AT&T IS THE WORST COMPANY IN HISTORY

[ashes1102]

I have heard people say that AT&T has terrible service, almost always messes up billing, and has the worst customer service, but I went ahead and selected AT&T as my internet provider because they are the cheapest. Well, in hindsight, I should have listened to those warnings. I would gladly pay 10 times more than AT&T to save myself from all the stress they have caused me.

I signed up for U-Verse internet, which is supposed to be $20/mo. My internet worked the first 4-5 days, but has not worked since (that was 2 months ago). I have spent countless hours on the phone with rude, incompetent representatives and my internet is still not working at this moment. I just received a bill for $85 for two months. Now, that is over twice what the bill should be...

I spent roughly an hour and a half on the phone with 6 different AT&T representatives today and had to explain my whole situation to each one. The first woman in the billing dept. was very nice and was able to cut my bill down to roughly what it should be (although she explained that there is a hidden charge of $5/mo for not having a home phone line, which was never advertised and no representative nor paperwork has ever mentioned). She then transferred me to a series of technical support reps, so we could get a record of when the internet was actually working so that I could receive credits to my bill). The tech support reps were also very nice, although very incompetent. They finally figured out that my internet has not worked for 6 weeks and then transferred me back to billing to evaluate the credits toward my bill. This is when it gets ridiculous...

The woman that I talked to in billing was the rudest person I have ever dealt with (and I work in a criminal law firm and talk to disgruntled criminals all day). She proceeded to tell me that AT&T does not give credits for time when the internet was malfunctioning (even though I never suggested getting credits, 3 representatives kept me on the line for 45 minutes trying to get me those credits) and that for all she knew, I could be lying about that. She then told me that if I wanted my issues resolved bad enough, I would have called more. She continued to interrupt me while I was asking questions and tell me that all my problems were my fault. 

This conversation ruined my whole day, and at the end of it, my bill is still wrong and my internet is still not working! I will be canceling my AT&T service first thing in the morning and happily taking my business to Comcast. Everyone considering doing business with AT&T should know that the service is terrible, your bill will always be wrong, and they employ the rudest, most incompetent representatives. Pay extra and take your money somewhere else!!!!!!!

[texasguy37 ACE - Expert]

If you would like to get your issue resolved, send a PM to Alex who is an AT&T Community Manager on this forum.

[JJabber]

I agree wholeheartedly with your post!  AT&T is the worse ever!  Specifically, the internet, cable, and phone U-verse package. I still have AT&T for cellphone service, but am considering cancellation just based on my horrible experiences with U-verse technical support and billing. 

Just as you have indicated-- my internet service stop working, but also my tv displayed a blue screen on and off for approximately 4 months.  Finally, an "AT&T Senior Technician" came out to my home to resolve the issues-- confirming that the problem stemmed from the initial service installation on their end.  The Sr. Technician was great, but just to get to this point of resolution took hours of phone conversation and departmental transfers.  By the way, the initial service installation took over 5 hours and they still didn't get it right!?!!!  AT&T should not have inexperienced technicians conducting the initial service installation.  Perhaps this is the real problem since the "senior" technician was able to really resolve all issues.  Dealing with the constant billing mistakes, however, simply became too much for an overly-patient customer.  I cancelled AT&T U-Verse after 7 months of service. 

Please know that AT&T is a fragmented company with no communication between departments.  Be prepared to explain your situation several times before anyone is able to help you.  And, even still the help is usually a temporary resolution resulting in multiple call backs and long wait times.  There are always billing mistakes. So if you are a current customer pay attention to your bill.  And, please know that you have better options out there.  My new internet, tv, phone provider's installation took just 1.5 hours and I haven't had any problems yet!  The internet is faster and when I call I am not transferred around or on hold for abnormal wait times.  I pay approximately $11 more than I paid with AT&T, but believe me it's worth the sanity.

[Dantal626]

Similar experience. They screw up and it is the customer's fault? It is bad enough that their sales people lie about the cost of the service. The billing people seem to have no record of the sales person and what they promised. What makes it worse is being tagged as a "credit risk" because of their mistakes. AT&T is supposed to be a technology company but their tech geeks can't fix the errors in their system. INCOMPETENT!!

[RCSMG ACE - Expert]

The reason why billing may not have a record of what the sales people say, especially the d2d people could be because they are subcontracted by a third party company.  Andy they also get commissions on their sales.  So the information may not be accurate or they just overstate what is available with the service.  If you do have an issue I  say take the suggestion TG gave you and contact Alex.  Here is another link to Alex's info.

http://forums.att.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/318276

[John-M]

Can you send a address to which I can address a letter explaining the service received from ConnecTech? I would appreciate this assistance as received no satisfaction via web or telephone & wish to try another route.

Thank you

John-M

[dap0319]

And here is where I say the problem is.  I think it's great that you took the time to reply and give contact info for someone to help fix the problem.  But what I see is that this is a known issue, that a 3rd party sales department gives inaccurate info and does not have any communication with the people at customer support.  And yet instead of handling that problem from the business end and getting rid of that 3rd party sales department, ATT continues with business as usual and waits until people are angry and frustrated and ready to leave ATT and then gives contact info for someone who is more competent.  And from experience this is not just with the sales department.  The tech support people are incompetent to begin with and then are not given the information they need to be able to properly solve problems.  I had router issues for several months and was told repeatedly by tech support how to fix the problem, which never seemed to work.  Then I discovered the problem boiled down to ATT changing their wifi protocol and not updating router software in routers that were only a year and a half old, but that apparently was not relayed to the tech support department.  Their solutions always came down to wanting to transfer me to the sales department so that I would purchase a router from them...again.  3 routers in 3 years??

My last phone call to ATT customer service, I spent an hour on the phone with a "supervisor" and a woman from the retention department.  I had one very simple question.  Given the hours I had spent on the phone with ATT over the last 4 months and countless internet searches I did trying to resolve problems, why should I recommend ATT over other ISP's to my friends.  The "supervisor" did not even try to answer the question, she just kept repeating "I'm sorry for any inconvienence but..." over and over.  The woman from the retention department told me she understood that for the past four months things got worse and worse, but hey, don't think about that.  The service was better a year ago right?  And when I asked her to tell me what was being done to make the customer service better, she said she could not tell me what other departments were doing because she was not affiliated with them but hey, they sent me a new router, right?

Ironic, isn't it.  ATT, a company based in communications and yet doesn't seem to communicate internally.  And THAT is the reason I have taken my business elsewhere.  I get that tech issues will come up, I get that problems are going to come up.  But if you can't communicate between departments, how can you communicate with customers?  And that is unacceptable.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

Who is ATT?

[PomPom]

Are you kidding?  You don't know who AT&T is?  ?????   {please keep it courteous}

[RCSMG ACE - Expert]

A Tree Trunk.

[Sferry79]

Agreed 100%. Same experience with me. And the man who works for AT&T that suggests contacting Alex really should stop writing that. I did and there is no help there just like everyone else.

[Sferry79]

I accidentally gave a Kudo to the AT&T rep. Wrong. Sorry. It was meant for the customer. Not that this matters but I just had to throw it out there.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

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Sferry79 wrote:
I accidentally gave a Kudo to the AT&T rep. Wrong. Sorry. It was meant for the customer. Not that this matters but I just had to throw it out there.

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You gave a Kudo to Texasguy37.  He is not an AT&T rep.  He is just a subscriber, just like you and me.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

They mentioned ATT, not AT&T.  Just curious who ATT was. 

[skeeterintexas]

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dhascall wrote:

They mentioned ATT, not AT&T.  Just curious who ATT was. 

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I have to admit:  I sometimes write "ATT" instead of "AT&T" out of shear laziness.  Kinda like saying "PB&J" instead of "peanut butter and jelly".

[Frustrated /\TT…]

I too was quoted a different price than what i ended up getting billed... upon speaking with customer support, they basically told me i was {word filter evasion}

It is no supprise ATT is ranked as the worst customer support , I am currently looking for greener grass

[dhascall ACE - Master]

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Frustrated /\TT Customer wrote:

I too was quoted a different price than what i ended up getting billed... upon speaking with customer support, they basically told me i was {word filter evasion}

It is no supprise ATT is ranked as the worst customer support , I am currently looking for greener grass

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Once again - Try contacting Alex, one of the AT&T Community Managers for further assistance (if you actually want help).

[oufanindallas]

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Frustrated /\TT Customer wrote:

I too was quoted a different price than what i ended up getting billed... upon speaking with customer support, they basically told me i was {word filter evasion}

It is no supprise ATT is ranked as the worst customer support , I am currently looking for greener grass

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UVerse customer service is ranked second only behind Verizon FiOS.  AT&T Wireless is ranked near the bottom.

Remember, the grass is always greener over the septic tank.

[csg]

We switched to AT&T three month ago and have had nothing but problems.  The internet is frequently out and derspite spending hours on the phone and numerous techs in the house, no one seems to be able solve the problem.  However, we do receive statements for which AT&T expects to be paid.

[notafan14]

Your story reads identical to mine!!! They overbilled me for 3 months and finally after probably a dozen total hours spent on hold and being mistransfered, I finally got a woman to admit it! However, the credit they gave me back was still wrong!!! They are literally the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my entire life! I had nights where I got migraines because I was so stressed out. I finally told them that I was highly unsatisfied with my service and I wanted out of my contract. That's when they slap me with a huge cancelation fee! Why did I have to pay a fee to get out of an agreement that was the most horrible experience ever! This still haunts me but I couldn't be HAPPIER that I got out. NEVER AGAIN! I hope things worked out well for you. 

[dhascall ACE - Master]

Sorry that you are having issues, notafan14.  If you are on this forum just to add a "yeah, me too," that is fine.  If you are actually wanting some assistance, you need to to try contacting Alex, one of the AT&T Community Managers for further assistance.  That goes the same for all of the other posters in this thread, lol.

[dallasclint]

so instead of posting anything, we should just "contact Alex", right? It might be a good idea to put that at the top of this "Care and Support" so AT&T customers wouldn't waste any more of their (and your) time. I also think customers would greatly appreciate knowing what AT&T is doing to improve customer service.

[MicCheck]

Feel free to post your problems here. There are many knowledgable members of the community who can help. However, sometimes, AT&T needs to be involved, for example if it's an account specific issue like billing or a problem that needs a tech visit to fix. Contacting Alex is a way to get the problem escalated quickly and avoid the phone tree that so many people hate.

[oufanindallas]

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dallasclint wrote:
so instead of posting anything, we should just "contact Alex", right? It might be a good idea to put that at the top of this "Care and Support" so AT&T customers wouldn't waste any more of their (and your) time. I also think customers would greatly appreciate knowing what AT&T is doing to improve customer service.

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Many times, yes that is the correct answer.  This is a user forum which means 99% of the people that post on here are users just like you. We cannot access any account information, cannot send a tech to your house or come over and fix an issue.  Alex works for AT&T and has a team of other employees that work with him that can get issues resolved when all other means have failed. There is a thread that will be at the top of these forums later today that give first time posters a usefulll guildline to follow when posting in these forums.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

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dallasclint wrote:
so instead of posting anything, we should just "contact Alex", right? It might be a good idea to put that at the top of this "Care and Support" so AT&T customers wouldn't waste any more of their (and your) time. I also think customers would greatly appreciate knowing what AT&T is doing to improve customer service.

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That is not my point at all and I'm sorry if that is how it sounded BUT to get the most out of your specific request, instead of tagging on to a post and saying "me too," if I had a similar concern, I'd open a new topic.  That way you can explain yoiur situation and have a better way of following it, through its (hopefully) conclusion.  No two situations are completely identical.  Most of us will mention Alex (and that includes Alex's teammates by the way) but that is to let you know how to contact an AT&T employee directly.  We do get alot of ranters and AT&T haters on here and it helps to separate out folks having real issues vs. those who just have "issues," lol.

Welcome! Don't be a stranger on the forums, most of us "veterans" joined the forum to get an issue resolved or to learn more about the service.

[JefferMC ACE - Professor]

To follow up on dh's point, most posters who say "I have that exact same problem," don't.  Not really; they share 3/4's of the same symptoms have some that are totally different and require a whole different resolution.