I've had to deal with AT&T Customer Service for cellular, cable TV and broadband Internet. They are incredibly bad. They make their customers go to unreasonable lengths to fix even the simplest problems, where most companies would simply fix the problem on the spot. It makes me wonder if it is bad by design.

The latest problem, and not the worst by a long shot, occurred because of an account change I requested. They also changed the account number, which they didn't mention and I didn't notice. I paid the following bill (electronically) to the old account number. My next bill arrives, indicating the current due and a delinquent payment. I check the old bill and ah-ha; I see the account number has changed.

No problem, a phone call should fix it. But wait, this is AT&T, the company that doesn't give a s**t about customers. Maybe they changed. I call; the CS rep sees the money in the old account (an overpayment in a closed account). "Yep, you paid the bill alright."

"Great, please transfer it to the new account."

"Can't do that without a proof of payment from the bank." … and more.

I get to work on something that should have been handled on the spot.
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Part 2
In the mean time I set up a new payment and send the current amount due to the new account number. The next morning, while talking to another customer service representative (CS rep), I'm told that I need to sure to include the special three digit code before the ten digit account number, or my payment may be credited to someone’s account in another region. What!! The ten digit number appears everywhere on the invoice as the account number and the extra digits only appear in one special spot on the bottom bill. Jeez.

She explains that ten digits are simply not enough to cover all of their cellular customers. She thought I was an idiot for pointing out that ten digits were enough to cover every phone number in the whole country (many of which are still unused).
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Part 3
When I made the original change to the first account, the CS rep fat-fingered the keyboard on one of my phone numbers and someone else’s bill ends up in my mail and the ownership of my original account is assigned to the business. Good luck to them, as I'm guessing they got a new account number along with it and AT&T will have a new opportunity to make someone miserable.

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Conclusion

I now have three hours invested with phone calls to AT&T and my bank. I'm still not close to resolving anything. Every rep I spoke with could see the problem, but not one would fix it.

Are the AT&T reps idiots? No. Their managers are the idiots. They do not provide a means to escalate simple problems to someone with the authority and judgment to serve the customer.

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Post Script

My daughter switched to Sprint a few months ago, and watched me trying to resolve the problem. She commented that she has had some problems with Sprint, but they were all resolved with a single phone call.

I'm sick of it. I need to switch.



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 87