My dad has worked for AT&T for 35 years. You would think that it would be hard to become frustrated with a company that has provided for our family’s livelihood for so long. However, I am now getting to the point where if it wasn’t for the exclusive iPhone contract that AT&T holds, I would be bolting for greener pastures.
As most of you know, the iPhone 3G came out on July 11th. Being the total nerds that we are, my wife and I were in line at 4am. This post could easily become a 2,000 word rant, so I’m going to do my best to be contrite and stick solely to bullet points.
- July 7 – Learn that the iPhone voice plans being offered are more expensive than my current voice plan. I am wondering if I can keep my current voice plan. (Note: I know the data plans are $30/each. I am just concerned about the voice plans at this point.)
- July 8 – Ask AT&T phone rep if I can keep my current voice plan when we get the iPhones. “Yes, you can!”
- July 9 – Ask AT&T sales rep at a store if I can keep my current voice plan. I show him the paperwork detailing out my current voice plan. “Yes, you can keep that!”
- July 10 – Exact repeat of July 9th with a different rep at a different store.
- July 11 4am – Arrive at AT&T. At 8am we are working with a sales rep. At 8:50, we go home with “bricked” iPhones because the network has gone down. (Note: This happened to the entire country.) Oh, and that whole thing about getting to keep my current voice plan, they won’t do it. I am bait-and-switched into either a) walking out without iPhones or b) signing up for a $15/month more expensive voice plan. I figure I’ll just fix it later over the phone, as my sales rep at the store didn’t seem capable of actually helping me.
- July 11 2pm – Activation system finally is working. I connect to iTunes and I am off and running. I call Hallie to tell her to do the same.
- July 11 3pm – Hallie’s phone won’t activate.
- July 11 9pm – After about 4 hours of technical support, Hallie’s phone is activated. The solution was to use her old SIM card instead of the one that came with the new iPhone. (Note, this is a problem.)
- July 12 8am – We notice Hallie can make and receive calls, but she cannot surf the web on the 3G data network. We can support back again. (Straight to Tier 2 this time!)
- July 12 9am – Support has figured out the wrong SIM card was associated with the account. They have us put the new SIM card back into the phone and they associate this new SIM card with the iPhone. Success! Hallie is up and surfing over 3G.
- July 12 4pm – Hallie’s phone has reverted back to only being able to make phone calls. We’re tired of tech support, so we decide to wait until later to deal with it. By then, phone support is closed.
- July 13 8am – We call support back. After bouncing back and forth with several reps, no one is sure what is going on. During the call I begin to wonder if all these tech support calls are going to count against my minutes. They fix our phone (again) in “the system”, have me power down the phone and bring it back up, and 3G is working again.
- Hopefully, that’s it for the tech support. Now comes the battle over $18 upgrade fees (which I refuse to pay) and voice plans that were promised and then not delivered. We shall see.
5 Comments
July 13, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Why do you refuse to pay $18 upgrade fees?
I could understand your case if you weren’t told, and then saw them on the bill, but you knew about it before you even got in line.
What I mean is I wish these things would be brought up at point of sale if you have a problem with it, not attempted to be “fixed” through customer service later.
If enough people refuse at point of sale I imagine it would make a bigger difference.
I don’t “like” the fee, but it does reward those customers who are low maintenance.
July 14, 2008 at 5:17 am
I refuse to pay $18 for an upgrade that took six hours of phone support to complete. It’s as simple as that.
July 14, 2008 at 3:10 pm
[...] ATT Is Broken Oh, and that whole thing about getting to keep my current voice plan, they won’t do it. I am bait-and-switched into either a) walking out without iPhones or b) signing up for a $15/month more expensive voice plan. [...]
July 15, 2008 at 7:34 am
[...] ATT Is Broken « Right Next Door Oh, and that whole thing about getting to keep my current voice plan, they won’t do it. I am bait-and-switched into either a) walking out without iPhones or b) signing up for a $15/month more expensive voice plan. (tags: at&t fail) [...]
August 3, 2008 at 6:46 pm
[...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by mgphenom on July 20, 2008 ATT Is Broken http://thefinneys.wordpress.com/?p=189 – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by globetot on [...]