AT&T Wireless Makes My Shit List

One advantage to being sick is that it’s easy to pull off the “cranky customer” routine. Not that it ended up doing me any good, other than to make me realize that AT&T WIRELESS ARE A BUNCH OF INCOMPETENT CROOKS! As I’ve mentioned before, I have been trying for weeks to get my AT&T service upgraded to the new GSM network, along with buying two new Sony Ericsson T616s in the process. I finally get through to somebody who can get the ball rolling, and it seems like everything’s hunky-dory, except for one little glitch — the price of the phones. Because I’m an existing customer, and not a new customer, they’re going to charge me twice as much for the phones as they’re advertising. Still, it’s a discount off of full price (at least that’s their line), and comparing prices with other vendors (not to mention service coverage areas), I’m still coming out ahead. I think. So I give ’em the okay. It’ll take seven days to ship the phones because of an order backlog, but then everything will be all set.

So a week goes by... two weeks... Finally I call and ask what’s going on. Whoops! Looks like they took the order, but didn’t actually process it. They’ll get right on it, but with the Thanksgiving holiday, the phones won’t arrive until the second of December. Keep in mind that in the time since I originally placed my order, “number portability” has become a reality; my bargaining position is certainly better than it was before. But still, I let it slide: I just want the phones.

So today, I call back, and I’m a little less polite than before: “Where the &*%$ are my phones?” might be closer to my attitude (though perhaps not literally). Whoops! Looks like there was a teensy little credit card verification problem last time, and the order didn’t go through. But if we could just get that credit card information from you one more time, we’ll make sure it gets sent out.

Okay, I’ll take more than my share of abuse, but even I have my limits. And this was it. They had a problem with my order, but couldn’t be bothered to call me to straighten it out? Not to mention the fact that the phones are now being advertised as absolutely free to new customers? Sorry. Deal’s off. Canceled altogether. I’m not going to do business with these dipshits.

I even called our corporate sales rep, who basically told me, “Sorry, I can’t do anything about it. Pricing’s set according to a formula. You won’t get new-customer pricing. No matter what.” Hey, fine, with that attitude, don’t be surprised when I start slamming AT&T Wireless all over the Web. I don’t even have to make stuff up — the truth is bad enough.

And incidentally — just as I did with Palm, I’ve also cracked the corporate e-mail system for AT&T Wireless. The executive suite there will soon be getting a rather irate customer complaint...