May 02 2008
Why ATT sucks pt 2
Every time I try to pay my ATT bill it’s always a hassle. Their automated message systems and the people are extremely incomptennt. Here’s how my call went.
- I get an automated message and get transfered to an operator.
- I say my customer number to the operator #1, she says ok and puts me on hold.
- While on hold, I get transfered back to a different automated message.
- I manage to speak to operator #2Â and tell her my customer number.
- She can’t deal with my type of account, so she sends me to somebody who can do that.
- Operator #3 will have to charge me a fee, if she processes my payment, which is weird because I’ve done it before with an operator for free. I tell her I’ll just use the automated message system to pay.
- I give the automated message system my customer number and it transfers me to operator #4. She finally takes my payment without fee.
It took 18 minutes and four different operators to pay my bill.
This isn’t the first time, I’ve been juggled around the ATT support network; they’re so big that they can’t give the correct training to all their employees. ATT has at least 20 different numbers that you can call, but odds are none of them will get you to where you need to be.
Yeah.
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Couldn’t agree with you more. It’s been a hassle ever since the day ATT bought Bellsouth and cinglular which I had absolutely no problem with. It can take hours to pay ATT. They want to charge you excess amounts, screw up your account, take no responsibility for that, yet make it as hard to pay a bill as any company I’ve ever dealt with online I’ve hated them from day one. Untili I wrote them and told them that I could get nothing done online. The seem to think this is back in the dark ages when ATT WAS the telephone company and don’t seem to get it through their thick heads that they are no longer the only business on the block. They should be ashamed of their bookkeeping methods, assuming of course they have any. They waltzed back into the internet phone business with what looks to me like no training on how to run a website. Speaking of which, have you ever seen such a mess as their home website? They are the same money grubbers they ever were but can’t seem to work out how to get the public to pay them. It’s like they stepped out of the closet of the breakup from the dark ages and just can’t seem to get how to live in the 21st century. Their money grubbing goes so far as to want us to send checks for our bills and then charge us another $5.00 to do that. PAYPAL people. If you can’t run your office at least give us a simple way to pay the lousy bill. I still hate ATT but hve man more reasons now than before.
I have been on hold for 30 minutes.
Not even a surprise. ATT is so big they can’t be good at customer service.
OH MY GOSH!!!! Every time I think my phone is fixed, it goes out again. I have crossed lines where I show up as other people on caller id, randomly, the phone will start clicking and calling other numbers in the middle of conversations. Almost every time I get a phone call on the land line with ATT, my ATT DSL stops for a second or two, just enough to kick me offline and make my software freeze up for a bit. I’m trying to run a business from home and this is HELL! After I hang up from a call, it’s often several minutes before I can get a dial tone. THIS HAS BEEN 11 MONTHS NOW!!!! They have refunded half of my bill for the first 8 months when we thought they finally had it fixed 3 months ago. Now, it’s going to be 100% refund or I’m going to the state Corporation Commission for their failure to provide service for the price they are charging me. I know my tech personally now and he is the one who opens the tickets and then other guys have to work it. They can’t figure out ANYTHING! There’s apparently a guy in our neighborhood whose DSL goes off every hour on the hour. It’s just insane and QUITE bothersome to everyone I talk to. I can’t believe the incompetence in this company as they act like I’m the idiot – I had a manager come stand in my home office and try to blame my problems on my Vonage phone (which I put in well before i had any problems and I use it for all my long distance because I refuse to pay ATT for anything I don’t have to. The moron didn’t even know what a Vonage phoneline was (hooks directly into the wireless router, just like another computer) or how it worked. I had to show him. Then he had the nerve to yell at me about having to keep sending techs out to my house all the time! HELL-O!!!! I about lost it and practically screamed at him to OH getting a call so I’ll lose my signal – later.
everytime i try to pay my bill i want to SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i can’t log in. it doesn’t recognize my phone number!!!!!!!!!!
I call and go thru miles and miles of conversation – dialing no less than 6 numbers, on hold! I pay all my other bills online ——— but not my internet service!!!!!!!!
I HATE AT&T
The caller ID on my outgoing calls displays the wrong information. I have complained to AT&T many times but they are unwilling or unable to fix it. Supervisors refuse to return calls. I’m not sure if it’s stupidity, laziness or incompetence. The bigger the company the worse the support. Smaller companies take pride, bigger companies take our money and run.
UNBELEIVE ABLE. Tried to get a virtual card to call someone overseas over the holidays, spoke to 8 different ppl who couldnt tell me how many minutes to Australia my $30 buys me. Trying to get same service on home phone, been on hold for 30 minutes. If any terrorists read this blog, here is a target most US citizens would support.
AT&T, formerly Cingular wireless…Only a name change. I started working for them last november. Lied to from day one on location i’d work at to every day operations. Paystub stills says Cingular on it… so they really just changed there signs. All they care about is new sales. Once ur a customer..F U.. Most of the managers and sales people put features on your account without your knowledge. Then when you get the short bill it’s hard to tell difference between taxes and fees. I had so many people paying for roadside assistance never knew about and talk dial, which all phones have built in.
Then when I was let go for not hitting new quota, because i wouldn’t flip customers into a new number, they are now fighting my unemployment. If i had 10 pages to write i could fill them. CHECK you Bill!!!!!!
I first hated AT&T because I worked for them. While their pay/benefits isn’t too bad, they treat their employees quite poorly. I quit.
I had very good service with Cingular. Then AT&T bought them, and everything has gone downhill from there. We have all of the problems with the website that others mentioned. We have all of the problems with billing that others mentioned. We have all of the problems with our two cell phones and wireless for the laptop – and then some. I’ve called almost a dozen times in the past month, and they have been of no help whatsoever. If you call in and happen to get a rep who actually understands what you’re talking about, they get rude, because you had the audacity to ask them to do something.
Whenever there’s a problem – whether it’s your phone, or spoiled food in the refrigerator, or a bad economy, the answer is always the same: you need a new SIM card. We’ve replaced the SIM cards several times. That isn’t the problem. AT&T is.
I’m done arguing with them. I’m taking legal action.
hi everyone can have any complaints with att or billing errors mail me me at billhelpatt.aol.com i may be able to help u with many of issues
at&t has just made me a life-long Verizon customer. I’ve spent most of my day trying to get a contract and a phone. That’s right, I want to give them money. They’re not having it. It’s just one problem after another, one level of incompetence after another. Honestly, I’ve found Verizon treats their customers pretty good, especially after what I’ve just endured. Go Verizon!
“this may be the last time you call about your at7t account” They are soooooooooooo bad and pakastani.
you can’t do what you need to do online and you can’t get someone on the phone. and then they are foreign and you can’t understand them.
they are so sorry for the inconvenience.
I used to work for ATT. I can tell you what the problem is. The “managers” and “supervisors/associate directors”. They trained us, and when we started to work on our own, everything was completely different from training. The “managers” advice? “Fake it until you make it. The customer doesn’t have to know things are different now.” I promise you, they actually told us that. You see, their training material is outdated, and they don’t have any plans on updating. I could go on and on about the incompetence of this “corporation”, but I’ll stop. To end the story, I’ll tell you this: I was fired, because I did not raise my hand and ask for permission to go to the bathroom. Yes, I’m serious. The managers/director wanted everyone to sit at their area, and raise their hand until a manager noticed them, and then ask if it was ok to use the bathroom. However, all of the managers were constantly in the lounge, watching tv. We had instant messages, but weren’t allowed to send one to a manager about going to the bathroom. You had to raise your hand and wait/pray that a manager noticed you, even if you were on the other side of the building. So if you really had to go, you were expected to suffer. Well, I held and held, and finally said “screw it”, and went to the bathroom. I was fired the next day. Since then, I’ve heard that they’ve established another rule saying that you only have 3 minutes to use the bathroom. If it takes any longer, managers go in the bathroom and tell you to hurry up, or you’ll be written up/fired. Whew… Okay, I’m done ranting.
I’m slowly getting rid of AT&T . I’m a 16 year cell customer, first with Bellsouth, who sold/merged with Cingular, who sold/merged with AT&T…who billed one of my two lines for three years for the above-mentioned 2.99/month ‘Roadside Assistance’. Roadside assistance? I didn’t order that.
‘Don’t you read you bill sir?’ Not that closely, do you? ‘Yes sir, I read mine every month.’ So, take this charge for a service I didn’t know I had, so couldn’t have used it anyway, off my account. I’ve paid over a hundred bucks for something I didn’t even know I had. While you’re at it, I’d like a refund. ‘Well, it’s the first week of the month, I can give you a prorated discount of $2.40 off your bill.’ What? Give me a supervisor.
Long story short, I got a $10 discount off my $100+ that I paid for a service I didn’t even know I had, never signed up for and didn’t want. The kicker was: this was on my daughter’s phone. She doesn’t even have a drivers license…wasn’t even old enough for one when we signed up.
I asked them to remove my 2nd (fax) line…which carried my DSL signal. Hook it up to the voice line. ‘Nope…can’t do that. We’ll give you second line, data only.’ Came home that evening, I had no line at all. No fax, no DSL…after being a happy Bellsouth DSL customer for nine years. Call them up…no help, no idea why it’s gone; but they’ll have my service hooked up…in three days. No problem getting my email, no issues…except I was assured it would be seamless; no interruption.
Next day, I’ve got a sync lite on my modem. I call customer support who tries to hook me up…must’ve gotten it ‘provisioned’ early. Only as soon as I hang up, I’ve lost my access. Call back; ‘Three days’ they say…or maybe tomorrow.
Long story short, after three days, at least 12 hours on the phone with at least 15 different representatives from three departments (and god knows how many different countries), incoming email bouncinng–and after being told for the 20th time, it would be ‘just one more day’–I canceled the order and called Comcast.
That’s the subject of another rant…..
Is there no such thing as customer service anymore?
ATT & suck is too weak a connection. It should be 1-800-ATTSUCKS
I tried to get service with ATT. They sent me a modem and then never showed up for the install. I called them and they told me I didn’t have an account even though I had a modem in hand. I spent 2 days waiting for these clowns and visiting all the call centers out side the US they own. Eventually I got ComCast, which I didn’t want to do. 2 months alter I started receiving bills for service never installed or completed. I just spent an hour trying to get a mailing label to get rid of the modem I never used. I also spent days trying to get this label 2 months ago.
It is hard to imagine worse service than ATT
AT&T Unified Messaging / Uverse support experience sucks in ways so bad it’s truly epic. Beyond belief. AT&T SUPPORT = FAIL
My horrible experience -
I move into a new house 1 mile away from where I currently live
I call AT&T and inform them of my move. I would like to transfer my existing phone and internet service
So far so good
We move into the new house, Phone is working witihn one day, internet takes 2 weeks due to unclear issues with UVERSE.
A month later we notice that no one seems to be leaving us voice mails anymore. (We have Unified Messaging). I try to log into my unified message service by my username password does not work anymore
I call AT&T Unified Messaging support, the problem? When we moved they DELETED OUR UNIFIED MESSAGING ACCOUNT and switched us over the the regular messaging account!!! No warning, no letter, no email, nothing, they just deleted it! Supports response to my outrage was “don’t soot the messenger, lets just get this fixed.” The fix? Give me the account info I need to hear the LAST MONTH OF VOICE MAIL I NEVER KNEW WAS WAITING FOR ME, then Activate Unified Messaging for my account.
I was transfered to support to get my Unified Messaging account activated, they transfered me to Uverse support
Uverse support transfered me to Premiere support
Premiere support transfered me to regular support, at this point I discovered I should not use the word Uverse because they ASSUME that means I have uverse for Phone which is not the case, I have an analogue phone. From here I get transfered to the VM department.
The VM department transfered me to the Residential service department
The Residential service department finally set me up with a Unified Messaging account. They said it would be activated by the end of the day. I asked him to provide the information I would need to log into the Unified Messaging account (email/password). He did not know! After being on hold for 5 minutes he came back and told me to enter my email then click on forgot password. I told him I would do that but needed to know what the email was. He told me the email they had for me on record was my sbcglobal.net account. All said and done I spent 1hr 15 minutes on the phone.
At the end of the day I tried to log into Unified Messaging using my sbcglobal account. The lost password option did not work. I called the 800 support number and they were closed. At this time the automated support gave me the email I would need to use and password based on my order number. I entered this information and it still did not work.
Looks like if it is still not working tomorrow I will have to get another torture session with AT&T support. This whole experience really makes me sick to my stomach. I am seriously considering moving over to Comcast.
Summary on AT&T from my point of view:
Fragmented and disorganized
Untrained staff (Probably due to high turnover)
Lack of communication (No email or acknowledgement on service changes?!)
I work for AT&T going on 3 yrs now since I first started things have drastically changed, I have seen 9 supervisors come and go as they begin to get comfortable and used to the area and begin on making changes for the better they get transferred to another area, a lot of techs dont have the right equipment to do the job right all they care is dispatching and turning all the rules set in place help us fail, the care for the customer is just a cover up, all they want is to figure out where they can cut corners to save a buck, we get threaten all the time with a surplus they say that we don’t have enough work to sustain everyone, with the way things are going the older techs are deciding to retire and just cut there losses that’s really whats been saving the jobs for all the new guys, alot of the big wigs have no idea what it takes to complete a job out in the field all they know is what they read about in the out dated training material AT&T keeps there are so many positions above my supervisor that have no meaning just taking up resources that could be used to better our services for the customer, but they continue there downward spiral AT&T is going even the president himself said that the end of the 30hr tech is going to end more and more everything is pointing towards U-verse which means all the cable work is going to depend on the ill trained 20hr U-verse tech will be doing the 30hr cable tech’s work like the saying goes you get what you pay for………..as an employee I wanted to get the U-verse services but was only able to get the internet and was told that after 3 months I could get tv included six months later I tried again but nothing just the run around I canceled my services and now they call me every day trying to get me back saying I can get tv and internet, too little too late…….my sister had ordered DSL she soon received her modem but still no service she then called and the rep told her that she could not get the service because of credit concerns they wanted a 300$ deposit she then canceled the service then had received a bill for services rendered from AT&T and was being charged 200 + for the service she never got………as a technician I try my hardest to make eveyone I come in contact with happy but management makes it difficult to achieve that……….