Jump to content


Please note: You can easily log in to MPN using your Facebook account!

Does AT&T Have the Worst Customer Service? UPDATE


Recommended Posts

To narrow it down a little further, and to be fair, I'm only talking about the worst customer service in our galaxy. It's entirely possible there are other galaxies, where companies have worse customer service.

 

Ever try to sign up for HBO Max with a plan that includes HBO Max? I still haven't been able to do it. I'll have to call them tomorrow, be on hold forever, and then talk to someone who feeds me a line of total BS to such an extent I give up. Or at least that's what happened when they screwed up an order for a phone, and it took them months to actually get me the phone I had paid for.

 

Oh, and on my last bill, there were charges for a line that doesn't exist. I called it - "this number is not in service."

 

I think it's time to switch carriers...any recommendations? Meanwhile, if you're on AT&T, I strongly suggest looking over your bill for like, y'know, billing for additional insurance on a phone that wasn't requested, and was already covered by blanket AT&T insurance for all my lines. Just sayin.'

 

Jeez, do they ever suck. And blow. And not in a good way, like a harmonica.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Replies 36
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Give Century Link a call with a simple question.

 

Go ahead, I dare you!!!! :laugh:

 

I have to deal with them at work since they are almost the only service that owns elevator emergency phone lines (I'm a maintenance coordinator for condo associations). We are slowly moving the condos over to a smaller company that only does wireless elevator emergency phones and has actual humans that are nice and knowledgeable on staff.

 

Back to Century Link.

 

After you've spent 45 minutes minimum trying to get past the impenetrable blockade of pre-recorded AI imbeciles who will not allow you to chose an option that isn't something Century Link wants to deal with, you might eventually connect with an actual human being. They will have no idea what you are talking about and no customer service skills. Eventually they will pass you along to somebody with a shoe size IQ and a penchant for drilling down with questions so endless and pointless that you will feel the need to kill every single person in their family to prevent them from spreading.

 

You will be forced to hang up with no results because other things that you can actually accomplish will need to be done. Then you will go talk to the association manager and ask them to get the board of directors to approve a new wireless phone so you never have to speak to Century Link again.

 

We've got a few more condos to go and then I will feel that life has improved beyond words.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

After more years than I can count, I dumped AT&T because the customer service around here is terrible. Actually, it's nonexistent.

 

We live in an area where the cables pass few homes per mile. There is a salt water lagoon to the east, and a protected wetland to the west and a 15-mile single road with only a few, short, dead-end spur streets. The salt water wreaks havoc on the cable, and 30 years ago an AT&T cable repairman who we played a wedding reception for told me that the cable should have been replaced long ago. It still hasn't been replaced.

 

Because profit vs maintenance cost is low when the 'plant' passes few homes per mile, AT&T doesn't care if we dump them or not, in fact, I think they would prefer if we do.

 

Before cell phones, I could call the Florida Public Service Commission and have a completely out of service phone restored in 2 days max. When cells became popular, the FPSC decided they were no longer a utility and didn't require regulation. The last time my service went out completely, it too almost 2 weeks for it to be restored.

 

I switched to Comcast for wired phone and Internet, and haven't had any major problems since. I also have a cell with another company, because I think two ways of communicating are better than one.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not just you. At my agency the purchasing agent was friends with the ATT rep. She thought he was great. I thought he was a crook. Twice they disconnected our suicide hot line for non payment. Both times they had applied payment to the wrong account. They put notes attached to that number to never disconnect, yet it happened two more times. The rep sent me a contract update with a note saying it was just a formality. I read the contract and it was going to upgrade our data lines and double our cost. I sent him an email saying no way. A few months later I found out he had put it through anyway and the purchasing agent was paying it. I contacted ATT and demanded that it be changed back and asked for a refund. The. ATT rep had a meeting with our CEO, told him that I had broken the contract, and talked him into paying a $20,000 fine. I sent his superiors the email history showing that I had rejected the contract. Did they take action? In a way. He got promoted and was over the other reps.

 

The day our purchasing agent retired I started changing everything over to another company.

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

never did any business with ATT. Agree with KP about Century Link, they were my only option when I lived in south central Pennsylvania. Horrible.

 

Been with Verizon for cell phone service since late last century, don't remember exactly when. I know I have had the same telephone number for well over 20 years.

 

using Verizon Fios for almost 10 years now for internet and TV, it's the best, IMO.

 

Plus it's really nice dealing with just one company for everything

:nopity:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today at work I called CenturyLink to discuss a non-functioning emergency elevator phone system.

I called a local number, after answering several robot delivered questions, I was redirected to a number that was no longer in service, which in turn recommended another number so I called that one.

After numerous pointless questions, I got to the place in the retarded robot phone call where calmly repeating "Representative" eventually made it wilt and a genuine human was provided.

I gave them the address, name of the Association and the nature of the problem with the phone. They asked me what the phone number was and explained that they do not know the location of any of the phone numbers that might or might not be connected to CenturyLink at that address.

 

I calmly informed them that their current phone system was not helpful and a total waste of time and that they had not helped me in the slightest either. I then informed them that I blame CenturyLink for the problem and I felt sorry for them that they had to work there. All of this was in hope that the call was recorded and eventually listened to by an actual human, which is extremely doubtful. Still, one can hope.

 

In balance, today I dropped by NAPA Auto Parts to see if they would accept a return for a starter I purchased last December and never got around to installing in my vehicle since it seems that the starter isn't the source of the problem with the intermittent starting issue. They looked at the starter (untouched), tested it quickly and put the money back into my account immediately. They were polite and helpful, no problem at all. I would not have blamed them if they did not give me a refund but they did. Kudos to NAPA!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every company is in the customer service business.

 

Eventually every company will have a problem.

 

A problem is an opportunity: It's either an opportunity to lose a customer for life or an opportunity to gain a customer for life, depending on how the problem is resolved.

 

This should be posted on every customer service representative's desk, and every CEO's desk, too.

 

At nortonmusic.com I rarely have a problem, but when I do, I handle it quickly, cheerfully, and if the problem isn't fixed immediately, I'll often do something extra to make my customer happy he/she had the problem.

 

It's all about putting yourself in the proverbial shoes of your customer, and treating them the way you would want to be treated.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every company is in the customer service business.

 

Eventually every company will have a problem.

 

A problem is an opportunity: It's either an opportunity to lose a customer for life or an opportunity to gain a customer for life, depending on how the problem is resolved.

 

This should be posted on every customer service representative's desk, and every CEO's desk, too.

 

At nortonmusic.com I rarely have a problem, but when I do, I handle it quickly, cheerfully, and if the problem isn't fixed immediately, I'll often do something extra to make my customer happy he/she had the problem.

 

It's all about putting yourself in the proverbial shoes of your customer, and treating them the way you would want to be treated.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«

 

Agreed, I learned customer service long ago when I worked for Kinko's. The mandate there was to take care of every customer, always. A part time employee could give a customer a job for free or run a new job on the spot if the customer was not satisfied. The manager would never admonish anybody for providing customer service, rather the opposite. The focus was on long-term relationships.

 

Kinko's started with 2 guys who leased 1 copier and rented a space so small they had to move the copier out onto the sidewalk so it could be used. That was in Santa Barbara CA near the University. When the 2 founders sold the company they had over 1,200 stores worldwide and were a billion dollar + company. That alone speaks volumes for their customer service mandate. It was a great place to work, very positive - we were a team.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update: After two hours on the phone, and being routed to the wrong people three times, the fourth person was able to help. In theory, because they gave the case an "urgent" tag, I should have HBO Max operational by October 26 (urgent? seriously?). But I was told it might get resolved before then.

 

The guy on the other end apologized for the runaround, and offered me a Samsung A12 to replace my secondary line's hopelessly antiquated Galaxy Note 5, for $1 a month for 36 months, plus $16 sales tax. He waived the various other connection fees and such. An A12 is no iPhone 13 but the battery life is great because it's slow, the camera is decent, I can stuff an SD card in there for all my music. and for testing stuff I need both an Android and iPhone. So basically, I'm getting a great portable music device for relatively cheap :)

 

Great customer service...not exactly. But, at least it got resolved. The weirdest part was that no one at AT&T in even the elevated customer service department knew how to resolve the issue, even though they could see there was clearly a problem. It had to go to their backend IT people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most companies have crap customer service

 

The best customer service in my experience is courtesy of Amazon, believe it or not

 

I have to agree. Amazon has always been quick to fix my issues. They have an unusual but effective system where you get online and tell them to call you, but they always call within seconds and quickly resolve what ever issue I have.

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another ATT update: I received a message from Molly, at help.enjoy.com, saying "thank you for choosing Enjoy for the delivery of your AT&T Right to You order!" They it said they attempted delivery but needed me to give "special instructions" and "best contact number." Well, AT&T has been hacked so many times it's probably sitting on the floor in pieces, so I didn't respond.

 

Turns out it was actuallyreal, although the only indication that it had anything to do with AT&T is that they said it was delivering an AT&T Right to You order. The only reason I knew that was because I went to the myatt web site to change my password, because I figured AT&T had been hacked again, and there was a message requesting me to reschedule my delivery.

 

:facepalm:

 

In theory they'll be here tomorrow...

 

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting ready to switch away froim AT&T myself. Headed for Verizon.

 

dB

 

You're kind of trading one evil for another there. Verizon has a track record of screwing over customers, and of course are also the folks that zapped Yahoo Groups completely, shortly after saying they were going to let them keep running minus the years of content (and tried to block people trying to save their own data). Everything is just a number to them, including their customers. FYI anything Yahoo has done since 2017 = Verizon too.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting ready to switch away froim AT&T myself. Headed for Verizon.

 

dB

 

You're kind of trading one evil for another there. Verizon has a track record of screwing over customers, and of course are also the folks that zapped Yahoo Groups completely, shortly after saying they were going to let them keep running minus the years of content (and tried to block people trying to save their own data). Everything is just a number to them, including their customers. FYI anything Yahoo has done since 2017 = Verizon too.

 

 

You are an enemy of the people, Mighty Max. I agree with you completely. :)

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone have thoughts about T-Mobile?

 

Not yet but I am in line second hand information.

A good friend got a deal with Sprint but he had to get 5 phones and he has 4 family members. When my Tracfone died a horrible death he gave me the extra phone.

 

Recently T-Mobile bought Sprint, I think they are going to "disappear them. They kept the 5 phone minimum for phone deal thing.

Yesterday I was given my new T-Mobile phone. I am not their customer so anything that comes up will be interactions that my friend has with T-Mobile.

 

So far, no complaints but we are early in the game. If T-Mobile is a PITA I'm certain to hear about it.

 

FWIW, I was fine with my Tracfone but I am not a power user. I make a few phone calls and send/receive texts. I never log into any of the Google services or the interwebz. If I got lost I'd fire up the maps but so far that hasn't happened.

What I liked about Tracfone is that it's pay as you go and I could get a year's service for well under $150 total. A new phone costs around $30 for the least expensive "smart" phone. So it was cheap and adequate for my needs.

Others will probably want more services.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rant ahead: I f*%king hate that company. This is about their wireless. Our family switched to Xfinity mobile after years with AT&T. We all got new iPhones (two SE2020s and one 12 Pro), and our bill went down by about $30/month, even with the extra monthly $$ paying off the 12 Pro contract (the AT&T phones were all paid off, the two new SE2020s were free with the 24-month contract agreement). My wife's SE2020 was back-ordered so she needed her AT&T phone a while longer. It came in and was activated one day into a new monthly billing period on AT&T. So, we were officially & totally disconnected from AT&T one day after a 30-day billing period started and they billed us for that whole month of service! I called them and was told to not pay and wait for a "final bill" with an adjustment; It never came. AT&T sent the original bill to a collection agency, and now won't budge on this - I tried. The agency offered to settle for about 50% of the amount and the AT&T rep said if I did that I'd still be on the hook to them for the remainder! This after years of rebuilding my credit score and upcoming applications for college loans for my daughter. I'm screwed, I'll have to fork it over. Sorry for the rant but they do indeed suck and I will be avoiding this company from now on.

 

BTW my Xfinity mobile service has been excellent so far. Three new phones, "unlimited" data (some fine print there of course, same as AT&T though) and as I said, I'm saving about $30/month over what I was giving AT&T even with the extra monthly charge to pay off the 12 Pro. I called AT&T when I first heard of the Xfinity offer, thinking they might match it or maybe offer some other incentive to stay with them. I spoke to the "retention department" and everything they offered me was worse than the plan I was already on!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I first got a cell phone back in the late 90's I had US Cellular and one of those little Motorola phones. It didn't work well in the plant though and it came to my attention that Verizon did plus they had a discount through my employer so when my contract ran out I switched over. My wife also had Verizon and we combined our account after getting married and at this point I've been with Verizon for at least 20 years.

 

Now that we're both retired she's been talking about looking into a one of the cheaper "piggyback" type services like Pure Talk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another AT&T Update: The very sweet Melea from enjoy.com delivered the Samsung A12 today. It's cheaper than picks at a NAMM show, but frankly, it's surprisingly good. For $50 phone, I'm shocked after what I spent for my iPhone. So now I'm back with two lines, one Android and one iOS, so I can test things on both platforms.

 

They still haven't set me up with HBO Max, but they did make adjustments to my bill after I caught them double-dipping. Reezekeys, it's ridiculous they charged you for a month for one day of service. They tried to do the same thing to me when THEY made a mistake switching my kid's number over, but they did pro-rate it.

 

It's unfortunate you don't have something in writing where they recommended you wait for a final bill, and there may be fine print ("well, we warned you, didn't you read the 5,000 word agreement?"). But frankly, this seems like it's worth taking up with the BBB or your state's attorney general or bureau of consumer affairs. Nobody likes AT&T, so they might want to help.

 

The very sweet Melea asked if I wanted to update to fiber, which was available in my area. No Melea, it's not, even though AT&T promised me it would be when I first got here, and I signed up for DSL because fiber would be available "any day now." That was five years ago.

 

My internet is Xfinity. I paid for 1 Gig downloads, realized I didn't need it, and went to 500 mbps instead. But it was consistently higher than that, and now they've raised it to 600 mbps with no extra charge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I went through buying my last iPhone from ATT.

 

Went to the ATT store close to my old office where I have shopped for 20 years. Picked the phone I wanted, wanted to buy it, was informed that I could only get it on a 2 year payment plan even though they listed a purchase price. Ran the match through my year and they were getting around 25% interest on their payment plant. Girl told me "Do what I did. Go have and order it off of the ATT web site or from Apple. They let you purchase it there without the payment plan."

 

Went to the store close to my home. Had never been there. One worker. Five customers waiting for me. He did finally agree to answer one question for me without having to wait two hours for it to be my turn. "No, you cannot buy the phone. You have to get it on a payment plan."

 

Went home and finally ordered it from ATT. Not an easy process since the account is in my sister's name. When I retired and had to move my number from the company I was working for we added my line to her's for $10 a month. Finally got my phone ordered after having ATT on my land line and my sister on the cell phone answering questions to prove identity. Got my phone. Went through the "EASY' transfer system which is why I got it from ATT and not from Apple. Everything showed up on the new phone, but the old phone was still getting the calls. Tried the process two more times, no luck. Got online for help. Nothing. Called ATT. No help being told "it should be working." Went back to my old ATT store. A guy told me I would have to make an appointment and they were booked for three days. "Hold it" a female worker said as he walked up. "I can fix this in a minute. She took the sim card out of my old phone and put it in the new phone. "You are fine, but with the old sim card you will not have access to the 5G network. We don't have 5G in the area anyways and it will be years before we get it."

 

So after lots and lots of trouble I finally had a new working iPhone 12 Pro Max, without 5G.

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reezekeys, it's ridiculous they charged you for a month for one day of service. They tried to do the same thing to me when THEY made a mistake switching my kid's number over, but they did pro-rate it.

 

It's unfortunate you don't have something in writing where they recommended you wait for a final bill, and there may be fine print ("well, we warned you, didn't you read the 5,000 word agreement?"). But frankly, this seems like it's worth taking up with the BBB or your state's attorney general or bureau of consumer affairs. Nobody likes AT&T, so they might want to help.

 

I remembered that I recorded the phone conversation I had with the AT&T rep saying a revised bill would be sent "in a few months", to "wait for it" and "don't send a payment." Pretty sure I'm within the law as I live in a "one party" state when it comes to recording phone conversations. I'll probably call this debt collector back and play him the recording, can't hurt to try.

 

And yea, 600mbps is pretty fast, unless you're getting a lot of 4K Pro Res video files I suppose! My Xfinity service is advertised as 100 mbps down but I'm lucky to get 80. What kills me is the disparity between upload and download speeds â I've never broken 6 mbps uploading. That's by design â I think I'd need to upgrade to a "business plan" to get faster upload speeds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today, I finally got HBO Max, two days after they said I'd have it.

 

But more importantly - if you have ever bought a phone from AT&T and are still using AT&T, call support at 611 NOW!

 

I got a new phone for the $1/month for 36 months deal. Great, right? Except they added $5 a month ($180 over the life of the plan) for something they call "Next Up." According to AT&T: "With Next Up, you can turn in your smartphone and upgrade to something new after you pay 50% of its retail price."

 

I didn't ask for this "plan," but it was going to be added to my bill anyway. At the time of purchase I had asked specifically if there were any other charges associated with the phone, and I was told sales tax for the initial purchase, and the usual fees associated with phones (e.g., 911 service etc.). My understanding is that you can still be charged for this, even if your phone had been paid off.

 

So when you call, ask if they have you signed up for a "Next Up" plan somewhere, and tell them you want it cancelled....unless you think it makes financial sense for your situation (spoiler alert: it almost certainly doesn't).

 

I'll be interested to see if anyone else has run into this, or whether it was just an isolated incident.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To answer your original question, "Compared to What?"

 

The problem is the labor shortage affecting pretty much every business in the country right now. I won't go into all the reasons, there's a long article on Bloomberg about it along with similar articles on the WSJ, CNBC and other business sites. The people you're getting on the phone likely came out of training last week and don't know all the answers which is why you got the runaround, it's just good old fashioned minimum wage incompetence. In CA with the $600 federal UI subsidy along with CA's max UI of about $400 per week people were making around a grand a week staying home, way more than minimum wage. 40 hours X $10/hr for example is only $400 a week minus taxes and FICA and many jobs you hear about are not a full 40 hours many are much less. It's no wonder millions of low wage people decided not to work but that's only one thing affecting the lack of workers, there are many others like some are simply afraid of COVID and one issue regarding truckers and other industries is failing a drug test. Truckers are under federal regs which still classifies pot as a Class A drug and it can be detected in your system for 30 days or longer. Don't know the percentage affected but it's an issue for sure.

 

Since I moved to a rural area my only choice is ATT because there's no fiber optic up here yet. They own DirecTV which I also get because I have no choice. It took me two years before I could get internet through them because all their portals into my community were taken and I had to wait until they built new cell towers up the mountain to my area. Before that I was using ViaSat which is a good sat service for internet. Now, ATT's rural internet service is called Fast Wireless {not DSL). It goes through the cell tower a half mile across the valley from my house. It works great, only one outage in over a year and the fastest plan is 25 Mbps but Speedtest consistently shows over 30.

 

Initially I was a good boy, followed their recommendation and ordered my phone through their website. It was supposed to be delivered in about 5-7 days. Everything went great on the website but a week later I got an email saying the Samsung was not currently available. I was upset to say the least, the website said it was available it's why I ordered that model. I called one of the ATT stores, and was told they had that phone in stock so I went and picked it up even though it's a 30 mile drive down the mountain. That's when I found out it's better to use a store instead of the website. This was maybe two years ago. When I got an iPad a few months ago I decided to switch to an iPhone and another tip I picked up from a friend is to use the corporate store. There is one corporate store and two franchise stores in my area and the staff is better trained and have more inventory than the franchise stores. Since Covid, they'll tell you they're short staffed and it's best to make an appointment which I did. When I showed up I got in almost immediately in front of 3 people who were walkins waiting their turn.

 

Other than my initial frustration with ordering my phone through the website I've not had any issues with ATT and if or when I do have any problems I'll go straight to that corportate store. The only time I called them was when I had an outage. I got through to tech support pretty fast and she did some tests and had to flash my router and then it was good. It took about a half hour. Just my opinion, with the current labor shortage we should cut them some slack. A week ago when I was in LA we went to an Olive Garden and the greeter apologized in advance for the slow service saying there were only two servers working. My girlfriend is one who has little patience with that but this time she didn't say anything.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To answer your original question, "Compared to What?"

 

Compared to any company I've dealt with involving cable or telecommunications over the past 10 years. Right now, Comcast isn't having any problems answering questions about my internet service. They also just increased my speed by 33% for free. Xfinity had no problems making sure my set top box was installed properly when I had a problem a month ago. When my mother-in-law moved into a new place last month and got Xfinity, the previous tenant had AT&T and the line to the apartment had been cut after she moved out. A tech came out in less than 24 hours and fixed it for free. DirecTV had always been attentive and helpful, until they were bought by AT&T. After that, service went so far downhill I cancelled, after having used DirecTV for something like 8 years.

 

But let's move on to the more important subject, two posts above your last one.

 

The problem is the labor shortage affecting pretty much every business in the country right now.

 

No, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with my post before this one. Hiding a bundled fee, that's not listed EVER as a line item in your bill, is not mentioned at the time of purchase, is not presented as an option, and can only be found by clicking through several pages if you take a deep dive into your bill because you've found other fictitious charges in the past and realize you have to keep on your toes, has NOTHING to do with tech support people. It has to do with how a company decides to do business.

 

I will say that the fourth and final customer service person levelled with me on what was being charged, and managed to bring my bill down by $50 a month. We'll see on next month's bill whether the promises to reverse charges and issues credits actually happens.

 

Don't make it about people not willing to work or a shortage of labor, the customer support people don't make the decisions about pushing unwanted fees on people without telling, or creating bills where the charges are not broken out as line items, so there's no way to tell what you're actually paying for. Oh, and I forgot to mention the insurance they added without asking to my kid's iPhone, which already had AppleCare.

 

I have ZERO problems if AT&T wants to offer me options so I can decide whether I want them or not. If I was the kind of person who bought super-expensive phones and wanted to trade up as soon as possible, Next Up might save me money. If my kid's iPhone didn't have AppleCare, insurance would make sense.

 

There are a bunch of forum threads that are much more about how a company does business than whether their tech support people are trained. To save you time, I've quoted two posts that are representative of the genre:

 

Authorized retailers will often automatically pad their stats by adding insurance and Next Up...I should add that there have been several complaints because this $5 charge and 'Next Up' is being added regardless of whether somebody asked for it, or even flat-out asked not to have it added. Retailers are instructed to add it, unless you know about it, and tell them not to do so. - Lizdance40

 

After two hours of ordering over the phone, come to find that Next Up was automatically added to two out of five lines when I never asked for it (can't find an easy way to cancel it). - ATnTHU.

 

https://forums.att.com/conversations/wireless-billing/nextup-plan-wasnt-wanted-and-now-it-wont-go-away-even-after-being-repeatedly-promised-by-cs-rep-that-it-would-be-gone/5e1a42bae50819775e6188ea

https://www.phonearena.com/news/AT-T-NEXT-Up-installment-plan-launch-30-months_id117267

https://forums.att.com/conversations/online-account-access/cancel-next-up/5ea1968ae508195704f7b9d6

https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-internet-plans/att-internet-2020-scam-fraud-alert/5e62bc55e50819698d8bc923 - jschmal

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had some bad experiences with Comcast (cable) and Verizon (DSL and FIOS) too. Verizon for a while made it next to impossible for me to get in touch with a customer service agent who was willing to do more than just blindly read through a script. The guy who updated my service from DSL to FIOS gave me his direct number because he knew his own company's customer service was so bad.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had service problems with ATT for decades. It started when they bought out BellSouth (formerly Southern Bell), and continued until Comcast finally let me get Internet and phone without adding Cable TV (I haven't watched TV in over 30 years).

 

I don't know if Comcast's service is any better, because where I live it is so reliable, I haven't had an occasion to call them.

 

On the other hand ATT went out at least a few times per year and even if my phone/DSL was completely out, it would take a week before the tech showed up to fix it.

 

Notes â«

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...