Because I agree with the title, I thought I'd share my story. It regards obtaining the outgoing server name from AT&T to use an email provider that is not AT&T or Yahoo. Keep in mind this is a 10-20 letter server name that should be readily available. I am surprised nobody else has had this problem. If so, please respond. Here is my story:
I Contacted Level 2 Technician and told that this was outside their scope of expertise, and then was routed to
ConnectTech (unknowing it was a fee based service).
ConnectTech: Upon learning it was a fee based service, I inquired as to why the simplicity of my problem warranted a $50 fee at minimum, and beyond that, the technician was constantly pushing me to buy the $15 per month subscription. Was later told “Sir, we are in sales" (yet they call themselves level 3 technicians), "there is nothing I can do to help; you have to sign up for the service to have your problem resolved.” Asked to speak with the supervisor who would refuse to speak to me plainly about the situation (he kept referring to scripted answers that were not helpful, and were repetitive with the same answers no matter how much my question changed). I was eventually re-routed back to level 2 technicians.
Level 2 Technician (2nd time): Spoke with “Dianne”, who was extremely kind in understanding my frustration, and almost immediately recommended I speak with ConnectTech. After telling her I have already gone through this process, but was told there is a large one-time fee for such a simple request, she put me on hold to ask someone (either supervisor or manager) if there was another option. After coming back, she told me, “Sir, there will not be a charge for this service”. I made very clear that she had told me this, asking “Are you sure I will not be charged at all?” and she replied “yes”. I was then re-routed back to level ConnectTech technicians.
ConnectTech (2nd time): Spoke with a woman, explained my entire situation, and was still told, “I am sorry sir, we are not able to waive any fees”. After explaining multiple times that I was told by an AT&T employee that this fee would be waived, I continually received scripted answers like, “I do apologize sir, but as I mentioned before, we cannot waive any fees. If you would like me to sign you up for a subscription, it will only be $15 per month.” I eventually got to speak with another supervisor who literally repeated word-for-word the response the representative had just told me. So, I carefully laid out a scenario for him. I said, “Sir, if there was a large problem that only the “fee-based level 4 technicians” could handle, and the problem was a result of AT&T technical problems, not the customers issue, would you be able to waive fees at that point?” He simply answered, “Sir as I mentioned before, we are unable to waive fees. Our system is not set-up to allow us to do so”. So I challenged him saying, “Just so I can write this down, you are confirming that you charge customers for problems even if they are a result of AT&T’s technical problems?” Finally he said, “We can only waive a fee if we have advice from the level 2 technician to do so.” Great! I told him (once again) how the level 2 technician told me if would be free, and he would not take my word. He claimed that if I wanted to check the audio from the phone call, it would take 7 days.
For the sake of length I have refrained from much more of this story. I hope I am not alone in being confounded that AT&T does not provide the ability of its paying customers to access the most widely used client-based email program from an address provider other than its own without paying a $50 fee. That is terrible customer service, and they will lose more money from losing me as a customer than they will for allowing a $50 fee to be waived to obtain 6-10 letters for an outgoing server name, something I’m sure is worth 5 minutes of a seasoned technicians time.
texasguy37
