. Resolution is expected today. I will keep folks updated if that is not the outcome. Maybe I found a few good folks at AT&T.
4/29/11
I received the following message from Jason;
ATTJason Hello! I'm checking in to see if Lisa's issue has been satisfactorily resolved by John in Bakersfield. Please let me know. Thanks!
Lisa's issue was resolved within 24 hours as John promised.
I would like to take a moment to thank you in this blog which usually notes failures within AT&T. You are one of the good guys. There have been a few folks noted in this blog that are the good folks.
Thanks again and thank John in Bakersfield as well.
Side note about Jason:
Jason is a member of AT&T's social media care team. We're here to help you M-F 7am-10pm CST, Sat 7am-4pm. You can also find help at http://support.att.com/ http://twitter.com/attcustomercare Jason is on the Pacific side of the country.
6/5/11
Here we go again.
I received my May cell bill today and the charges were higher than the April bill, or any other bill due to being charged TWICE on the tax.
I will post this on twitter and we can see how long it takes them to credit me for their mistake.
There has been a lot of stories recently on all sorts of overcharges by AT&T.
April bill above
Current bill for May 2011 above
Crooks. Nobody caught this billing error? Like I have said countless times, the worst customer service in the business.
To folks at AT&T - fix this pronto!
Later in the evening 6/5/11 - looks like this is not just a cell issue but also Uverse issue for folks too.
I was at dinner telling folks about being charged double tax on my current (May) AT&T cell phone bill. A friend of mine had some Uverse install work done where they were told there would be a $100 service charge. The bill came and seems as if they were charged $100 .... TWICE. They called customer service and were told this sort of thing never happens. They are still waiting for this to be resolved.
AT&T cannot even run one company, network or service. What do you suppose is going to happen when they merge with T-Mobile? Actually, I have a post on some of that merger nonsense as well at
http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/at-watchdog-latest.html Feel free to pass along that link or the link to this piece as well.
Received this at 8:20pm from another friend:
sonyakeith Sonya Keith @myles111us @ATTCustomerCare. They have never cleared up my old cell bill bundled with home.
I told her I would add her complaint to this blog.
If others have complaints feel free to add them as a comment or send them to me on twitter @myles111us
6/6/11
This is what is going on today. Some messages on twitter. I don't want to talk to AT&T on the phone. The problem is simple and needs no discussion. They overcharged me and the double tax is shown on my bill. I am on paperless billing. I paid immediately as I was worried that if I did not pay the full invoice amount this would trigger off all sorts of later billing problems.
I expect my credit card to be credited with the over payment immediately, not in the next billing cycle next month. They charged me now, I paid now, I expect credit now. If they hang onto these over charges for the next month or two (so they can receive huge income via interest) it is a form of fraud from my point of view.
So far I am the third person I know of since yesterday with billing problems. The issues span both their cell services and Uverse services.
Messages from ATT:
ATTMikeT Mike @ @myles111us DM me your account number and a number to call you on and I will get your billing issue resolved. (This was at 8:00am pst)
ATTCustomerCare Molly @ @myles111us Please follow and DM account names and account numbers to @ATTMikeT. He already reached out. Thanks!
Sent to ATTCustomerCare from me:
http://bit.ly/lPb8Vt - I was overcharged. So were friends. Cell for me and Uverse for my friend. Details at bottom of post.
I just sent DMs to Mike as you asked. I expect my credit card to be credited today NOT in a month or two as you generally do.
Sent to ATTMikeT
I am on paperless. My number is xxx-yyy-zzzz. Details are at the bottom of my blog. My account number is not handy as I am paperless. I expect to see a credit posted back to my credit card immediately as you took the payment immediately.
One more person has passed me some info:
6/6/11 at 1:15pm pst - Just got a message from @ATTMikeT and a call from Lisa who had a major billing issue with Uverse. Mike at AT&T just resolved my friend's billing problem. Thanks Mike! - just shows some can help @ATTCustomerCare sometimes.
On a side note, my double tax charges on my own cell bill have not yet been resolved.
6/7/11
Latest update on my issue via twitter: ATTMikeT @myles111us @ATT @ATTCustomerCare We are still workign on this will get it resolved for you, DM me if you have any questions.
15 minutes ago
I have no questions. Just waiting for problem resolution.
6/8/11
ATTCustomerCare: @myles111us Hi, ATTMikeT is working on this for you. He will be in touch. Thank you
Received the above message via twitter at about 3:45pm pst. Meanwhile, AT&T collects the interest on the money of mine that they hold onto. What do you think would happen if you paid them late?
6/10/11
No word back from AT&T since 6/6/11 when I was told "they were working on it".
They will take your payment in an instant but resolving billing problems and getting back credit in my own case is coming to the close of one full buisness week since I reported the problem.
At this point I may expect more than a simple credit, I may expect some form of interest just as they collect on the money of ours they hold.
I wonder what the amount of the money the many people using their cell service or Uverse services who were double charged for state and local taxes might be?
I wonder if there is some sort of additional legal issue as the overcharge were charges indicated to be state and local taxes?
At 9:00am 6/10/11 Mike at AT&T called me. He resolved my issue. I will verify this on my next bill from AT&T and if there is a problem I will post an update but for the moment it looks as if things have been resolved by Mike. I will also mention that it was Mike at AT&T that resolved my friends billing problem as well. I will keep track of Mike as he has been somebody who has resolved problems.
7/9/11 - All you have to do is .....
Well here we go again.
Last week my youngest son and his mother called AT&T to provision Internet into a house they were moving into this week. Their old house had AT&T phone and DSL service. The new house had AT&T service by the last folks in the house.
AT&T said they would UPS a gateway and told my son and his mom there were easy instruction to self install. She asked me if I could do the install and I said sure, except .... I would bet there would be problems as I cannot recall any AT&T install, move, change, upgrade, downgrade etc., that did not have a problem.
We were assured that on 7/8/11 at 8:00pm pst the line would be live and ready to go.
The morning of 7/9/11 I set up the 2 wire gateway and applied power. After a bit of time the broadband light flashed red. It kept flashing red. No sync, no signal. I had a way to get into the gateway and look at what was going on. Working with AT&T in a professional capacity for a decade taught be that as bad as things were back then they have continued to get worse year after year.
I called Tech Support and talked to Judie on 7/9/11 at 11:21pst. She was no help. She had no technical expertise. She had no knowledge of simple technical terms or procedures. If she worked for me back in my network days I would have given her a written technical test to perhaps transfer her to some other department. On second thought, since she was of no help, offered no suggestion and told me that if a technician was dispatched there would be a $75 charge to be BECAUSE THE LINE WAS DOWN as it had NOT been provisioned as promised. I was expected to pay $75 because AT&T did not do what they said they were going to do? Technical test with possible re-assignment? I also informed Judie that if somebody called their network control center it took moments to provision a line that was still in the queue to be provisioned. She said "no, it is not as simple as that". I told her, "yes, it is as simple as that" and once again gave her a bit of update on my communications background. She did not understand much about any comm services and understood few if any terms. Perhaps she knows words like "telephone"?
On second thought the only thing Judie accomplished was to prove that the purpose of her job was to act as a road block between a problem and a possible resolution AND have the customer think even less of AT&T.
At 11:42 I was handed off to a higher level of tech support; Jamie. She worked with me on and off for the next few hours. Nothing was resolved and I was in a mode of using my gateway to let them know what was not working with their network
Jamie told be she was passing me up the line to the highest level of tech support. I was passed on to Latisha at 1:45pm. Did I mention that Judie had no technical chops? Cut Judie's chops in half and subtract 150 points and you have Latisha. Turns out Latisha was not tech support. She was a Tier 2 Agent. Tier 2 must be BELOW Tier 1 as this AT&T person was the least helpful person yet. She did nothing other than waste more time.
To this point no AT&T person had any level of empowerment, could not make anything happen and passed me on to others.
At 1:47pm I was called by David; Social Media Manager. He is on the same team as Molly, Jason and Mike. These are the folks you talk to interactively on social media such as twitter. There are a number of these folks but the ones I have mentioned in this paragraph HAVE made things happen, they HAVE resolved problems and they HAVE provided service. I am just taking a moment to thank them in this paragraph. If AT&T wants to save some money AND provide better service get rid of Judie and Latisha and split 50% of their salary between David, Molly, Jason and Mike as a bit of a raise. More will get accomplished and fewer customers will be disgusted.
So the bottom line at this point?
There is still no live connection at the house. There is still no service. There is a service call scheduled for 7/11 between 12-4pm. AT&T should be able to perform a loop back test on the line before any tech is dispatched to at least verify that the line is live.
I have requested a credit as things were not provisioned and live as promised.
I will update this post as things move along. At the moment this particular blog post is not in the top 5 most active posts for the running week but I would bet it will show up again in the top 5 pretty quickly.
Top 5 most active posts for the week as of 7/9/11 at 3:00pm pst. The most active post on the AT&T / T-Mobile merger and AT&T policy changes is Number 1 and seems to stay quite active. This particular post will probably show up in the Top 5 again.
7/11/11
AT&T was supposed to arrive for a scheduled service call between 12pm and 4pm at my youngest son's house. About 4pm a recorded message was received from AT&T to my son's mother's cellphone which stated that AT&T was busy, they may have to reschedule, but might arrive closer to 6pm.
I sent a few messages to twitter when I received this news:
@Att just said via phone recording they will be late
@Att said they will miss their appointment. No surprise.
When I ran a network we fixed things 24x7. Not @ATT #ATT
AT&T Tech arrived the scheduled appointment time and got down to business.
Art getting down to business
Art checked out everything and got the line provisioned. He made changes to wiring and to the box from the prior AT&T install which was part of the hardware left from the prior Uverse installation. Third AT&T change and this time Art did it properly this time.
Art worked for a couple of hours and had great technical chops. If he had been one of my folks in my past data comm life I am sure he would be high level tech support person, instructor or supervisor. Kudos to Art. Like I have said before (unfortunately all to rarely) there are a few good folks at AT&T.
I would also like to thank Sam in the President's Corporate Office for following this issue through and finding that the line which was promised to be provisioned last Friday was "stuck" in the AT&T process and was not provisioned until today.
Hopefully there will not be any sort of install charge as what was promised was not what was received. If my son's mom has a charge on her bill for any sort of install I am sure there will be another entry on this blog. For now I will give AT&T the benefit of the doubt and take a leap of faith in a hope that one problem will not breed others. Unfortunately my experience has shown this not to be the case but perhaps .... ????
7/27/11
There are two new issues with billing on the account at the house of my boys mother. This is tied into the activity done on 7/11/11. One AT&T problem generally leads to another and this is the case here.
The account holder was told that if she signed up for 12mb Uverse Internet service for one year her monthly bill would be $29.95 per month for the first year. Her first bill was charged at $48.00. I expect a credit and this problem resolved.
She cancelled her old Internet service in early July. She had told AT&T to shut down and disconnect service on July 8. She received a bill for Internet service covering a period from July 2 to August 1 2011 for $40.00. I expect this to be credited immediately as well.
A few hours after these problems were reported
I was going to refrain from posting this if AT&T would have resolved the issue in a matter of hours rather than possible days, or longer. Since they said "likely 24-72 hours" for contact, not even talking resolution, and I find it unlikely (based on past experience) I have added this latest incident to this ongoing piece.
7/28/11
Stall tactics? Perhaps. Setting up for more potential problems? You can probably bet on it.
A member of the President's Office at ATT left me a voice message at about noon PST. As a side note, when they call their number is shown as restricted so you cannot call them back.
The message said that "somebody would contact me in 24-72 hours". Seems as if I heard this before? Yes, yesterday. I guess the clock is reset. AT&T can hang onto your money to show a higher daily balance to investors but cannot seem to resolve simple issues in a timely manner. In fact, simple billing issues which could be resolved in moments take longer than most technical problems to resolve.
Potential problems? The message said that somebody would contact ME. They called ME. I had left specific contact information and instructions with the folks at ATT Customer Care. Seems as is all too common, there was a breakdown in communication between Customer Care and the AT&T Executive offices. Not the first time. Not the tenth time. I have lost count.
So will the proper person be contacted? Will their confusion and continual blunders impact areas or accounting that has nothing to do with this problem? How long will it take to resolve the problems? Time willl tell.
Hats off to AT&T Customer Service again for being little more than an obstacle in the path to problem resolution.
At 4:30pst I was informed that the billing issues have been resolved. If that turns out not to be shown on the next bill I will update on the subject again.
On a new subject, I received a text message from AT&T to my cell phone that offered a free upgrade to my current unlimited message plan. The upgrade keeps all aspects of the original text plan but allows unlimited calls to other cell phones (like Sprint does) on other networks.
I changed my text/message service plan to this new plan online. As I was in process of doing this a chat window popped up with an AT&T representative. I copied the dialogue just in case there is a problem in the future:
AT&T sales representatives are happy to assist you with your questions. Click below to begin your live text chat.
AT&T sales representatives will not have access to your personal account. This service is provided to you under AT&Ts Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
You are now chatting with Jessica Su., an AT&T sales representative.
Jessica Su.: Welcome to AT&T online Feature Sales. How may I assist you with your features today?
Myles: Am I to understand that this upgrade from unlimited text msg to unlimited text message and cell to cell regardless of carrier has NO increase in charges and will not impact my bill in any way in the future?
Jessica Su.: Hi Myles!
Jessica Su.: I will be happy to assist you.
Myles: Hello. I am waiting for an answer
Jessica Su.: Yes the Unlimited Messaging with Unlimited mobile to any mobile allows you to call any carrier and will not increase your bill if you already have Unlimited Messaging.
Myles: The text sent to my phone said the upgrade was free
Jessica Su.: I can walk you through switching to this plan today if you are logged in!
Myles: I am already logged in and am in process of upgrading
Jessica Su.: Awesome! I can confirm the changes go through.
Jessica Su.: You will need to submit once you Review.
Myles: OK - almost done
Myles: Done.
Jessica Su.: Looks like the changes went through!
Jessica Su.: Are there any other Feature I can assist you with?
Myles: I expect no charges added to my monthly invoice as I was already paying $20 for unlimited text services and this upgraded free service was advertised to replace that service.
Jessica Su.: Yes, that is correct.
Myles: Thank you. I have printed out the details in case there is a future problem (which is usually the case with AT&T)
Jessica Su.: You're welcome!
Jessica Su.: Thank you for choosing AT&T. Have a great day!
Myles: One more thing ...
Myles: Just to confirm,
Jessica Su.: Sure!
Myles: I now have unlimited text, unlimited photo and video text, and unlimited calling to any mobile phone in the USA regardless of carrier. Can you please confirm that as the confirmation of the service change is misleading.
Jessica Su.: Yes that is correct Myles.
Myles: Thank you.
I will keep this updated.
For the moment that is all I have to report.
8/27/11
I sent this to the ATT folks: My incoming message text size changed to large Saturday late afternoon. All other text size fine. Menus do not fix. Samsung Flight (A797) .
I tried all menu functions that change text size. No result. All other text size displays including sending a text message are not changed. Power down and back up no help. Remove battery no help.
Sent message again today ( 8/29 ) to ATT after they asked for details eariler today.
Waiting for an answer.
8/29/11 11:35pst
Just received this from ATT:
It would be a big step forward if they read what was sent to them.
I would not be surprised if this problem goes on for days with a referral from one person to another. Nobody can seem to take a moment to actually troubleshoot a problem. Guess that skill set is unknown by most of the folks at ATT.
Looking forward to what happens next. Keep tuned here for details.
8/29/11 11:35pst
Just received this from ATT:
@myles111us Have you tried changing your font? Go to Menu > Settings > Display and Light > Font Type and see if that helps. ^JasonF
I get so sick and tired when you tell them what you have already done and they do not even take the time to read what was sent to them. They have their script and they follow it like sheep.
I told them in writing what I had already done, this being one of the things I already did. I also sent them the link to this blog post and sent them messages that the latest information is in this blog post.
It would be a big step forward if they read what was sent to them.
I would not be surprised if this problem goes on for days with a referral from one person to another. Nobody can seem to take a moment to actually troubleshoot a problem. Guess that skill set is unknown by most of the folks at ATT.
Past messages:
@myles111us I understand you're having some trouble with your Samsung Flight. I'm sorry. Please let me know if I can help. ^JasonF
@myles111us That's unusual. Nothing was changed by us - have you tried rebooting your device? ^JasonF
@myles111us How strange! Let me see what I can find out about changing your text size. Anything else affected, or only incoming? ^JasonF
@myles111us Have you tried changing your font? Go to Menu > Settings > Display and Light > Font Type and see if that helps. ^JasonF
Looking forward to what happens next. Keep tuned here for details.
The last reply below resolved the issue. This was not in any of the ATT FAQ on the device on the ATT website.
ATTTeamNatasha ATTTeamNatasha
@myles111us I'm sorry. When you're in your text messages, use the volume button to change the font size. I hope this helps! ^JasonF
8/30/11
Added HD Uverse service today as I am thinking of getting a new TV. I know... foolish to think this would be a slam dunk.
In any case, I can view HD channels now but the blue HD light on my receiver does not come on. So... I contacted ATT via twitter (no reply yet) and in ATT chat. The chat session is copied here:
The evening session:
9/28/11 - below; seems as if they are generally having some problem with their online systems. Went on to look at my last bill. Also wanted to see if their usage tool is ready. It has never worked as far as I know.
10/10/11
Thought I'd take a look at the ATT Usage tool that has never worked since they said they would charge more if one went over the data use limits. I would think there is not a legal, or at least ethical way to charge folks when they said they would supply a tool to keep an eye on you data usage but as of today have not supplied the tool and do not show you usage in any format.
The "usage tool" as of 10/10/11. It still does not work.
10/29/11
Here is one way to keep a company bank account up. Charge the customer now and credit them later (if at all).
Here is one way to keep a company bank account up. Charge the customer now and credit them later (if at all).
I received a text the other day on my cell phone from ATT. I was not going to fall for this sort of offer without checking things out first.
This post is full of one ATT blunder after another. I thought that if I did take them up on their free movie offer and there was any, I repeat ANY sort of problem, which due to the odds was HIGHLY likely, that getting things resolved would be difficult and time consuming.
I suspected there may be a catch and indeed there was a catch. View now, pay now, credit later.
The cell message: ATT Free Msg: Thanks for being a U-verse member! Enjoy 2 movies on us. 1 per month for 2 months. Go to channel 199 and enter coupon code 2FORU.
The text continued and mentioned values of up to $6 per movie and supplied a link for "term and conditions"
This is what was found when I followed the link at www.att-msg.com/movies
Listen you ATT jokers, if infer something is free most folks believe (unless they have experience dealing with you criminal clowns) that means you can exercise the offer and never have to think about it again.
12/5/11
Below is some dialogue that went on today with ATT Customer Service. I am fast to complain when things go wrong but sometimes things go right.
Thanks to Cate or Catel who is on the ATT Natasha team for swift and pain free problem resolution. Can this be the start of a "new ATT" ?
12/11/11
ATT starts throttling high data users down to 2G speeds - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/att-starts-throttling-high-data-users-down-to-2g-speeds/
1/3/12
Well, it seems as if 2012 might not see fewer problems. More billing issues. I will wait a few days to see if this can be resolved as one of the folks in the President's office has stepped in to assist.
At this point I will say that my family had a billing problem this month. They called the number on the bill that was specifically there to get one with problems to the right folks. Guess what? Number was not to the right area. My family was moved around three times, was on hold for over 50 minutes and finally gave up before calling me.
My family asked the various ATT people, how can a telephone company print a number on an invoice to call in case of problems and have the number NOT go to the proper place? Nobody could answer her question and sent her elsewhere.
This issue is being tracked and I may be updating this soon with all the specific details. At this point I expect them to do more than just resolve the problem as these are problems that occur multiple times each year. This also caused my family to waste hours of time over 2011 and now we see the same problems may be in store for us all in 2012.
1/4/12
Yesterday my family was passed off to another person or persons. The final person has not resolved the issue but in the process told my family that their billing system does not process normal charges and credits at the same time, that there would always be problems due to the various parts of the system not working together.
You've got to be kidding me! One of the largest organizations on the globe with a huge customer base, Bell Labs behind them and the folks that invented the transistor do not have a billing system that works?
Side note back to the woman that gave this excuse to my family: The system works most of the time. It fails a lot of the time. So ... sometimes it does work in concert. Perhaps by accident but at times it does work.
I have a suggestion. Rather than have a price for service and then give credits on promotions and offers just reduce the price?
In fact, consider this a formal request for a firm price at a reduced rate for 2012.
That is what I expect at this time to resolve this issue and to compensate the customer for the hours of calls they have made to use, their loss of time and the aggravation of dealing with people who make promises they do not keep or flat out lying.
I will be posting details later as my family is documenting this event.
Update: 1/4/12 @10am pst - just posted on facebook: 2012 Jan 3 11:00 – 2012 Jan 4 10:00 - 1,861 reads of this blog piece during this period. Share the link ... let's go viral. Show ATT they better turn things around in 2012. One of the largest corporations in America should not be the example of the worst customer service on the globe.
Note to ATT: In case you missed the bold print above. I will not be content with a band-aid fix to this current issue that keeps resurfacing. I expect you to contact me directly and we will discuss options for my own account and the account of my family. I do not intend to experience even worse service than I had in 2011 in 2012.
While I have you here, on an unrelated note, my own Uverse Internet has dropped at least three times in the past few days. This is not typical. The last event where the router had to be reset is shown from your own report below. I am not asking for anything to be done at this time on this issue. I just want to document it in this piece. You folks have enough problems handling one thing properly at a time so let's work on this billing / credit issue for my family.
Above - Four loss of signal failures in just under 14 hours.
Here is the latest on the problem that has not been resolved, the issue from the customer viewpoint.
Dear Myles,
I want to thank you, once again, for making a phone call to AT&T on my behalf so that I could get another billing issue resolved. As usual with AT&T problems, I tried to contact customer service and got long hold times and no one to answer my questions until you stepped in. In July, 2011 I called about U-Verse internet service. ATT quoted me a price for signing up for one year and I began service. Between July 2011 and December 2011, they managed to send me bills showing incorrect charges 3 times. Each time this has happened, I have had to spend a great deal of my time trying to resolve the possibility of being overcharged. I had to go through an executive office of appeals to get the price that I had been promised to be put back into place. Now I have received two new bills (November and December) that again showed that I was not getting the price I was quoted. As you can imagine, I knew that it would take more time than anyone would believe to get an answer.
So here is what happened ... I called ATT by using the phone number on the back of my bill. After approximately 10 minutes on hold, I reached a representative who told me that this was not the U-Verse office and I would have to be transferred. I was put on hold for just a minute and reached a second agent who told me that, yet again, this was not the U-Verse department and she would have to transfer me. I was put on hold again and the message said my wait time might be ten minutes. After a total of about 50 or more minutes on hold between these transfers, I hung up in frustration and contacted the appeals office. I had left a message for Taya in that office about 2 weeks ago and never got a call back but I left another message anyway. I had to leave other messages but finally got a call back, after you intervened, from Sam in the office of the president. He got a case worker in the billing department to call me back the same day.
So after all this run around, Isis, a case worker in the office of the president explained what AT&T has done that is causing my bill to appear incorrect. They are applying credits to accounts that do not match up with the billing cycle. She could see on her screen that I had received 2 credits even though my credit card was charged for higher amounts than my agreed upon monthly charge. These credits were to show up on future bills. Her resolution was that I should just be patient and and assume that my overall bills will work out to the correct amount over the course of a year. The flaw in that logic is that my bills have not worked out correctly in the recent past and I had to call and argue for my promised charge to be corrected. Alternatively,I could call her for a few billing cycles to determine the credit and bill amounts or I could call the service center each month to see what showed up on their screens but not on my bill. She said that, yes, this system of credits and bill amounts not aligning was a choice that AT&T made and it would continue.
How can any company do business like this? A communications company cannot figure out how to put the correct phone number on their bills? A company cannot manage to quote a price and then actually charge that price every month for a year? A company wants its customers to have faith that their bills will work out in the end and just be patient and trusting? This is the last company that would be trusted by anyone.
1/4/12
Yesterday my family was passed off to another person or persons. The final person has not resolved the issue but in the process told my family that their billing system does not process normal charges and credits at the same time, that there would always be problems due to the various parts of the system not working together.
You've got to be kidding me! One of the largest organizations on the globe with a huge customer base, Bell Labs behind them and the folks that invented the transistor do not have a billing system that works?
Side note back to the woman that gave this excuse to my family: The system works most of the time. It fails a lot of the time. So ... sometimes it does work in concert. Perhaps by accident but at times it does work.
I have a suggestion. Rather than have a price for service and then give credits on promotions and offers just reduce the price?
In fact, consider this a formal request for a firm price at a reduced rate for 2012.
That is what I expect at this time to resolve this issue and to compensate the customer for the hours of calls they have made to use, their loss of time and the aggravation of dealing with people who make promises they do not keep or flat out lying.
I will be posting details later as my family is documenting this event.
Update: 1/4/12 @10am pst - just posted on facebook: 2012 Jan 3 11:00 – 2012 Jan 4 10:00 - 1,861 reads of this blog piece during this period. Share the link ... let's go viral. Show ATT they better turn things around in 2012. One of the largest corporations in America should not be the example of the worst customer service on the globe.
Note to ATT: In case you missed the bold print above. I will not be content with a band-aid fix to this current issue that keeps resurfacing. I expect you to contact me directly and we will discuss options for my own account and the account of my family. I do not intend to experience even worse service than I had in 2011 in 2012.
While I have you here, on an unrelated note, my own Uverse Internet has dropped at least three times in the past few days. This is not typical. The last event where the router had to be reset is shown from your own report below. I am not asking for anything to be done at this time on this issue. I just want to document it in this piece. You folks have enough problems handling one thing properly at a time so let's work on this billing / credit issue for my family.
Above - Four loss of signal failures in just under 14 hours.
Here is the latest on the problem that has not been resolved, the issue from the customer viewpoint.
Dear Myles,
I want to thank you, once again, for making a phone call to AT&T on my behalf so that I could get another billing issue resolved. As usual with AT&T problems, I tried to contact customer service and got long hold times and no one to answer my questions until you stepped in. In July, 2011 I called about U-Verse internet service. ATT quoted me a price for signing up for one year and I began service. Between July 2011 and December 2011, they managed to send me bills showing incorrect charges 3 times. Each time this has happened, I have had to spend a great deal of my time trying to resolve the possibility of being overcharged. I had to go through an executive office of appeals to get the price that I had been promised to be put back into place. Now I have received two new bills (November and December) that again showed that I was not getting the price I was quoted. As you can imagine, I knew that it would take more time than anyone would believe to get an answer.
So here is what happened ... I called ATT by using the phone number on the back of my bill. After approximately 10 minutes on hold, I reached a representative who told me that this was not the U-Verse office and I would have to be transferred. I was put on hold for just a minute and reached a second agent who told me that, yet again, this was not the U-Verse department and she would have to transfer me. I was put on hold again and the message said my wait time might be ten minutes. After a total of about 50 or more minutes on hold between these transfers, I hung up in frustration and contacted the appeals office. I had left a message for Taya in that office about 2 weeks ago and never got a call back but I left another message anyway. I had to leave other messages but finally got a call back, after you intervened, from Sam in the office of the president. He got a case worker in the billing department to call me back the same day.
So after all this run around, Isis, a case worker in the office of the president explained what AT&T has done that is causing my bill to appear incorrect. They are applying credits to accounts that do not match up with the billing cycle. She could see on her screen that I had received 2 credits even though my credit card was charged for higher amounts than my agreed upon monthly charge. These credits were to show up on future bills. Her resolution was that I should just be patient and and assume that my overall bills will work out to the correct amount over the course of a year. The flaw in that logic is that my bills have not worked out correctly in the recent past and I had to call and argue for my promised charge to be corrected. Alternatively,I could call her for a few billing cycles to determine the credit and bill amounts or I could call the service center each month to see what showed up on their screens but not on my bill. She said that, yes, this system of credits and bill amounts not aligning was a choice that AT&T made and it would continue.
How can any company do business like this? A communications company cannot figure out how to put the correct phone number on their bills? A company cannot manage to quote a price and then actually charge that price every month for a year? A company wants its customers to have faith that their bills will work out in the end and just be patient and trusting? This is the last company that would be trusted by anyone.
Well, history can repeat itself. My family was called by Cate I. from ATT. If you look back in this history you will see that she has been mentioned before.
I said it before and I will say it again. They need to promote Cate, give her a big raise and put her in charge of some sort of training program. Once again she resolved the problem. Cate is "one of the good guys". Proficient, professional, capable. She is one of the few that is NOT a roadblock between a problem and a solution.
Kudos to Cate, thank you again. Hopefully this will not be an annual event but history has shown that in the last two years you were the one that got things resolved.
1/8/12 - A comment from another via twitter: @noboxes: @myles111us Thanx 4 the link 2 your blog. You've told "my" story re @ATT so well. http://t.co/oKU5CiWQ Updated mine http://t.co/uQkhYMg8
1/8/12 - A comment from another via twitter: @noboxes: @myles111us Thanx 4 the link 2 your blog. You've told "my" story re @ATT so well. http://t.co/oKU5CiWQ Updated mine http://t.co/uQkhYMg8
1/20/12 - If you can't charge enough people who use a lot of data then you charge people who use less. ATT ... the newest logic.
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10198849-att-rate-hike-unnecessary-given-typical-data-use
One more story on the subject: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57362303-266/is-at-ts-data-plan-price-hike-justified/
3/13/12
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i6NTGmVWWu09o9CowPfi36ILosNQ?docId=1abcd86cc72a455d9d537f14b938e3b2 - AT&T offers quiet settlement with iPhone user
3/20/12
 |
| 7 loss of signal events in five days. I will be keeping an eye on this. I have reported this to ATT Customer Care today 3/20/12 at 5:50pst. |
3-21-12
I was hopeful that this issue would be resolved quickly but in the last 24 hours there has been some back and forth dialogue on twitter that is starting to make me feel as if ATT and I are not on the same page. Perhaps I became over confident as the last problem I had was resolved quickly and easily.
For folks at ATT that want to look into this: I appreciate your concern but as I have said, the system has generally been stable. It was over the last five days that I had the problems noted. It now looks to be stable again but I will continue to monitor.
I became concerned on March 16 when I took this photo.
 |
| For some people, terror is found in the form of fire, flood, famine. For others it may be zombies, lawyers o politicians. For me terror is the sight of an AT&T truck parked in front of my house at 4:55pm on a Friday afternoon and wondering if I will have Internet and television service over the upcoming weekend. |
The tech said there were issues in the system on the other side of the the street but I "should be fine". He said people were working on the problem. I then looked at logs and when I started to see problems I contacted ATT.
Since I am starting to get an uncomfortable feeling it may be a good idea to copy and paste some of the dialogue into this latest entry.
I have sent ATT a number of direct messages. Here are a few. Some have been omitted as they contain my phone number or other information which I do not wish to publish.
Please just have somebody contact me, or DM me with credit info to my uverse account.
The log is posted. I am considering posting these exchanges that have gone back and forth where we are getting nowhere.
The system is generally stable. I do not need a tech. I have more tech time than your tech support folks anyway. I am monitoring.
I really do not want to keep going back and forth multiple times tweeting. DM or call me.
You may call me now, 3-21-12 1645pst if you want to discuss this.
It seems as if we are not on the same page. Use DM rather than tweets.
I just finished a call with Marty from ATT. He called me directly. He quickly resolved the problem to my satisfaction. We also agreed on a plan that we would follow in the future if I continue to see instability.
My previous problem was addressed by Cate at ATT. She was also outstanding.
If this is a trend over at ATT this could be a very good sign.
5/30/12 - New Problem
I received the below ATT notification in my email.
This is just a portion of the "fine print". Typical tactics ... if you do nothing you are in trouble and accept whatever they wish to subject you to. If you wish to opt out you need to take an action. This is what I term, the sleezy used car salesman default.
I did not call the 800-288-2020 number as this puts you through a series of antics via their automated system which has meant to me, long hold times and being directed to multiple people once you finally get to somebody.
I opted to submit my request electronically.
My request failed.
Not a big surprise as ATT automated internet applications have always, literally ALWAYS, had problems for me.
 |
| Click on this image for the original size which is more readable |
I will post something on twitter that will direct their service folks to this updated post and wait for them to process my request to NOT be a part of this in any way. I will expect written confirmation which I will post here when it is received.
Update on the problem, some twitter dialogue:
I was asked to DM somebody via twitter.
My message to them: If you look at the bottom of the post athttp://goo.gl/gBXt8 the problem is explained. Please opt me out of this program and confirm via DM
Their reply:
I'd love to help with this. I will need to provide your information to our executive escalation group. What's the best # to...
call you and the best time to reach you during the day? They will contact you directly within 2-3 business days. ^KenS
My reply (I had been down this road before):
Ken - this is nonsense. My phone is xxx-yyy-zzzz. You can find my account from there. 2-3 days? Not acceptable. Your app fails and I opt to not be a part of this nonsense. In the email it says I could have also called 288-2020 but did not want to be on hold forever. I have no problem in 2-3 days because my piece will continue distribution until the issue is resolved. But, I have no intention in waiting for a call that when it is missed the return number is not left on my phone. Bottom line, why don't you call that 288-2020 number and tell them I do not wish to have my information used by ATT as was my option. You have my name, my telephone which is my acct number, so you make it happen. You do not want me to waste anymore time, really.
As I stated before, I was given the option of their 2020 number to call to opt out of the program which shares my information but did not want to use their automated system based on past experience.
As I stated earlier and displayed a screen snapshot, their app did not work which is what started all of this.
6/1/12
I received this update from ATT yesterday via twitter:
By going to our Office of the President they will ensure that this is handled, and usually leave their callback information. I have instructed them that you do not wish to have your info used within AT&T. They're the best suited to resolve this.^KenS
As of 10:15pst today I have received no call or confirmation that my request has been addressed.
At about 1:30pm I received a call from ATT. The gal on the other end of the line was not sure of much of anything. I told her to go read this blog piece at the end.
She was not clear on how I received the notification. She thought it was via conventional mail. One more reason I directed her to this blog. I told her I had screen snapshots of the initial issue and the issue that their application to remove myself from this ATT program of information use did not work. I also explained that a second screen snapshot also explained the ATT program which she did not understand.
It would have been nice if information had been passed from one person to another. ATT is very weak in this respect. Over the years I have lost count on how often I have to repeat the problem each time it is handed from one person to another. That was a primary factor in the creation of this ongoing blog which documents one issue after another. There are many messages within this blog piece in regard to technical issues, price and policy changes, service and lack of passing on information to name only a few basic subjects.
Update: The email below (see image below) has been received. This issue has been resolved.
July 9, 2012
Here we go again.
At about 10:20pm PST my television died and my internet dropped.
I rebooted the ATT Uverse router. Three times. No luck in getting back service.
I sent a few twitter texts to ATT Customer service with my cell phone. I had to use 3G as my wifi was down (ATT also supplies my Internet).
I will be calling the Office of the President tomorrow, perhaps while I wait over a four hour window for a service call which was scheduled by a fellow named Kyle ( employee ID KJ000C ) who was little if any help and not very adept at looking up past issues.
I got to Kyle by calling the ATT service number, 1-800-288-2020 and wading through their typical automated system nonsense.
Side note; Kyle told me I would receive a credit. I hope I do not have to go through that pro-rated nonsense again. I pay for service by the month. When I do not receive a month of service I expect a full credit.
I also expect a twitter response to narrow this four hour window.
I don't expect to sit at home on a work day for FOUR HOURS when nothing has changed inside my home in regard to wiring. This was indicated by your fellow Kyle to be a line problem that required a technician. Deja Vu. We have gone down this path before. In fact, in this post are photos of some of the many technicians who have worked on YOUR line problems. I see NO reason I need to be here and explained that to Kyle (along with giving him power level and dBm readings) but he was no help at all. Once again, I am VERY unhappy with your level of service and will not be surprised if it gets worse tomorrow unless one a the few folks that have helped in the past steps in.
I am also requesting that a report be sent to me telling me what the problem they found was. I understand that ATT is under no obligation to do this but if it is not done I will report that no report was supplied. This may indicate that there was no line issue or may show that as in the past, my profile was inadvertently changed in the ATT network control center which took down my service. They may not want to admit that they caused the problem.
As far as the "line problem" that Kyle found running his diagnostics? I suggested he run this again as the errors had stopped, line was stable and final receive gain within my house at the router was fine and dandy. I see no problem and expect the tech may find no new problem.
In fact, look at the packet sent and received in this latest screen snapshot just moments ago. Compare the counts. The errors have not increased either.
I will update this post as new information becomes available.
July 10, 2012
I still continue to strongly suspect that Kyle should have re-run his diagnostics last night as I requested. When he said there was an issue with the line and my service had started to work again I told him that while he and I were talking I was running my own diagnostics using ATT equipment and this may have been a reason the line bounced during his test.
His results were highly suspect yet he was too lazy or just did not have any reason to make the customer happy.
The two screen snapshots were taken a few minutes ago, a bit after 9am pst.
The error count has not increased and the only thing that has changed is the noise margin by 1/2 a dB. Things look stable.
In any case I will run a full diagnostic set and then post the results here. If there is not some sort of a screen snapshot in a little while it means that things are down and there is some sort of ATT issue. In that case I will send out some short twitter messages from my cell phone, myles111us is my twitter id.
9:20am - diagnostics complete
The DSL training errors over the last 15 minutes and other anomalies are due to the tests running and expected.
Some of the power levels and attenuation levels may be an issue or may be normal. I do not have the ATT guideline ranges.
I am requesting that ATT send me via email the acceptable ranges of these parameters.
I have asked the ATT customer service fellow who has been working with me for a line retest to ascertain whether a service call is actually needed. He has not replied to this request.
Here is some of the recent dialogue:
Earlier dialogue on the same subject today:
A bit of the latest, latest at the top of the below string:
3:04pm - no arrival by ATT tech. Thought I'd post a little facebook screen snapshot stuff that came from some of my traffic reports.
15:25 pst
My Internet / Uverse bounced. Perhaps they are running the line test again which I requested.
4:00 pm PST
I just received an email from the ATT level 2 tech folks. Side note, at Infonet I ran level 3, tech support, engineering and development hence my reply to their email which I will post below.
My concern is, when they change things or alter my profile there are generally longer term problems. Once the issues are resolved there can be instances of my altered profile getting backed up with a previous bad line profile. Their house keeping and record keeping leave much to be desired. I referred to my thinking in this area in my paragraph below .... "I still strongly suspect ...."
Justin,
Side note .... it is 4:06pm pst and ATT has not arrived or called to say they would be late. So much for their four hour 12-4 window.
4:30pm PST - no update from ATT, no DM from twitter, no call from tech.
4:47pm pst - I called ATT dispatch and they told me .... well ... let me just copy my DM messages that I just sent to Robert who is the fellow who lied to me and dropped the ball in ATTTeamMikeT's group.
(no reply from Robert or anybody from ATT)
By the way, last night I was asked if there were any locked gates, dogs or access issues. I said there were not. How come the tech did not at least run the checks from outside? Your ATT folks at the number I called had no information.
Well, you can go ahead and have your crew check the lines but don't expect me to be here and don't expect me to have faith in your promises.
17:00 - I received a call back from ATT dispatch. The tech they sent was an inside tech. His name is William Helms. I was promised by Robert that the tech was informed that he was to call me when he was within 30 minutes of my residence. He did not call. Robert did not contact me either.
The lady who called me told me that an outside call will be scheduled for tomorrow and they were overbooked so the inside tech could not come back to my residence. We talked about the access outside and agreed that I would not be needed for the ATT outside tech tomorrow. She told me she will be keeping me updated as to the progress of the problem.
Back to you Robert ... the fellow who is not only dropping the ball ... over and over and not following up on things... I am still expecting a DM from you.
July 11, 2012
In this ongoing post I point out the guys in the black hats and the white hats... the bad guys and the good guys.
Sheamus Martin, outside line tech for ATT is one of the good guys. He took time to go over test procedures and test results. There was a line problem that was a grounding issue, not the main issue here but something the tech addressed.
One of my neighbors saw the ATT truck and came to ask if this was about the outage the other night at around 10pm. I said it was. Apparently it was not an issue where I was the only person with the problem. This was a matter of ATT taking down the system for some possible upgrade or whatever.
If you look back through this post you will generally see that the techs in the field are good guys.
Bottom line, the problem is resolved. Below are a few shots of Sheamus Martin on the job and making things right. Click on any of the below shots for a larger image.
4:45 pst update
I just received a call from Nicole over at ATT. She had called me last night and said she would call me back sometime today, which she did. One of the good folks in the organization.
Ken S from ATTTeamMike has been keeping in contact with me today via twitter DM. He took over for Robert, the fellow that dropped the ball. Ken is another one of those first rate folks that are all too rare in the ATT organization. Thanks to Ken for the follow up work and helping in regard to some other things as well.
Sam at ATT has been in contact with me from the Office of the President. I have dealt with him before. He is a get the job done fellow. His customer service chops are first rate, he is very quick to respond with details and technical information. I would guess that he has a strong technical background as his technical chops are as high as his customer service chops.
Lastly I would like to thank again Sheamus Martin, the line tech who came to my residence today. He spent a lot of time talking to me on technical levels.
These are the folks that need to be promoted and be the ones to train others. It is pretty clear that they are some of the rare exceptions to the ATT general rule and customer expectation. If you ATT folks want to improve things you should listen to the folks mentioned above.
We all hear about the 99% in America these days. Within the ATT organization the folks above are in the 1%. It is folks like these that keep me from switching from Uverse to a different vendor.
July 12,2010
The technical issues may be over but the incompetence lingers.
This morning I had a call from 818-240-1899. Actually two calls. The first call went to voice mail. They left no message.
On the second call the gentleman opened with the explanation that he was from ATT and asked if I have been having a problem.
I asked a few questions. He had no clue of what had been done or when the problem started initially. He was completely in the dark. Uninformed. Did not even look in one of their own computers it seems. Did not even offer to take a moment to look my account or information up in their computers.
Nope, this guy was going by the proverbial book and gathering information from the beginning. No treading old ground for his fellow.
I could not stop his banter. I told him that he did not want me having his name and employee ID or it would be printed here. He just kept going on and on when I tried to stop him and try to get him to listen to me, the customer.
I repeated, multiple times, that the problem had been addressed. I became tired of his antics and told him he was a day late and a dollar short and hung up on the fellow.
Yes ... it seems the problems never stop and even problems which have a ending where the customer is satisfied after the good work of four good people mentioned above, there is still a wrench that falls into the works.
ATT - you folks need to communicate more effectively. You need to share information across the same computer systems (which I have been told is not the case). You need to train the people that work directly with your customer base to know when to shut up and listen to the customer.
July 27, 2012
A new problem.
Today the 3600 series ATT Uverse wireless router failed, the wireless portion of the router. We could see many of the neighbors wireless networks but not our own.
The 3600 series router was installed by ATT about a year ago. At that time the 3800 series had been available for at least a year. I am not sure why an older version was installed in the first place but that may be the subject for a entry in this piece in the future.
My issue here is simple. Once again it seemed that ATT service is most effective at being the road block between a problem and solution.
I called them a little before 1pm PST.
I first talked to Brian, BE829 after being on hold for a while. He asked a few questions and then forwarded my call to somebody else. Seems they can never get you to the right people to handle your problem even with their time wasting automated phone system that asks about your problem and account info. Repeat everything over and over and over should be considered for use as the ATT motto.
Next in line was RJ, employee ID RH550F. He was given the account phone number but when the call dropped he did not call back.
Called 1-800-288-2020 again. More hold.
This time I must have gotten somebody fresh out of training or perhaps somebody that has no business in Customer Support. Unintelligible, headset mic too far from her mouth so could not hear her very well. Evasive when I explained that her name and ID would be noted in this blog. Teri (TW5973 or perhaps 597E, very difficult to understand her) was of no help. She put us on hold. The call was dropped shortly after being placed on hold.
Danielle (DM547V) had me on hold multiple times as she tried to sort out account information. As a side note, I was on the line after being fed up with being on hold with her as she waited many minutes for account information to appear on her computer. Seems their accounting systems can be as inefficient as some of their customer service.
An inside tech was scheduled to be at the house between 4pm and 8pm today. Hopefully they will show up this time. Last time they did not. I have had more than a few service calls where I was rescheduled (and not even informed about it) or where they did not even show up. This is Friday afternoon and if my two boys are without Internet access for the entire weekend I will be as upset as they will be.
I won't count the calls made to ATT dispatch, ATT Ken and ATT Sam. Sam is on vacation so I am not upset at the lack of a return call from him.
On the twitter front, this is what transpired at this point:
Over one hour on hold, multiple people for a simple service call. A cell phone battery draining ordeal if nothing else.
Then again, this may be the first of more problems as I do not have a lot of faith that the inside ATT tech will show up on time, or perhaps not at all. The last call I had with them the tech never showed up, left a note or called me as promised. You can read about that incident in one of the recent earlier problems documented above.
This post is getting so long that it is having trouble saving. I may start a part II.
15:25pst
I just received a call from Cate at ATT. For folks that don't want to scroll all over this piece or use <CNTL> F, I will keep it short and sweet. Cate is one of the good guys over at ATT. She has been directly responsible for solving problems for me in the past. She should be the director of ATT training. She has a really cute voice. Heck, if I were about 85 years younger I'd ask her out :) But I digress (as is my personal style).
Cate is following up on the problem and service call. She is contacting dispatch to intervene and make things run more smoothly than I might normally expect.
17:00 pst
Confidence is fading quickly.
Cate just left a voicemail on my phone. She said she had emailed the customer service manager in my area but she did not say anything that confirmed my appointment or confirmed that the customer service manager is even aware of aware of things. I am not surprised. If it is the same manager who was on watch during my last incident confidence is low to say the least.
No feedback from ATT Customer Care other than some tweets that Cate contacted customer support in my area. No confirmation from any of them.
The latest twitter dialogue:
Friday afternoon, after 5pm. I wonder what the odds are that a tech will actually show up for my scheduled appointment?
17:30pst
I just received a call from Tina (TC7101). Her first words was that she was taking over for Cate and she was confirming my service appointment for TOMORROW. Yes, I was upset and told her that was unacceptable. She checked again and said she made a mistake, that the appointment was indeed scheduled for today.
By the way ... is anybody counting how many folks have told me that I have an appointment for today? I have lost count.
I informed Tina of my lack of confidence and concern of no Internet over the weekend or perhaps longer.
I told her that Cate said she would get back to me with feedback from the manager in my area. She did not. Perhaps ignore my comments earlier about her being a cut above. When I was in this business my folks did not go home until a customer issue was resolved even if it meant working the next shift. Then again, folks liked our 24x7 network service.
Tina told me she was going to contact somebody. The tech or dispatch, and call me back in a few minutes. I have heard that story before, as early as a few hours ago by Cate come to think of it.
So, the clock continues to run as promises continue to be broken.
Stay tuned for updates.
This blog piece has grown so large that it has problems saving. I had to continue this in a Part II.
You can follow the continuing ATT saga and what seems to be continually ongoing events in Part II at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2012/07/at-so-wrong-in-every-way-part-ii.html
-the end for the moment-
Update on the problem, some twitter dialogue:
I was asked to DM somebody via twitter.
My message to them: If you look at the bottom of the post athttp://goo.gl/gBXt8 the problem is explained. Please opt me out of this program and confirm via DM
Their reply:
I'd love to help with this. I will need to provide your information to our executive escalation group. What's the best # to...
call you and the best time to reach you during the day? They will contact you directly within 2-3 business days. ^KenS
My reply (I had been down this road before):
Ken - this is nonsense. My phone is xxx-yyy-zzzz. You can find my account from there. 2-3 days? Not acceptable. Your app fails and I opt to not be a part of this nonsense. In the email it says I could have also called 288-2020 but did not want to be on hold forever. I have no problem in 2-3 days because my piece will continue distribution until the issue is resolved. But, I have no intention in waiting for a call that when it is missed the return number is not left on my phone. Bottom line, why don't you call that 288-2020 number and tell them I do not wish to have my information used by ATT as was my option. You have my name, my telephone which is my acct number, so you make it happen. You do not want me to waste anymore time, really.
As I stated earlier and displayed a screen snapshot, their app did not work which is what started all of this.
6/1/12
I received this update from ATT yesterday via twitter:
By going to our Office of the President they will ensure that this is handled, and usually leave their callback information. I have instructed them that you do not wish to have your info used within AT&T. They're the best suited to resolve this.^KenS
As of 10:15pst today I have received no call or confirmation that my request has been addressed.
At about 1:30pm I received a call from ATT. The gal on the other end of the line was not sure of much of anything. I told her to go read this blog piece at the end.
She was not clear on how I received the notification. She thought it was via conventional mail. One more reason I directed her to this blog. I told her I had screen snapshots of the initial issue and the issue that their application to remove myself from this ATT program of information use did not work. I also explained that a second screen snapshot also explained the ATT program which she did not understand.
It would have been nice if information had been passed from one person to another. ATT is very weak in this respect. Over the years I have lost count on how often I have to repeat the problem each time it is handed from one person to another. That was a primary factor in the creation of this ongoing blog which documents one issue after another. There are many messages within this blog piece in regard to technical issues, price and policy changes, service and lack of passing on information to name only a few basic subjects.
Update: The email below (see image below) has been received. This issue has been resolved.
July 9, 2012
Here we go again.
At about 10:20pm PST my television died and my internet dropped.
I rebooted the ATT Uverse router. Three times. No luck in getting back service.
I sent a few twitter texts to ATT Customer service with my cell phone. I had to use 3G as my wifi was down (ATT also supplies my Internet).
I will be calling the Office of the President tomorrow, perhaps while I wait over a four hour window for a service call which was scheduled by a fellow named Kyle ( employee ID KJ000C ) who was little if any help and not very adept at looking up past issues.
I got to Kyle by calling the ATT service number, 1-800-288-2020 and wading through their typical automated system nonsense.
Side note; Kyle told me I would receive a credit. I hope I do not have to go through that pro-rated nonsense again. I pay for service by the month. When I do not receive a month of service I expect a full credit.
I also expect a twitter response to narrow this four hour window.
I don't expect to sit at home on a work day for FOUR HOURS when nothing has changed inside my home in regard to wiring. This was indicated by your fellow Kyle to be a line problem that required a technician. Deja Vu. We have gone down this path before. In fact, in this post are photos of some of the many technicians who have worked on YOUR line problems. I see NO reason I need to be here and explained that to Kyle (along with giving him power level and dBm readings) but he was no help at all. Once again, I am VERY unhappy with your level of service and will not be surprised if it gets worse tomorrow unless one a the few folks that have helped in the past steps in.
I am also requesting that a report be sent to me telling me what the problem they found was. I understand that ATT is under no obligation to do this but if it is not done I will report that no report was supplied. This may indicate that there was no line issue or may show that as in the past, my profile was inadvertently changed in the ATT network control center which took down my service. They may not want to admit that they caused the problem.
As far as the "line problem" that Kyle found running his diagnostics? I suggested he run this again as the errors had stopped, line was stable and final receive gain within my house at the router was fine and dandy. I see no problem and expect the tech may find no new problem.
In fact, look at the packet sent and received in this latest screen snapshot just moments ago. Compare the counts. The errors have not increased either.
 |
| It is pretty clear there is NO line problem |
I will update this post as new information becomes available.
July 10, 2012
I still continue to strongly suspect that Kyle should have re-run his diagnostics last night as I requested. When he said there was an issue with the line and my service had started to work again I told him that while he and I were talking I was running my own diagnostics using ATT equipment and this may have been a reason the line bounced during his test.
His results were highly suspect yet he was too lazy or just did not have any reason to make the customer happy.
The two screen snapshots were taken a few minutes ago, a bit after 9am pst.
The error count has not increased and the only thing that has changed is the noise margin by 1/2 a dB. Things look stable.
In any case I will run a full diagnostic set and then post the results here. If there is not some sort of a screen snapshot in a little while it means that things are down and there is some sort of ATT issue. In that case I will send out some short twitter messages from my cell phone, myles111us is my twitter id.
9:20am - diagnostics complete
The DSL training errors over the last 15 minutes and other anomalies are due to the tests running and expected.
Some of the power levels and attenuation levels may be an issue or may be normal. I do not have the ATT guideline ranges.
I am requesting that ATT send me via email the acceptable ranges of these parameters.
I have asked the ATT customer service fellow who has been working with me for a line retest to ascertain whether a service call is actually needed. He has not replied to this request.
Here is some of the recent dialogue:
 | Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 11:48 AM I am waiting for a reply on a line retest and whether this service call is even necessary |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 11:46 AM That is not much help as it depends on the tech location if he is on the other side of the city |
 | ATTTeamMikeT (@ATTTeamMikeT) 7/10/12 11:42 AM Hello, most recent update is tech is still on the first job, but your job is listed next. Ty^Robert G |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 11:08 AM I am still surprised that nobody ran diags again to confirm if a service call is actually necessary. |
Earlier dialogue on the same subject today:
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 10:27 AM I am also waiting for your results on testing to see if this service call, scheduled by Kyle, is even necessary. |
A bit of the latest, latest at the top of the below string:
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:44 PM ... between the tech in the field or somebody at a console that could answer this question in under 60 seconds. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:43 PM This is the first time you responded directly to that question unless I missed it before. It is now a race ... (at a snails pace?) ... |
| ATTTeamMikeT (@ATTTeamMikeT) 7/10/12 1:41 PM Hello,I have already requested this from our tech group and will try to get that to you before the tech arrives.Ty^RobertG |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:38 PM I have asked you to do this multiple times and you continue to avoid the question. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:36 PM Can somebody PLEASE run a line test from your NOC as they did last night and tell me the status BEFORE the tech arrives. |
3:04pm - no arrival by ATT tech. Thought I'd post a little facebook screen snapshot stuff that came from some of my traffic reports.
15:25 pst
My Internet / Uverse bounced. Perhaps they are running the line test again which I requested.
 |
| 15:18 pst |
 |
| 15:20 pst |
 |
| 15:21 pst |
 |
| 15:21 pst The last 15 minute column errors are due to line testing. |
4:00 pm PST
I just received an email from the ATT level 2 tech folks. Side note, at Infonet I ran level 3, tech support, engineering and development hence my reply to their email which I will post below.
My concern is, when they change things or alter my profile there are generally longer term problems. Once the issues are resolved there can be instances of my altered profile getting backed up with a previous bad line profile. Their house keeping and record keeping leave much to be desired. I referred to my thinking in this area in my paragraph below .... "I still strongly suspect ...."
Justin,
Thank you for the report.
The line is normally pretty stable. Only last night was there an issue since the last issue which was a while ago and not nearly as severe.
I will talk to the tech when he arrives about this and look at his test results. The line appears to be stable but if things can be improved that would be nice.
I still strongly suspect due to the nature, measurements on my end and duration of the incident that something happened in your network control center. I hope somebody looked at the event logs from last night.
I spent two decades in the comm business, my last stint of a decade with Infonet / British Telecom where I was in Engineering and was in charge of the iP, x.25, Frame Relay and ATM platforms.
--- On Tue, 7/10/12, U-verse Care <g05126@att.com> wrote:
--- On Tue, 7/10/12, U-verse Care <g05126@att.com> wrote:
From: U-verse Care <g05126@att.com>
Subject: Line issue description per your request - BAN 106557457
To: "mylesxxxxxxx>
Cc: "ATTRobertG" <ATTRobertG@att.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2012, 3:17 PM
Mr. Rose,
This is Justin with U-verse Tier 2 technical support. Thank you for contacting the U-verse Social Media Support team where it is our goal to resolve your issue as quickly as possible. I apologize for the issues with your service and I'm glad to be of assistance.
Your line is showing to have some moderate VDSL crosstalk - meaning another circuit near yours is interfering with your modems communication - and likely vice versa. This is usually a symptom of something else such as metallic fault or loose twisting. This is causing your modem to reinitialize the connection to regain communication. We wouldn't be able to tell you anything specific about the possible line faults. The field technician will troubleshoot and hunt for the fault and if they can't locate any issues near your home they will engage an outside technician to look at the service lines feeding your home. I hope this answers your questions and that this message finds you well.
Regards,
Justin M. Phillips
U-verse Tier2 Social Media Support Team
SMST Hours 7:00AM to 9:00PM Monday - Saturday
My Schedule: Tuesday - Friday 7a-6p CST
Rethink Possible
Check out our support center: http://support.att.com/
Side note .... it is 4:06pm pst and ATT has not arrived or called to say they would be late. So much for their four hour 12-4 window.
4:30pm PST - no update from ATT, no DM from twitter, no call from tech.
4:47pm pst - I called ATT dispatch and they told me .... well ... let me just copy my DM messages that I just sent to Robert who is the fellow who lied to me and dropped the ball in ATTTeamMikeT's group.
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:45 PM be here in the next 30 minutes. It is incredible, the lack of internal communication in your organization. The disorganization is |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:44 PM me that things were in process. No note was left. All I can say is somebody better call me in the next 30 minutes and somebody better |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:44 PM that I would receive a call so I did not have to sit and wait all day. There was no call. There was no text. All the while you told |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:43 PM You liar! I just called dispatch. I was told that a tech showed up at my house at 1:09 pst and left because nobody was here. You promised |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:22 PM I expect a response from you and an update from you within minutes. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:22 PM ... to have this rescheduled because you could not dispatch techs properly. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:21 PM Am I supposed to wait around here all night? Will somebody else be sent if this tech does not finish his job? I DO NOT intend .... |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 4:09 PM The four hour tech arrival has come and gone. No call or update from the tech either. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 3:50 PM I will look. I saw tests being run a little while ago |
| ATTTeamMikeT (@ATTTeamMikeT) 7/10/12 3:48 PM Hi, our tech contact has sent an e-mail as you requested.TY^Robert G |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:44 PM ... between the tech in the field or somebody at a console that could answer this question in under 60 seconds. |
| Myles Rose (@myles111us) 7/10/12 1:43 PM This is the first time you responded directly to that question unless I missed it before. It is now a race ... (at a snails pace?) ... |
| ATTTeamMikeT (@ATTTeamMikeT) 7/10/12 1:41 PM Hello,I have already requested this from our tech group and will try to get that to you before the tech arrives.Ty^RobertG Side note by Myles ... at this point the tech had already come and gone but I Robert was clueless. See above for details. |
By the way, last night I was asked if there were any locked gates, dogs or access issues. I said there were not. How come the tech did not at least run the checks from outside? Your ATT folks at the number I called had no information.
Well, you can go ahead and have your crew check the lines but don't expect me to be here and don't expect me to have faith in your promises.
17:00 - I received a call back from ATT dispatch. The tech they sent was an inside tech. His name is William Helms. I was promised by Robert that the tech was informed that he was to call me when he was within 30 minutes of my residence. He did not call. Robert did not contact me either.
The lady who called me told me that an outside call will be scheduled for tomorrow and they were overbooked so the inside tech could not come back to my residence. We talked about the access outside and agreed that I would not be needed for the ATT outside tech tomorrow. She told me she will be keeping me updated as to the progress of the problem.
Back to you Robert ... the fellow who is not only dropping the ball ... over and over and not following up on things... I am still expecting a DM from you.
July 11, 2012
In this ongoing post I point out the guys in the black hats and the white hats... the bad guys and the good guys.
Sheamus Martin, outside line tech for ATT is one of the good guys. He took time to go over test procedures and test results. There was a line problem that was a grounding issue, not the main issue here but something the tech addressed.
One of my neighbors saw the ATT truck and came to ask if this was about the outage the other night at around 10pm. I said it was. Apparently it was not an issue where I was the only person with the problem. This was a matter of ATT taking down the system for some possible upgrade or whatever.
If you look back through this post you will generally see that the techs in the field are good guys.
Bottom line, the problem is resolved. Below are a few shots of Sheamus Martin on the job and making things right. Click on any of the below shots for a larger image.
4:45 pst update
I just received a call from Nicole over at ATT. She had called me last night and said she would call me back sometime today, which she did. One of the good folks in the organization.
Ken S from ATTTeamMike has been keeping in contact with me today via twitter DM. He took over for Robert, the fellow that dropped the ball. Ken is another one of those first rate folks that are all too rare in the ATT organization. Thanks to Ken for the follow up work and helping in regard to some other things as well.
Sam at ATT has been in contact with me from the Office of the President. I have dealt with him before. He is a get the job done fellow. His customer service chops are first rate, he is very quick to respond with details and technical information. I would guess that he has a strong technical background as his technical chops are as high as his customer service chops.
Lastly I would like to thank again Sheamus Martin, the line tech who came to my residence today. He spent a lot of time talking to me on technical levels.
These are the folks that need to be promoted and be the ones to train others. It is pretty clear that they are some of the rare exceptions to the ATT general rule and customer expectation. If you ATT folks want to improve things you should listen to the folks mentioned above.
We all hear about the 99% in America these days. Within the ATT organization the folks above are in the 1%. It is folks like these that keep me from switching from Uverse to a different vendor.
July 12,2010
The technical issues may be over but the incompetence lingers.
This morning I had a call from 818-240-1899. Actually two calls. The first call went to voice mail. They left no message.
On the second call the gentleman opened with the explanation that he was from ATT and asked if I have been having a problem.
I asked a few questions. He had no clue of what had been done or when the problem started initially. He was completely in the dark. Uninformed. Did not even look in one of their own computers it seems. Did not even offer to take a moment to look my account or information up in their computers.
Nope, this guy was going by the proverbial book and gathering information from the beginning. No treading old ground for his fellow.
I could not stop his banter. I told him that he did not want me having his name and employee ID or it would be printed here. He just kept going on and on when I tried to stop him and try to get him to listen to me, the customer.
I repeated, multiple times, that the problem had been addressed. I became tired of his antics and told him he was a day late and a dollar short and hung up on the fellow.
Yes ... it seems the problems never stop and even problems which have a ending where the customer is satisfied after the good work of four good people mentioned above, there is still a wrench that falls into the works.
ATT - you folks need to communicate more effectively. You need to share information across the same computer systems (which I have been told is not the case). You need to train the people that work directly with your customer base to know when to shut up and listen to the customer.
July 27, 2012
A new problem.
Today the 3600 series ATT Uverse wireless router failed, the wireless portion of the router. We could see many of the neighbors wireless networks but not our own.
The 3600 series router was installed by ATT about a year ago. At that time the 3800 series had been available for at least a year. I am not sure why an older version was installed in the first place but that may be the subject for a entry in this piece in the future.
My issue here is simple. Once again it seemed that ATT service is most effective at being the road block between a problem and solution.
I called them a little before 1pm PST.
I first talked to Brian, BE829 after being on hold for a while. He asked a few questions and then forwarded my call to somebody else. Seems they can never get you to the right people to handle your problem even with their time wasting automated phone system that asks about your problem and account info. Repeat everything over and over and over should be considered for use as the ATT motto.
Next in line was RJ, employee ID RH550F. He was given the account phone number but when the call dropped he did not call back.
Called 1-800-288-2020 again. More hold.
This time I must have gotten somebody fresh out of training or perhaps somebody that has no business in Customer Support. Unintelligible, headset mic too far from her mouth so could not hear her very well. Evasive when I explained that her name and ID would be noted in this blog. Teri (TW5973 or perhaps 597E, very difficult to understand her) was of no help. She put us on hold. The call was dropped shortly after being placed on hold.
Danielle (DM547V) had me on hold multiple times as she tried to sort out account information. As a side note, I was on the line after being fed up with being on hold with her as she waited many minutes for account information to appear on her computer. Seems their accounting systems can be as inefficient as some of their customer service.
An inside tech was scheduled to be at the house between 4pm and 8pm today. Hopefully they will show up this time. Last time they did not. I have had more than a few service calls where I was rescheduled (and not even informed about it) or where they did not even show up. This is Friday afternoon and if my two boys are without Internet access for the entire weekend I will be as upset as they will be.
I won't count the calls made to ATT dispatch, ATT Ken and ATT Sam. Sam is on vacation so I am not upset at the lack of a return call from him.
On the twitter front, this is what transpired at this point:
Tweets
Myles Rose Over one hour on hold, multiple people for a simple service call. A cell phone battery draining ordeal if nothing else.
Then again, this may be the first of more problems as I do not have a lot of faith that the inside ATT tech will show up on time, or perhaps not at all. The last call I had with them the tech never showed up, left a note or called me as promised. You can read about that incident in one of the recent earlier problems documented above.
This post is getting so long that it is having trouble saving. I may start a part II.
15:25pst
I just received a call from Cate at ATT. For folks that don't want to scroll all over this piece or use <CNTL> F, I will keep it short and sweet. Cate is one of the good guys over at ATT. She has been directly responsible for solving problems for me in the past. She should be the director of ATT training. She has a really cute voice. Heck, if I were about 85 years younger I'd ask her out :) But I digress (as is my personal style).
Cate is following up on the problem and service call. She is contacting dispatch to intervene and make things run more smoothly than I might normally expect.
17:00 pst
Confidence is fading quickly.
Cate just left a voicemail on my phone. She said she had emailed the customer service manager in my area but she did not say anything that confirmed my appointment or confirmed that the customer service manager is even aware of aware of things. I am not surprised. If it is the same manager who was on watch during my last incident confidence is low to say the least.
No feedback from ATT Customer Care other than some tweets that Cate contacted customer support in my area. No confirmation from any of them.
The latest twitter dialogue:
ts
Friday afternoon, after 5pm. I wonder what the odds are that a tech will actually show up for my scheduled appointment?
17:30pst
I just received a call from Tina (TC7101). Her first words was that she was taking over for Cate and she was confirming my service appointment for TOMORROW. Yes, I was upset and told her that was unacceptable. She checked again and said she made a mistake, that the appointment was indeed scheduled for today.
By the way ... is anybody counting how many folks have told me that I have an appointment for today? I have lost count.
I informed Tina of my lack of confidence and concern of no Internet over the weekend or perhaps longer.
I told her that Cate said she would get back to me with feedback from the manager in my area. She did not. Perhaps ignore my comments earlier about her being a cut above. When I was in this business my folks did not go home until a customer issue was resolved even if it meant working the next shift. Then again, folks liked our 24x7 network service.
Tina told me she was going to contact somebody. The tech or dispatch, and call me back in a few minutes. I have heard that story before, as early as a few hours ago by Cate come to think of it.
So, the clock continues to run as promises continue to be broken.
Stay tuned for updates.
This blog piece has grown so large that it has problems saving. I had to continue this in a Part II.
You can follow the continuing ATT saga and what seems to be continually ongoing events in Part II at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2012/07/at-so-wrong-in-every-way-part-ii.html
-the end for the moment-
Myles Rose is the founder of Guitar Amplifier Blueprinting which provides support services and training for touring bands and individuals as well as blueprinting services. You may contact me from the link. My direct contact information is provided as well as links to two of the Internet forums where I answer technical questions. You may also ask questions in any post in this blog by using the comment application on each post.
When I am not doing something related to music I do what I can to support the homeless of Los Angeles either directly on the streets at night or through my good friends at Union Rescue Mission.
Posts
AT&T lately is getting bad testimonials from various subscribers.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if, like some of the big financial companies, the gov't will think that "AT&T is too big to allow to fail"? People vote with their dollars and it seems to me that you might just want to switch services altogether and start fresh with a company that has better customer service.
ReplyDelete-Richard
Myles,
ReplyDeleteCan we create a wifi type grid and bypass these fools? Read something about this in use in Afghanistan. Your thoughts?
Doug - there has to be some carrier for the traffic somewhere. Unless you have a network deployed of some sort wifi means nothing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your tweet inviting me to leave a comment here. I've been so busy going round and round with @ATT, I'm just now catching up! I've started posting on my blog about it,--but haven't been nearly as detailed about documenting things for the past year. My post: http://snips.ly/attfails
ReplyDeleteI've randomly posted links to my speedtest.net results on Twitter, and after becoming extremely frustrated, (this word doesn't fully express my feelings towards @ATT), wrote a post on my blog. In fact, I need to update it...... still nothing done, nothing ordered, nothing resolved. They *did*, however, credit my account.
However, the "value" of crediting my account cannot even begin to compensate for the true "cost" of all the b.s. that I appeared to be mired in! Good Internet service is hugely important to me as I work from home. I'm just SO thankful that I did not purchase a wireless air card from AT&T! Instead, I went with Clear,--and believe it or not, I can count on my little Clear (4G) "hotspot" to keep me connected for an entire day without dropping service. (Imagine that!) I recently ordered Clear's wireless router (a great bundle deal) for home, and have been pleasantly surprised at how good the connection has been on my desktop & printer. The only downside to Clear's service is that it doesn't handle 2-3 x-box's, TV's, and Internet.
My brother lives in Temecula, and I LOVE going out there! He has Verizon FIOS directly to his house, and it is no exaggeration to say that I can get done in 3 hours what takes me 8-10 to do here in San Antonio.
Unfortunately, it, (Verizon FIOS), isn't available where I'm at. I keep hoping though,...and in the meantime, I'm still waiting. Waiting on @ATT to "get permission" to order the iNID setup. I'm no longer sure "who" needs to be asked permission as supposedly it was "the" manager who came out to my house on Friday. When I tried to ask, "the" manager, he told me to just be patient; he's going to be out of the office this coming week, (1/9/11-1/15). Why am I not surprised?
And, I suppose this "dates" me,--but I DO remember when "Southwestern Bell" existed.
In the meantime, if y'all (sorry, it's a Texas thing) come up with a bypass....count me in. :)
ATT can bite the wall!
ReplyDeleteI will be traveling with the company for about six (6) months out of country. They denied our request to unlock in order to use our phones abroad (whilst paying the fee/mo for the account to go "hold" status). After a 20+ year relationship with Cingular/AT&T it will be over at first available opportunity.
Did I mention that ATT can bite the wall?
Useful piece , I Appreciate the analysis , Does anyone know where my company might be able to obtain a sample ECMC Statement of Financial Status version to work with ?
ReplyDelete