TUNNEL LIGHTS

This little event in history might seem inconsequential but it has shown me a pattern about AT&T and well I had to put it out there. It starts way back on January 28, 2009 my aunt (the nosy one whom I will now call inquisitive) was evicted from her home because her landlord (like so many other people around California and the nation) had the property foreclosed upon. At that point she had service with AT&T for about a week (the whole package deal: internet, cable, and all) On that day I stood there and watched her call AT&T and tell them to switch service to next door (my place) and here my friends is where the story begins.

My aunt was told by AT&T that someone would come out between 8-10 am on February (Friday) 13 and just switch the service over. The date came and at 9am a man was next door knocking at the door. The walls of this old house are not thin so I don't know how we heard the man knocking upstairs next door at my aunts old apartment; maybe I was already on the cusp of awakening. My aunt and I tell the man that he has the old address and that he is looking for here. The poor man looks at his paperwork and makes the mistake of telling my aunt that on his paper work it says that he is to install everything at her old address (poor guy). My aunt flips her lid and unleashes hell asking the man "what the hell was his problem?" and "can you idiots not get simple numbers right?” I had to come to the mans rescue; you could see in his shirking eyes (and stature) that he clearly had no idea what was going on. I told my aunt that it was not his fault that he is just an installer and only following orders to which he quickly nodded his head in agreement. I told the man to call his office and explain to them what was going on and we can go from there. This seemed to appease my aunt and gave the man back a few inches.

Ten minuets latter the man comes back with his supervisor on the phone and he explains to me (notice not to my aunt lol) that there had been some mix up. There had been an order to "install" service at her old address next door over again and there was no mention of setting up service at the new address. I tell the man to go and I would inform my aunt (It was safer that way). My aunt flipped her lid again but this time there was not poor installation man for her to spew her wrath upon. She calms down calls AT&T and sets up a new appointment for today. (Sadly) this is where things again plunge back into the netherworld of customer service.

Around 8:45 am this morning I hear my aunt opening the door (along with thunder sounding like it was renting the sky in two). The installation man was not here. 9:45 turns to 10 and the installation man is still not here. She calls AT&T and they assure her that someone is on their way. 10:45 comes around and she leaves me her phone telling me that she must wash a few cloths but the "people" should be here in a bit. 125pm comes around along with my aunt asking if the "people" came and in hesitated to inform her that they hadn’t. She quickly got on the phone to curse out any (and maybe everyone) that worked at AT&T.

The first person she got she told what happen and they did the whole thing and apologize and left her on hold for 20 minuets (which was the right amount of time that it took for her phone too lose the signal). The second person stayed a little longer but I think insulted her and told her that she would have to pay some sort of fee for "re-installation" to which she replied "I not paying a damn thing let me speak to your supervisor" I heard the woman say "you know what we are done here" and she hung up on my aunt. The third person she talked to was a man named mike. She went through the whole process again and this "Mike" was very informative. He told her that when she initially called to have her service switched the woman she talked to cancelled the service (at her old address next door) but never sent out a work order so the service was still active next door. Mike also told her that he has a record of her order for today and it is in the computer and someone should have come but for some reason no one ever did. By now my aunt has turned a deep burgundy color and is having a glass of wine. "Mike" tells her that he is going to try and figure out what is going on and he would give her a call back that way she would not have to stay on the phone (as of 4:33 "mike" has not called back)

At first glance this seems like a regular blip in customer service but this is not the first experience I've been privy to witness with AT&T. When my mother also inquired about their bundle service I went in the store with her. They gave her all the information and I told her not to sign anything and make it perfectly clear to the man that you just wanted information. To make this long story short the man told my mother the only way that he could tell her exactly how much everything would cost would to be to put all her information in the computer but he could easily delete it out. (It would not be a legal and binding contract because A: she paid no money, B: she signed nothing anywhere.) The following week a woman calls my mother to confirm her installation date. My mother told me that she told the woman that she did not sign up she was only getting information and that she did not want the service. My mother said that the woman told her that the contract was in the computer and that there was a note that said she was going to sign the contract upon installation. Unlike my aunt my mother did not blow up she just calmly told the woman that she did not want them to come out and would not sign anything. On that Saturday I happen to be there and an AT&T installation man knocked at her door with a contract in hand saying that he was here to setup service. My mom told him to leave her property (in a nice way mind you) and promptly spent the next hour on the phone with AT&T telling them to "Cancel" her non-existent service.

The moral of this story. I haven’t had problems with them personally (mainly because I can’t afford them) but if the day ever does come when I can I do not think I will seek the services of AT&T. If by chance this kills a future sponsor so be it. In these times when people are not willing to part with their hard earn money for shoddy products/services offering horrible customer service to them is akin (in my eyes) to say I don’t know a company asking for billions and billions of dollars from the government (tax payers i.e. ME) because they are on the verge of going under and taking the economy with it; only to turn around and throw parties costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, hand out million dollar bonus to the very executives that ran the company to the tipping point. Oh and don’t forget taking personal jets to Washington to ask for the money they supposedly don’t have.

©Christopher F. Brown 2009