AT&T Bitch

[blas]

*This is all secondhand, all the CAPS in the secondhand conversation are from my mom when she was describing how overly dramatic, pushy and bitchy the associate was being*

Our family plan we currently have is soon going to be non-existent. We've had that plan for years, x many daytime minutes no texting free mobile to mobile free nights and weekends for $15 per person each month. Naturally, you can see where the cell phone company wouldn't be making any money off of this unless the customer texted or went over their minutes...so they are getting rid of it.

My mom spoke with an associate at one of the stores (AT&T took over Cell One) and he said that we would NOT have to pay cancellation fees nor would we need to buy new phones. So the family went over all the different plans and we picked one. One with more daytime minutes, unlimited texting, same free mobile to mobile and night and weekend minutes, for just $35 a month per person.

So she and my brother went back to the store and got a different associate. The associate must have been having a really bad day or had no idea what the hell she was talking about, or must have been really being pushed to make the store more money and get comission.

She would NOT stop badgering my mom and brother to buy Iphones. When they said no, the reason they were there was to change the plan, she barked at them that we'd HAVE to cancel our contract, pay cancellation fees, and that there was ABSOLUTELY no way they could just change the plan without NEW cell phones because our cell phones are "Cell One" phones and are "NOT AT&T compatable" and "DON'T have AT&T sim cards". That and the dumb bitch also said that while they were there, they might as well get an "ACTUAL AT&T plan"......ok so wait....are they saying we no longer exist as customers? Wooie....I guess we don't have to pay our bill anymore then...even though it says AT&T on it!

Ok dumb bitch......if our phones are still Cell One....WHY DO THEY STILL WORK? Why does my phone say AT&T when I flip it open? RIDDLE ME THAT!

My mom had brought our latest bill to show what plan we had and what we wanted to change. The twit HAD to have seen AT&T in large print at the top of the bill. But she wouldn't back down.

I'm sure my mom and my brother were sucky. They wouldn't back down either. They both challenged her about the "AT&T compatable phone" and "AT&T sim card" and the "AT&T plan" thing.

But in the end, they couldn't change the plan. So they are going to a different store tomorrow and hopefully they get a more competent and friendly associate. Even if the one associate was wrong and we CAN'T just change our plan, there's no reason to be that snooty and rude and pushy.

No wonder all of my friends have Altell or Verizon.........with people like that working at AT&T, would you want to deal with them either?

[jedimaster91]

Be careful with Verizon, too. They slammed my husband with a $300 early termination fee 3 years after he cancelled the phone.

[blas]

My mom won't switch companies because AT&T is the cheapest. But go figure, you get what you pay for. I have been contemplating just getting my own plan with Altell. My boyfriend goes with Altell and has never been unhappy with their services, even if their prices for similar plans are higher.

[Luna Baby]

My sister works for AT & T after having spent the last 10+ years with Cellular One. She started in the office as a sales associate and is now a trainer, traveling all over the country training associates on new programs and new products (ie new phones). I have called her (but unfortunately had to leave a voice mail) to ask her about this. When I have more details, I will certainly post back with what she says.

We were with Cellular One prior to the change and when AT&T took over, the only issue we had was that the store couldn't look us up by account number or phone number. They could accept payments on any existing ATT account, but not on any that were "carry overs". That perplexed me to no end, but in the end, I went online and paid the bill so no big deal. We did not have to switch phones, plans, or sim cards. Nor will we have to unless the plan we are on is phased out and even then, only would we have to change if/when we renew our contract.

I'm so sorry Blas, that your mother and brother have had to have this experience. I hope it goes better in the future.

[Sliceanddice]

huh for me t-mobile was cheaper, concidering for 4 phones lines, unlimited texting, 1500 minutes shared, mobile to mobile, and internet service for my meimeis blackberry its 140
thats if you do the math, abour 30 dollars per phone and 20 for the internet service.

[otakuneko]

T-Mo is pretty much the cheapest prepaid you can get without going to an MVNO. Donno about their plans.
T-Mo prepaid sidekick is also the cheapest internet-on-a-phone you can get period, and the sidekick has a huge advantage over the iPhone: a real keyboard. The catch? The sidekick platform is the most heavily locked-down in the market. Free apps to download off the net? Forget it. The browser's also kind of lame. Also, a prepaid sidekick has pretty much the most expensive airtime of any phone from any provider at 15 cents per minute. Fine by me since I don't talk much.

I'da told that AT&T bitch flat out I think the iphone sucks and they couldn't pay me to get one. Gimme a real keyboard over that virtual crap any day. And couldn't the changing of the plan be done over the phone?

[Chanlin]

I work for a prepaid MVNO, won't try to sell anything to you, but if you want to PM me if your shopping around I will lay out what we have. I will say for the record if you are a heavy user of text messaging our plan is not for you.

If you really want to shop around check out www.howardforums.com It is a forum dedicated to discussing various cellular providers in the USA and Canada. You might also try posting your experience in the AT&T forum to see if you can get any advice from there if you really want to keep AT&T

[PepperElf]

so they are getting rid of it

I would double check on that... From what I've been told, the phone company cannot FORCE you out of a plan, even if they don't want to carry it anymore.

Verizon use to carry an old "free-up" prepaid plan that they don't offer anymore. However... they still have to keep the plan open for anyone who is still using it. Same for when a big cell company buys out the little ones... they can't just drop your plan and force you into a new one if i'm not mistaken.

And if they change your plan against your will... well that's also illegal. Sprint tried that one on me when i had my number changed. When i contacted them about it they told me "that plan isn't open anymore, we can't let you have it." Until I replied, "I didn't realize you were allowed to change my plan on me without my authorization."

My old plan was reinstated immediately

[Luna Baby]

blas, my sis says to call the customer care line. That they will be more than willing and "able" to assist you, your mother and other family members. What she did tell me is that technically, until we do switch (you folks, too) to an AT & T plan, we are still 'technically' with Cell One. However, there is no fee to cancel your cell one plan if you are picking up an at &t one. She did also tell me that once we do sign on to an at & t plan, our existing phones (or sim card, not sure) would not work and would have to get new phones or cards (but most are free or relatively cheap when your sis works for the company and gives you her old ones!). I will clarify that with her again when we speak this weekend. She did say that if you do get new phones, get them through the customer care line and have them shipped to your home as there isn't a fee for shipping.

If you would like to pm me your email address, or I can send you mine, I can put you in touch with her and she may be able to explain it better than I can, secondhand.

She did say that AT & T is supposed to be making exceptions for Cellular One customers that were still active during the changeover. Should be no cancellation fees, no charges to switch over plans, etc. Call customer service...they've always helped me when it was something over sis's head or something she wasn't authorized to do.

[IEatCustomers4Breakfast]

I hate AT&T. We have to go through them for our internet service, and we're pretty sure they're throttling our bandwidth. That in and of itself is sucky enough, but the cable lines in our apartment building are old and decrepit, so when we're lucky enough to have a moderately stable connection, we're only cranking in around 40kb. UGH.

But I also hate Sprint for my cell phone. I had Nextel before, and yes, they did merge, but when I have to call them to bitch about something, I get a Sprint representative, where before I got a Nextel rep. Weird.

Woah... sorry for the rant.

[nomorecarts]

I was with Cell one prepaid, then AT&T more than doubled the rates, so I can do MUCH better. I was going to get on my parents plan, which was cell one so they expected to switch to AT&T, but the person in the store said they were going to have to buy new phones. the way it works is

AT&T locks out any phones you didn't buy from them(don't they lose money on phone sales with 2 yr contracts? I digress) they can tell because they have a code in their phones that their towers require. your phones are not working on AT&T, they are still on Cell One's system, they are separate. if you use a phone you didn't buy from them it will be locked out after a few minutes. it's just a BS way to screw the customer, I personally feel it's a bad business decision, but AT&T disagrees

I got a tracfone, so now I get my employee discount on my minutes too, and my phone came with double minutes for the phone's life, so I'm pretty happy with not having AT&T

[Luna Baby]

I was with Cell one prepaid, then AT&T more than doubled the rates, so I can do MUCH better. I was going to get on my parents plan, which was cell one so they expected to switch to AT&T, but the person in the store said they were going to have to buy new phones. the way it works is

AT&T locks out any phones you didn't buy from them(don't they lose money on phone sales with 2 yr contracts? I digress) they can tell because they have a code in their phones that their towers require. your phones are not working on AT&T, they are still on Cell One's system, they are separate. if you use a phone you didn't buy from them it will be locked out after a few minutes. it's just a BS way to screw the customer, I personally feel it's a bad business decision, but AT&T disagrees

I got a tracfone, so now I get my employee discount on my minutes too, and my phone came with double minutes for the phone's life, so I'm pretty happy with not having AT&T

According to my sis, the Cellular One phones are continuing to work as long as you are still on a "CellularOne" plan. Once you actually switch over to the AT&T plan, then the change in phone/sim card will have to take place.

I'm not trying to 'sell' anyone on AT & T, really I'm not. It just seems that there is a lot of confusion about Cellular One and AT &T right now (including their employees) and I've got access to the gal that actually can set them straight.

[Kaylyn]

I'm not a fan of AT&T. They absolutely refuse to block text messages that come from email for me. At one point I was getting 10 spam messages a day from email addresses. Every time I'd call, they'd say, "Well, just reply to the text and tell them to stop contacting you." Except that didn't work...the message would bounce back, and even if I managed to extract the email address it was always spoofed or invalid. Call them back, and they'd basically say, "Well, we can block all text messages, or you can just deal with it."

Looking forward to my contract running out so I can either switch to Alltel (which actually works in my area) or possibly go prepaid again. I barely use my phone as it is anymore.

[wagegoth]

Blas, with the acquisition of all these companies, AT&T (secretly, SBC) is juggling a bunch of different networks. While I was on my old plan, I was considered on the Blue Network (shorthand for old AT&T) and when I got a new plan I was automatically set up on the Orange Network (shorthand for New AT&T). My husband is still on the Blue Network, but will be on the Orange Network when he finally breaks down and gets a new phone. There was no charge to set up a new plan. I was given discounts as though I were a brand new customer, but was just moved over to the Orange Network with my existing information, and I didn't have to fill out any new paperwork except for agreeing to the new contracts.



<hijack>My history with AT&T wireless:

Originally, I was with Pacific Bell. It was acquired by SBC. They became evil and sucky. I went to AT&T. A few months later, they were acquired in a reverse merger by SBC. That is why they are called AT&T, not SBC. SBC has such a bad reputation that they probably wanted to hide behind the AT&T name. For quite a while after the acquisition, they became horribly evil and sucky. I was considering changing to another company, but friends with T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint all had tales of horror to tell, so I figured six of one, half a dozen of the other.

The firm I work for gets a discount with all the wireless companies, so I could take my pick, but I decided to stay with AT&T. I also liked the parental controls I can set up on the kids' phones to limit who can call them and who they can call. Over a year ago, I contacted them because our company's special website with them did not list family plans. The tech person told me it was a glitch, nothing he could do online. I spoke to someone else, who apparently actually notified someone, because a couple of weeks later there was a family plan option.

Then I tried to upgrade and get a new plan. I had several people, including a supervisor, telling me I can do that online, while others were telling me I couldn't. I finally ordered a new phone and individual plan, and attempted to set up accounts for my kids. Didn't work. In frustration, I gave up for a few months. Finally, I started the calls again. Once again, frustrating misinformation.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I went into their Live Chat feature and got someone who knew what she was doing. She moved my line to a family plan, then stayed online while I added the first line for my older son to see if the order would work. It did! I was then able to order another line for my younger son. So far, everything has worked smoothly, except the notifier for one of the phones kept saying the order was in processing when it had actually already shipped.

I made a point of filling out the survey at the end of the chat, including adding a personal comment about how this rep was the first one in all these months who had gotten it right, and she was wonderful and extremely helpful.</hijack>

[bainsidhe]

Well, let us know how this one works out. I'm interesting in hearing more...