AT&T Customer Abuse

[Westerly Sunn]

Of course, they call it Customer Service... You guys think UPS is bad? HA!

My dear girlfriend is the one that has been fighting this dragon. We're talking a cheap $30.00 Go phone. I have resisted cell phones... but I drive 20 miles to work across the swamp every night, so I figured I really needed some kinda' cell; preferably cheap... She has a Go Phone and it works fine, so I; not wanting a regular account thought it would be a goo emergency solution for me.
She buys me one but it turns out it has some kind of transceiver problem. Most of the time; coming up "No Network" and half of the time when it show signal losing network connection as soon as you try to place a call. That's where the Customer Service (abuse) nightmare began. Calls to service resulting in Round robins of menus to get to a live person. Doing the same troubleshooting and giving the same info over and over only to be cutoff and having to start over... Getting to techs and warranty service only by the most stoic and stalwart perserverence... Being told to go to a "Device Support Center" 70 miles away that will not give out a phone number by even the most diligent and creative efforts to learn such... Looking on the internet and seeing that your phone (Samsung A137) is not listed as being supported and subsequently being assured by other At&T personnel that they will support it... Going there (140 miles round trip) to be told that they don't support it and that you can't get their phone number because they "are not set up that way"...

We have been sent two replacement phones (both Samsung A137's) and both get SIM crashes when we try to load the original SIM card into them...
Even their Tech guys obviously and admittedly don't understand what's going on here, but it seems apparent at this point that the phones they're sending must have firmware that is incompatible with the SIM card from the original phone... but whatta' I know? I hated the #@$@ things to start with and shoulda' stayed away from 'em... GRR!

Anybody know why the two replacements get SIM Crashes with the SIM card from the same model original... Any tricks to get 'em to boot up? The Sim never even had user data stored to it and still will boot on the original phone...

Tech says keep original until replacement works and then send back while they have hired guns calling to get phones sent back... left hand not aware of right, of course... What happened to trouble tickets and contact numbers? I guess only Corporate customers get that kind of service, huh?

[Slow Reflexes]

Buy/borrow a cheapo Nokia brick phone and plug the SIM card into it?

Maybe it's the card itself?

[Westerly Sunn]

yep... see a 3310 online for 27 bucks... Guess that's an option... The SIM card works in the original... but there's sure a puzzle piece I'm missing in getting it to boot in the two replacements they sent.

[Groovey Records]

use virgin at radio shack

$20 phone

$20 200 minutes a month

no problemo

[neocaster]

I well worded letter of concern to their CEO will expedite a positive outcome. Be civil, express your disappointment, thank Mr. Stephenson for his time, and wait 24-48 hours.

[chet]

Verizon Wireless customer service sucks also. It takes you five minutes just to get to talk to a real person if you're lucky.

I canceled my cell phone service and they made up a bunch of charges that I had to pay afterwards.

I regret ever getting Verizon Wireless.

[nvilletele]

There are few companies, especially cell phone companies, that have anything other than customer dis-service these days . . . Just because they give you a phone (that you pay for, in one way or another), doesn't mean they will allow you to use it to talk to THEM.

That said, at least for coverage, Verizon beats AT&T in most places. Plus VZW (as well as Sprint) has CDMA and EV-DO technology, superior in most respects to that used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

[kelnet]

Originally Posted by chet

Verizon Wireless customer service sucks also. It takes you five minutes just to get to talk to a real person if you're lucky.

Have you seen the Louis CK video on another thread?

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/bad-dog-c...s-happy-2.html

[tazzboy]

Tracfone is the Number one in Pre-paid Cell Phone Service has a far better coverage map then AT&T.

[Groovey Records]

Originally Posted by kelnet

Have you seen the Louis CK video on another thread?

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/bad-dog-c...s-happy-2.html

Try some bongoes or carrier pigeon

[tboy]

I signed up with AT$T: For a day. Got home and found out my phones didn't work here. Call CS, and they told me I had "marginal" service at my address. I said "define marginal." She said, "no service."

Took the phones back to Costco, where they should have accessed a map to tell us this before we signed up. No prob. Return; cancel; no charge.

AT$T sends us a bill for 4 hundred; early cancellation. We fought and ended up with a 14 dollar bill. PITA!

[PapaBeef]

I hate phones & swore I'd never carry one around with me.
But I had a job where I was on the road all day driving my 18 year old Chevy pickup with well over 300,000 miles on it. So I needed some way to call for help in an emergency.
I went to the Virgin Mobil site & got a phone with $20 worth of air time for $20.
It's been fine for me. Works every time I need it. And I only go through about $10. worth of air time a month. I don't have to be bothered with a contract or anything.
But I will say it's crazy trying to talk to a real person in customer service with them too. The one time I had a problem with $85. being drawn from my checking account & not credited to my phone account,it took several weeks to resolve & they have the most annoying automated robot CSR I've ever dealt with.
I would like to have Catherine Zeta Jones come to my house & give me an MCI Mobil Makeover though.

[otaypanky]

here's another example of how truly insane AT&T is ~

We were moving my then nearly 90 year old Mom to come and have her live with us. We called to have her landline phone service disconnected. She had lived in the house 43 years. Get this-turns out she had been LEASING the old rotary phones in the house for 43 YEARS! Yikes! How much could THAT have cost, I shudder to think. But here's the kicker --- AT&T wouldn't disconnect her service and stop charging her until I disconnected the hardwired phones from the wall and reurned them to AT&T.

[Deaf Eddie]

+1 for Tracfone - cheap and pretty good customer service.

My experience: I ran over my original phone (Motorola C139), eBayed a replacement and new SIM - the SIMS themselves are not transferable, but they transfered my balance (minutes and access) to the new SIM. Total cost to replace the phone: ten bucks and two phone calls.

It's a big bill up front - something like $100 for a year, and 400 minutes to get started - but that's less than ten bucks a month for reliable service, and the minutes NEVER expire - I've had my phone for three or four years now, have accrued 1300 minutes in my account (I don't use it much).

Pretty cheap security, and there have been two emergencies where it was a lifesaver.