Living in one of ATTs new U-Verse "test" areas about two years ago, we took the chance to sign up for the service at that time by three door-to-door salesman (1 "sales rep" another "ATT employee" and 1 rep in training. At the time, Time Warner Cable had just taken over service in our area, and we had had enough of them. Anyway, the main salesman literally pulled everything out of his sleeve to get a subscription. From telling us we'd have our house networked completely with CAT5 cabling free of charge, even in rooms we weren't planning on having cable service, to telling us about the Total Home DVR which didn't come out until late this year (2008), we were thrilled to sign up. Apparently, the sales rep had given us a whole talk of FUTURE functionality that sounded great at the time, yet wasn't in place. However, two hours after initially ringing our doorbell, he not only kept being disconnected from ATT on his personal Verizon phone??? (ironically a communications company...and didn't he work for ATT; why wouldn't he have a phone from them?!), but asked if he could use our home phone to have us subscribe. Yet, even after telling us he was an ATT employee, he refused to step foot in our home in +100F summer temperatures, thus forcing us to stay outside during the subscription (it became all too apparent he was a subcontractor of ATT) So, finally, about 3 hours after we began the ordeal, we were ready to have the service installed. Yet, HOW WE HADN'T EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE! It turns out that practically everything the salesman told us was too good to be true. We smelled it ourselves. So after placing a few calls from ATT and doing a little online research, we called off installation! CANCELLED!...
Anyway, so we continued for the past two years on up with our Time Warner Cable, dissatisfied with the service and especially the HD-DVR set-top boxes, nevertheless. So, when we heard that the Total Home DVR was available (ATT constantly bombards us with mailings regarding the U-Verse service), we placed a call to ATT. We signed up over the phone; everything sounded great. Well again, everything seemed to sound too good to be true, yet since we talked to multiple reps and seemed to get similar responses, we felt somewhat comforted. AND AGAIN, we were wrong!!!
Having scheduled an appointment between 8-10AM, we didn't anticipate that we'd first call ATT to hear the service man was likely running late, and then actually receive a call from the service man himself at 10:15AM stating he was running late and would be there within a half hour at the latest. Well an hour later he actually showed up, tired, and obviously not wanting to do a big installation job. What we asked was simple; in two rooms we wanted the existing cabling that was running along the floor underneath the doors (yet preventing us from closing the doors) to be concealed within the walls and for him to fix the cabling that would go to our RG so it wasn't falling off of the exterior of the house! Immediately, he said he that nothing to the existing cable would be touched unless we paid extra to have the work done. Well, a short argument ensued, and he decided he'd call his supervisor over the phone and discuss the issue with him. After telling us that his supervisor agreed with him, we decided to call ATT ourselves. We had been told over the phone on numerous occasions before install that we could have up to three new jacks installed as long as a cable service would be in that room. The ATT phone rep listened to my issue, agreed that installation was completely free, and then discussed it with the phone rep and again with his supervisor. Now, suddenly, it seemed as if everything would be done as discussed over the phone. So, the service man seemed to have everything clear.
Well an hour went by and the service man seemed to have disappeared. We assumed he had begun work, but it hadn't!...An hour later the service man's supervisor showed up. After again going through the three things we wanted done, the supervisor shrugged at his service man and told him while it would definitely require some work it wasn't all too far fetched as the service man had initially depicted. However, the supervisor was sure to notify us that this was not standard procedure by the work we wanted done in any way, and they were doing it simply as a courtesy from what "ATT reps had discussed". So, after the service man took his hour and a half lunch break, he finally began working at about 2:30PM. Meanwhile, he hadn't done a thing since he arrived at 11:15AM! At about 7:15PM, the work was finally finished. Stupid to see how he had done all the work INSIDE our house before he began the outside work...so naturally by the time he got to the outside work, he was working in complete darkness, hammering back up the GHETTO cable that would go to the RG that had been falling off the house and hooking the wiring up at the box in complete darkness!!!
At the end of our 8 hour ordeal, we had cable! and internet! 2 hours longer than their expected "longest" installation, we were set! We've had the service since the 26th now, only 2 days, yet the service is awesome compared to our Time Warner Service. The box is extremely responsive and doesn't constantly stop, pixelate, and shudder like our Time Warner Cable did daily. While installation for this service was extremely frustrating, it paid off in the end!
The most important thing I learned that I needed to do with a company like ATT was stick to your guns and force them to do what they say they will. After the service man's supervisor came and authorized the work, the service man was very willing to complete the job. He said that he needed supervisor approval to do such a large job; what ATT does not realize is that they wasted more time arguing and refusing to do the work than they did actually doing it!!! Ironic; yet, likely in such a large corporate company! GLAD I GOT THE SERVICE! Does not even compare to Time Warner!!!
