My AT&T Uverse install experience
I had scheduled Uverse installation for December 18th.
Saturday December 18th The tech shows up an hour late and spends 8 hours trying to install Uverse. He had the internet up but no tv boxes would work. He said the reason was that the at&t service that registers new cable boxes is down. He said someone would contact me tomorrow morning once the service is back up.
Sunday December 19th – No tech calls – I call and schedule a tech to come out Monday the 20th
Monday – December 20th –I have a 12:00 – 4:00 appointment. I get a call from a call center around 3:30 telling me the tech is on his way but is running a little late. No tech ever showed up or ever called to cancel the appointment.
Tuesday December 21st – Between my wife and I, we are on the phone with AT&T for over an hour. AT&T schedules a tech to come out. The tech shows up at 1:00 and still cannot get the cable boxes to work. The tech gives up at 5:30 and assures us her manager will call us later that night to tell us what is going on. We do not hear from him.
Wednesday December 22nd - I now have the phone number for the manager. I call him to see what is going on. He said they will get it fixed tomorrow and a tech will be there in the morning.
Thursday December 23rd – The manager never actually set up a tech to come out. I call to cancel my service and the call center explains that the problem will be resolved when a senior tech is sent out. 5:30 a senior tech shows up and cannot get it running. He said he made account changes and that it would be up and running in the next 2 days if I keep rebooting the DVR.
Friday December 24th – Monday December 27th – I reboot the DVR often and it still does not work.
Tuesday December 28th – I receive a call from the call center asking how my service was after the senior tech was out. I tell her it still does not work but I am out of town for a few days and can’t deal with it right now.
Monday January 3rd – I call the manager and he calls me back a few hours later and schedules a tech to come out on the 4th.
Tuesday January 4th – The tech shows up an hour late and still cannot get the equipment working. The tech told me that the manager himself would be out here next to work on this and that I would receive a call from him tomorrow (Wednesday the 5th)
Wednesday January 5th – I never received a call from the manager
January 6th - The next step was to cancel my current order and recreate a new order with a new account number. I was told this would be done in 2 days. Then a tech would contact me to schedule a visit and bring new equipment.
January 7 – 16th – I did not hear any update about the new account creation. During this period I received my first bill for Uverse. After about 45 minutes on the phone, the agreed not to charge me since the service was never actually installed.
January 17th – A tech showed up at my house without calling me to see if I was available. I was not able to be home so the tech left. He said he would call be tomorrow to set up another appointment.
January 18th – The tech never called to reschedule
January 20th – another tech called to say he was on his way to my house. Again, no one called me to set up this appointment so I was not able to be home. He would not schedule another time over the phone, instead he said he would call back to reschedule.
January 24th – I called and left the manager another voicemail. I never heard back from him.
I know technical problems happen but the worst part of this experience is being lied to constantly. Over and over again techs, call centers, and the manager would flat out lie to me. Also, Monday the 20th of no call no show was really rude, I sat home all day waiting for that tech. I know I have over 4 hours of phone calls with AT&T over this.
Anyway, I’m not really sure what my point of writing this is. I am calling tomorrow to cancel my installation. I guess I want to see if anyone else had anything like this happen or also to warn people, if your install does not go smooth – RUN AWAY. AT&T does not care about you, your time, or your frustration. The call center will promise things that the techs will not deliver on.
We’ll see how my cancelation goes tomorrow. I have requests from AT&T to send back all the equipment. The problem is, all the techs took most of the equipment with them and the little equipment I have left does not match serial numbers with what AT&T wants back. I know this is going to be another 2 hour phone call because I now have 2 accounts that I will have to fight with AT&T tech with.
