Poor Customer Service in Warranty department

[rma12762]

I have been having trouble with my daughters phone. I called Customer Care in the US and they were understanding about the situation and transferred me to the Warranty department - obviously in the Philippines(big mistake AT&T). Anyways after 2 weeks of calling every 3 - 4 days I finally had my warranty issue resolved by the customer care in the US. The big problem is that the phone is only 3 months old and the warranty department in the Philippines is only interested in troubleshooting the issue(and each time I called in they did the exact same thing, you know what that is the definition of right).  They acted like the replacement phone was coming out of their pocket. I have 4 AT&T phones in my family and was quite ready to cancel all 4 of them for failure to deliver service(if the phone is not working 50% of the time that is a failure to live up to their end of the contract). Tonight I spent 2 and a half hours and spoke to 6 different people and of those 2.5 hours my call was dropped twice and I was transferred back and forth between CS and warranty 4 times. This is just poor customer service. Basically the Warranty department(in the Philippines) blamed everything but the phone....they said they had a couple towers down in my area(two weeks ago that is what they initially blamed the problem on too), then they said that to send text messages from the phone my daughter needs to look for a location where she has 2 or more bars....are you kidding me? To send a text message she needs to walk around looking for a location with 2 bars?.... Each time I went back to customer service they agreed with me that the answer was unacceptable, and they did not see any outages in my area, and each time they transferred me to warranty, warranty was to swap out the phone, and each time they started troubleshooting from the start. After finally losing my patience with warranty I told her that her answer about the 2 bars is unacceptable and that I demanded they replace this 3 month phone with another(same model or whatever), she refused outright. I told her that this is not good customer service to have me call them every 4 days for a warranty product and that I was going to cancel, she did not care. I had her transfer me to Customer service(in the US) and it was resolved in 15 minutes. Terrible, terrible customer service in the warranty department(in the Philippines). AT&T you are not doing yourself any good, bring that business back to the US instead of placing it with individuals who have no concern for keeping the business!   

[jamileh]

I'm very sorry you had such a poor experience. It sounds like you were escalated to a higher tier of support who was able to resolve the issue for you. 

I'm going to take your feedback and pass it on to our support folks. We strive to make sure that your experience is great, no matter who helps you. Feedback like yours helps us know where we need to make improvements. 

[rma12762]

Thanks. Very funny but i just saw a news article this mornig talking about the results of a consumer survey that puts AT&T Customer Service in 4th place behind Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. Up until thiese last 2 weeks i would have not believed the survey results. I have always had great service, which explains why I have been a customer since 2004. Now unfortunately i believe in the survey. To add to my frustration when they did all that work two nights ago they turned off my messaging, i had to call and have them turn it back on. Also found out that the CS agents did not document all of my concerns so some key elements were missing when i spoke to the agent. I sure hope AT&T can turn this around.

[jamileh]

Thanks for the update. 

I'm glad you were able to get the messaging plan put back.

Is everything settled now? Please don't hesistate to let us know if there is something else you need help with. 

[rma12762]

Well. Update to wrapup my ordeal. The CSR had told me that night that they would give me 6 months of my messaging plan free.... and lo and behold i got my bill and was charged for it. I called and spoke to a CSR and he did not see anything indicated on the account. So the moral of the story is don't trust anything they say over the phone, get it in writing or don't be so willing to believe they will actually deliver good customer service or live up to what they say they will do.

[JohnGalt2]

I would like to add my experience with AT&T here.  The final straw for me was the 3 hour long session getting passed back and forth between the good cop (customer service) and the bad cop (warranty service).  I have a Samsung Infuse phone that started exhibiting a defect that would cause it power off at the slightest jar - like putting it down on a table.  At first I didn't realize what was happening and then one day I saw it actually turn off when placed on a table top.  I showed this to the ATT store rep and they agreed it was a defect and directed me to call the warranty department for a replacement phone to be shipped out.  Long story short, and 2 replacements later  (the same defect occurred in all three phones), I called customer service.  I was told, after a long session with the rep, that I would be sent a replacement phone of a newer model (Galaxy S II Skyrocket).  I wrote down the RMA # I was given and was feeling good about the situation.  About 10 days later, I called warranty service to see what had happened with my replacement phone - they had NO RECORD of any such thing!!!  Another long story short: after 3 hours on the phone with 6 different reps, each one adding a little piece of the puzzle, I got to the final rep with a fairly good idea of what had happened.  Somehow the original promise of a new phone had not been properly 'finalized' and it just expired.  They had been bouncing me back and forth between warranty and customer service all this time, meanwhile, each one saying that the other one would need to help me.  IT WAS THE CLASSIC RUNAROUND where the buck never stopped.  So when the final rep at CS asked me if it would be ok to transfer my call to warranty I said NO.  I said, look, "Let's just solve this problem right now because I'm tired of bouncing around in your little game and would like you to take some responsibility for your actions - you promised me an upgrade, you now have the knowledge of this and that I"m not making it up.  So, why not just send me the phone?"  So, after another 20 minutes she came back and informed me that they were going to send it.  This time, I made sure to get an email confirmation, a verbal confirmation and a confirmation that they ENTERED THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE UPGRADE IN THEIR DATABASE.

So, this was my lunch hour - 3 hours of needless frustration and stress.  I'm normally not the kind of person to complain - these kinds of things do happen occasionally.  But in this case, the way it was handled AFTER THEY LEARNED OF THEIR ERROR, was too much.  It is unfathomable that AT&T can behave this way - which is a testimony to the lack of competition in this business.  They know it too.  I will be moving to Verizon when my contract is up.

[vinny13v]

Hi, my name is Vinay {Personal content removed for your safety}, my no. {Personal content removed for your safety}. i got this phone samsung galaxy skyrocket in nov i guess, but having problems since then, went to mobile device support centre and got it replaced 3 times already but still having different problems every time. Have talked to customer care people but they could not help with the issue, they transferred the line to warranty dept. and spoke to the supervisor Ms. Brittany. She was too rude to talk and refused to help me with the issue, she told me i could go online and complain or its upto me what i want. She offered me to replace my phone with 3 different models which i dont like and trust. They were Samsung galaxy II, motorola Atrix II, And i think she told Pantech. She also offered me to go for early upgrade for which i have to pay a lot, why should i pay for mistake not mine?
How can they be so rude and blunt?
Is there anything you can do or i have to hold on to this defected phone and wait until my contract to terminate because of customer care people not being able to solve my problem.
Hope you can resolve this. Thanks.