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at&t is the worst service ever(internet)

J

johnsy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 15, 2006
443
0
So here is a story- I currently have a charter internet. It is $63 a month. As for just internet it is not inexpensive. So I got some leaflets in a mail with at&t offers for $32, just the internet. Decided to give a try. Ordered online, 6 mbps service, and today should have been the activation date. I tried to connect- nothing. Tried online support, but no help, in at&t order status was cancelled. then I called tech support number. They took a long time to dig up my info, and then told me that there is a problem with my account. I was put on hold to get billing assistant. After holding for 20 minutes I was disconnected. So I called again. Guy in a billing department told me that my account was cancelled (I didn't cancelled). He put me on hold to find out why for about 15 minutes. I was connected to another person instead- lady from billing department. She listened to me and transfered to some other lady. This lady took forever to enter my account details and transfered to someone else, but after waiting for 50 minutes I decided that this is enough for me and hang up. From online chat I got local phone, but it seems that I am on hold for 25 minutes already and monkey voice keeps repeating "all of our service... your call should be answered in one minute".

So my question is still not answered- why they cancelled my service? Was it because of technical reasons? There is no service available? :confused: I have excellent credit rating, so shouldn't be just for billing reasons.

During a call they sounded like they from some jungle or something- weird wind noise, loss of music when on hold and so on, seriously call in Europe would be cleaner and without all line noise.

So here you go, just going to pack the router and ship them back.
:mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
So after packing equipment I tried another at&t phone number. After a few more transfers I got to the person who was willing to solve my problem. It seems they gave me somebody's else account number and apparently order didn't go trough. My activation day is delayed for another week and I HOPE IT WILL WORK THIS TIME! Because lady gave me no assurances. Besides suddenly price went up $5!

That brings me to the following- I wasted 4 hours of my time and there will be no compensation for that. How secure are these detail you give to AT&T? Who guarantee that they don't successfully misplace your social security number as well? When you look online you see either At&t, cingular or sbs pages. It is a mess. People there don't want to help you at all. HOW CAN YOU GIVE YOUR MONEY TO SOMEONE WHO DON'T TRY TO GIVE GOOD SERVICE TO YOU? I am soooooo back to Charter in a month or so, after evaluation of speed claims on at&t.

Just look at iPhone scam at&t pulling- it is overpriced as hell.
 
I went through hell with Ameritech/SBC to get DSL our to where I lived in 3 different places. To the point where they sent me the equipment only to call me a day before installation because they just realized it wasn't available.

When cable became available, I went with Comcast for my internet and I have been extremely happy with them. I had to call them to drop $10 off because of all the cheaper DSL options, but I don't dare switch because of all the stories I hear and because ai just hate AT&T.

Heck I refuse to switch even wireless to AT&T even though I want an iPhone. The ONLY thing these guys are good at is clarity of international lines, and kinda local phone service. But are expensive still. :rolleyes:

Ok, I end my rant. Thanks for providing me the outlet to vent my displeasure with AT&T. :D
 
I heard that Comcast is better than charter, but it is not available in my area.
 
I have had SWBell (not at&t) dsl for many years, ever since it was first introduced into the Austin market. Initially I had problems while SWBell went through their learning curve, but have not had an issue in several years, until at&t took over. Still the only issue that I have is that SWBell would always sing me up for another year at the current discounted price if I called, but at&t wants to move me into the next higher level before they will do that. Still, the service itself is rock solid, and cheap compared to cable modem.

My son (at college in Savannah, GA) tried for weeks to get Comcast off their rears to install his cable modem and phone, but they never came through for him, plus they were going to cost double what at&t would cost. Finally he called at&t and they got his dsl and phone installed quickly, efficiently, and at half the cost. You couldn't talk him into Comcast now for anything in the world.
 
Quite happy with att dsl. But its a given you better know how to set
up your router etc. because they really can't help you much.
 
update on AT&T customer disrespect

So here is some more.

On July 15 I should have had at&t internet. At&t guy came and connected (or just checked connection) line outside my apartment. I tried to activate service, but I couldn't. Problem might have been in 2 accounts I was provided and other "errors". I tried to call at&t tech support but the best they can do is put you on hold or to transfer from one person to another. And all these robot monkeys, hate this s*hit!!!! Give me some indian guy with deep accent, but at least he will be able to redirect you properly. Robot is just a b*tch. It keeps repeating all kinda options you don't need. I was fed up with this system and decided to disconnect useless at&t service. I mailed modem back using prepaid label (the only decent thing at&t was able to do). I called at&t next day to cancel my service. Guess what- "cancel my service" are magic words. That is when people start to listen to you. They offered me a free technician ($200 value) and a free first month. Now you probably think I took that. I didn't. I was fed up with them. I spend on a phone too many hours and it was too late to offer freebies just to stick with them. So I proceeded with service cancelation. I was promised to be disconnected next day. The rest of month passed quietly. At the end of the month I received bill for full month- $35.87. Now there is interesting part- I got no service and I have to pay. I called at&t. After all these f*cking robots I got transfered to billing and lady was firm that I owe $35.87. After explaining my situation she changed her mind and told me that I owe $7.12 - supposedly they disconnected me after one week so I still have to pay for that week. When I asked for a manager I was transfered to some office which was closed. I called the next day and they told me that I indeed owe $7.12 and when I asked for a phone number to file a complaint a girl told me that they don't have one! I said that at&t is making me sick and I agree to pay $7.12 and that she should send me a bill. A week went by and I got no bill so I decided to pay that $7.12 on my own using address they provided me with $35.87 bill. $7.12 amount was withdrawn from my account and today I got a collection alert letter for a full $35.87!!!

Letter was dated August 14, letter was send on August 18. I got it on August 21. Last pay date is August 24. You notice how fishy it is? It takes them 7 days to send a letter!


Now can you see my frustration??? I really don't want to deal with a collection agency because I have good credit. However I don't think I owe anything to at&t because they didn't provide me the promised service. S*it $7.12 is my best offer they can get (to collect money for shipping a router).

I filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau. Not sure what else I can do... Any lawyers here?

Sick of at&t. I will never do business with them. You have to record phone calls, and everything else because this company will scam you and deny everything. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

They have zero customer service in fact I will better deal with some company from Zimbabwe than at&t.
 
So I called today at&t. They took 58 minutes to resolve the problem. Most of the time was spend while I was on hold. at&t adjusted my balance. $7.12 is all I pay(d already). However I still think I don't owe them even $7.12 since I have not used their service even one day.

This time I recorded my call I made from Skype. So just in case they will deny everything (as usual they do) I will be able to prove that I am right.

I am in a process to put this call on youtube or other social websites in order to let people evaluate how at&t deals with customers.
 
AT&T is horrible for internet. I was the most unreliable service provider I have ever used. it cost me so much money in online poker because my connection would drop during the final table.

the only thing it may be good for now is a free connection at starbucks.
 
WE have SBC yahoo, it is the slowest internet I have. And it get slower and slower every time. I had cable in the past and thinking about going back to it. Forget about DSL service all these phone companies try to shove at you. Cable is what today internet is at!
 
I have SBC/Yahoo, and have been very pleased with it until at&t took over. Now the prices have gone up, and they keep wanting to push me into more expensive packages every year. Cable is still far more expensive, but the price difference is not as great as it used to be.
 
MisterMe said:
AT&T did not take over anything. SBC bought out AT&T, its former parent. SBC then changed its name to AT&T.
Click to expand...
Perhaps technically, but everything changed (for the worse IMHO) when it happened. If SBC were really still in change I would think things would have stayed more as they were.
 
While this isn't DSL, I'm going to share my story :D

I've had a horrible experience with Comcast. What happened was our county was digging in the house across the street which is where our cable line connects and "by accident" they severed the line a bit. When we asked if they could fix it they refused because they claimed that "the line wasn't marked." Si we tried to get Comcast to fix it. They came out and patched the line, yet we still had problems. So they came out and patched it again, and it worked for a little while but the next time it rained, our internet was out. So we had another person come out who told us that we had to have the whole line replaced. So we called in and asked them to come out and replace the line, but instead they sent out another worker who told us that the line needed to be replaced which we already knew. We were quite fed up with Comcast because we were without internet for a month and they seemingly refused to do anything. Thus, we put in an order to switch to FiOs which was around they same price but was much faster. Then a few days before we got FiOs, they came and fixed the line, but it was all too late.

So to put a long story short, Comcast is horrible and Verizon has been pretty good.

/end rant
 
danny_w said:
... If SBC were really still in change I would think things would have stayed more as they were.
Click to expand...
I don't know what to tell you. You have convinced yourself of something that simply is not true. I will repeat: the company that you knew as SBC now goes by the name AT&T. Due to its acquisitions, the company is bigger. However, it is still headquartered in San Antonio where it is still run by the same people. The old company named AT&T has been pretty much ripped to shreds.
 
So finally I resolved everything with at&t. Seems calling them is not very effective way to get solved things. I posted online complaint on Better Business Bureau and guess what- in a week at&t refunded me $28 and some change and lady called (somehow they know my number!) from corporate office to apologize. So you might think I earned $21 (I paid them $7 even they deserved 0). Well I wasted so much time with them that these few dollars doesn't matter. What suck is that they made so many mistakes:

1 canceled my account without notice because they used someone else account for me (internet dsl order system is useless),
2 failed to install internet on promised date,
3 checked my credit history two times,
4 internet was not working while they installed it second time,
5 failed to help with activation,
6 send me full months worth bill while I was unable to use internet even one second,
7 failed to acknowledge mistake and make my balance $0,
8 send me warning that they will use collection agency,
9 wasted so much of my time to resolve simple thing.

So to sum up at&t is totally incompetent company. It is sad that in my area you cannot get even other land phone service than at&t (charter phone line is the only exception).
 
Yes, SBC bought AT&T and decided to use AT&T name ( Cingular brand name is gone too) because it is older company and has better brand recognition, but that doesn't change anything. If you will provide shi*** service and use even the best brand all you going to do is exhaust brand name and people will not give your business to such company.

However you still sometimes will be redirected to Cingular or SBC websites while browsing at&t pages.
 
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