Leaving AT&T after 10 years. Need advice

[ACG12]

So long story short, AT&T screwed a 10 year loyal customer. Last month, I advised them I was going to switch to t-mobile with my 3 lines + 1 tablet and pay $120 unlimited with taxes included. The retentions rep stated he could match that price with my current 10gb plan, which I agreed since I don't use more than 10 gigs/month.

Fast forward to now with my new bill and nothing has changed. I'm still paying $147.xx and that's with my 25% corporate discount. AT&T refuses to honor what they told me and and offered me a $5 discount on my bill (what a joke).

I'm so upset at AT&T right now because they cost me an extra $40/month with T-mobile had I switched while they had their special promo of 3 lines for $100.

Now I'm thinking about trying Cricket because I'm trying to save as much as possible, but they don't have wifi calling. I get bad service at work and home currently on AT&T and wifi calling is a life saver at both places.

 

[Bart Kela]

Cricket Wireless is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. Your phones will be connecting to the same AT&T cellular towers and you will continue to have the same bad service in your aforementioned locations. Of course, what you pay to Cricket will go into AT&T coffers.

As a discount brand, Cricket Wireless customers get lower priority than AT&T postpaid customers and as you realize, are missing out on some of the benefits like WiFi calling. This can also mean the possibility of throttled connections on crowded cellular towers, especially at peak times. Having used several MVNOs in the past, I would expect the customer service quality to suffer as well.

I suggest you review the other major carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) and figure out which (if any) provide a better signal in your favorite places. You should ask your colleagues at work if they are happy with their service at that location. Ask your friends who visit your home what service they use and how the signal strength is on their respective carriers.

If you just go by price, you may end up with lousy service that costs less, but doesn't make your devices any easier to use in your normal locations. For sure if you switch to Cricket, you aren't really leaving AT&T (the company).

Good luck.

 

[EDH667]

Stick with AT&T since you depend on AT&T Wi-Fi. Your original agreed upon deal should be in your account notes. I would try talking to retentions again and calmly try to find out where the mis-communication happened. Its not worth saving money if you have to settle for a lower quality of service.

 

[AttilaTheHun]

So long story short, AT&T screwed a 10 year loyal customer. Last month, I advised them I was going to switch to t-mobile with my 3 lines + 1 tablet and pay $120 unlimited with taxes included. The retentions rep stated he could match that price with my current 10gb plan, which I agreed since I don't use more than 10 gigs/month.

Fast forward to now with my new bill and nothing has changed. I'm still paying $147.xx and that's with my 25% corporate discount. AT&T refuses to honor what they told me and and offered me a $5 discount on my bill (what a joke).

I'm so upset at AT&T right now because they cost me an extra $40/month with T-mobile had I switched while they had their special promo of 3 lines for $100.

Now I'm thinking about trying Cricket because I'm trying to save as much as possible, but they don't have wifi calling. I get bad service at work and home currently on AT&T and wifi calling is a life saver at both places.

ATT will keep lying so good you have option just go

 

[maxjohnson2]

You should give T-Mo a try. They do have WiFi Calling which works really good. Check their coverage map here. There's no contract anymore like it used to be, so you can always walk away.

You can also give a test by trying out one of their MVNO like Mint Sim prepaid for a month. You won't get priority max speed, but it will give you an idea of the coverage before fully committing.

 

[Bart Kela]

Forget about coverage maps, they don't have the granularity to show whether or not the signal is good in your home, place of work, school, etc.

Find people with phones using other carriers and ask them how their signal strength is at those locations (colleagues at work, friends at your home). If possible, have them run a speed test.

Telling someone to use Carrier A or Carrier B makes no sense since you don't know the cellular signal strengths at the inquirer's actual locations. Same with the useless "what carrier do you use" polls here. I'm okay with discussions about service plans and value, but it is foolhardy to select a service without actual investigation of real signal strength.

 

[Mlrollin91]

ATT will keep lying so good you have option just go

Your situation is very unique and shouldn't be used as the rule. More as an exception. Besides a lie here and there over 15 years I have never once had a problem. I take the lies up to the President's Office and deal with executive support and it gets handled properly.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Many of my friends with T-Mo say they lose service inside of buildings.

AT&T has been good to me and have no complaints.

 

[avanpelt]

There's a good reason T-Mo was the first of the major U.S. carriers to offer Wi-Fi Calling: their building penetration absolutely sucked for a long time. They're certainly getting better, but they're still not on par with AT&T and Verizon in my anecdotal experience, and I've used all three of those carriers.

As to the OPs issue at hand, I would call AT&T retentions back, calmly explain the situation, and ask them to put you on hold while they investigate and read the notes (that should be present) on your account.

I never hang up with an AT&T rep before verifying the changes that they made are visible to me. Just yesterday, retentions put me on a 6 GB Mobile Share Advantage with Roam North America.

As an aside, apparently the retentions department now has the ability to see what you're seeing on your account if you open the myAT&T app when directed to do so while you're on the phone with them. That was news to me yesterday. The retentions agent said she wanted me to open the app so she could see what my account looked like from my end so she could verify that the changes she made had populated through the system.

 

[kilcher]

We switched from AT&T to Cricket about two weeks ago, been real happy with it so far. Coverage seems about the same. We were paying $138 for 20GB shared between 3 phones. Now we have one phone w/ unlimited and two w/ 3GB and pay $110 a month. If we get two more people on our Cricket plan our portion of it will drop to $80.

As others have said, Cricket is owned by AT&T so if you're really wanting to stick it to them this may not be the way to do it. But it's probably the most cost effective way to get your bill down with comparable service.

 

[Tmoore3496]

So long story short, AT&T screwed a 10 year loyal customer. Last month, I advised them I was going to switch to t-mobile with my 3 lines + 1 tablet and pay $120 unlimited with taxes included. The retentions rep stated he could match that price with my current 10gb plan, which I agreed since I don't use more than 10 gigs/month.

Fast forward to now with my new bill and nothing has changed. I'm still paying $147.xx and that's with my 25% corporate discount. AT&T refuses to honor what they told me and and offered me a $5 discount on my bill (what a joke).

I'm so upset at AT&T right now because they cost me an extra $40/month with T-mobile had I switched while they had their special promo of 3 lines for $100.

Now I'm thinking about trying Cricket because I'm trying to save as much as possible, but they don't have wifi calling. I get bad service at work and home currently on AT&T and wifi calling is a life saver at both places.

Stick with ATT as they have the best customer support around, call back and speak with someone else , they will resolve it!

 

[KillaMac]

So long story short, AT&T screwed a 10 year loyal customer. Last month, I advised them I was going to switch to t-mobile with my 3 lines + 1 tablet and pay $120 unlimited with taxes included. The retentions rep stated he could match that price with my current 10gb plan, which I agreed since I don't use more than 10 gigs/month.

Fast forward to now with my new bill and nothing has changed. I'm still paying $147.xx and that's with my 25% corporate discount. AT&T refuses to honor what they told me and and offered me a $5 discount on my bill (what a joke).

I'm so upset at AT&T right now because they cost me an extra $40/month with T-mobile had I switched while they had their special promo of 3 lines for $100.

Now I'm thinking about trying Cricket because I'm trying to save as much as possible, but they don't have wifi calling. I get bad service at work and home currently on AT&T and wifi calling is a life saver at both places.

T-Mobile coverage is spotty. Just be warned if you switch. I test them out before switching if I was you.
[doublepost=1492543069][/doublepost]I switched to Verizon 2 months ago and its been great for the most part. Got the trade in deal for unlimited. Basically got $650 credits per line by trading in our iPhone 6's. They are cheaper than AT&T on their unlimited plan, and after 15 years of AT&T lies, I was done.

I will say though, that Verizon has better inside coverage with buildings, but I've noticed walking around people I talk to may cut out a little bit. It happens way more on Verizon than AT&T, but it's still usable.

They also have WIFI calling.

 

[Bhs1975]

Don't do Cricket they suck. I wasted 70 bucks on them. Heavily deprioritized and doesn't use all towers. It took a few days for all calls to start coming through. I ended up switching back to AT&T. Just call retentions for a better deal and verify with the app before you hang up.

 

[Applejuiced]

Give Tmobile a try.
I been with AT&T for over 16 years and left a few years back.
Great coverage, data speeds and monthly price. Couldn't be happier.
I wouldn't stay and continue to play AT&T's games.
Even Verizon has beat them with better plans and better prices, they just do not want to compete much. Retention's wont match any of the competitors prices and will either tell you to leave or give you like $5 off. That's a slap in the face.

 

[Spink10]

Stick with ATT as they have the best customer support around, call back and speak with someone else , they will resolve it!

wow

I literally thought ATT is the worst CS I've ever experienced. I don't believe it!

 

[Applejuiced]

wow

I literally thought ATT is the worst CS I've ever experienced. I don't believe it!

Same here, every time I needed AT&T CS support I had to call multiple times and felt like I was talking to a wall.
Completely incompetent and will go out of their way to not help you and brush you off.

 

[Mlrollin91]

wow

I literally thought ATT is the worst CS I've ever experienced. I don't believe it!

Same here, every time I needed AT&T CS support I had to call multiple times and felt like I was talking to a wall.
Completely incompetent and will go out of their way to not help you and brush you off.

AT&T is delightful compared to my experiences with TMO and Verizon. Nothing is worse than TWC or Sirius XM lol.

 

[T5BRICK]

I switched from AT&T to Verizon last October because AT&T just wasn't able to offer a competitive plan, and Verizon was offering very good trade in values on iPhone 5/5s and 6/6s. Ended paying the same price monthly for the service and having better coverage.

Personally, I'd switch to a different carrier and stop giving AT&T money.

 

[Truefan31]

The op said his att service is bad at home and work so definitely try Tmobile. They offer wifi calling.

To try them out you could try metropcs which is tmobile. And yes metropcs provides wifi calling too

 

[maverick22]

Does switching carriers (requiring a credit check) affect your credit? I just switched to T-mo, and was considering going back to AT&T. They wanted to do another credit check. Not sure if I want to keep playing the switching game if it's going to affect my credit score.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Does switching carriers (requiring a credit check) affect your credit? I just switched to T-mo, and was considering going back to AT&T. They wanted to do another credit check. Not sure if I want to keep playing the switching game if it's going to affect my credit score.

Most of the time it's a soft pull so it doesn't impact your score.

 

[ckip10]

I have some experience with switching from AT&T recently and I can tell you the grass isn't always greener. TMO rep in the store flat out lied about what it would cost me to try their service. I bought the SIM cards, which I had no issue with, and moved my wife and my iPhones over to TMO since I had heard they had improved in my area (rural Alabama). They had improved but were still much more spotty than their coverage maps indicate and I too had major issues inside buildings. The rep in the store told me I could cancel and only owe for the days we used, which turned out to be false. After numerous calls to customer service I wound up paying $108 for 2 lines of service for 3 days. Their customer service was terrible. I went back to AT&T right after they announced the new unlimited plans and I have 5 lines for exactly what they said it would cost and a nice $25 off DIRECTV and free HBO. My 2 lines turned into 5 because the 3rd and subsequent lines are $20 so I had some family jump on my account. Just my experience and I'm sure results will vary but in my case you get what you pay for. Good luck.

 

[Truefan31]

Does switching carriers (requiring a credit check) affect your credit? I just switched to T-mo, and was considering going back to AT&T. They wanted to do another credit check. Not sure if I want to keep playing the switching game if it's going to affect my credit score.

I believe anytime you open up a new account for service they'll check your credit so yeah.

 

[KillaMac]

Same here, every time I needed AT&T CS support I had to call multiple times and felt like I was talking to a wall.
Completely incompetent and will go out of their way to not help you and brush you off.

Agreed. Verizon is night and day difference from AT&T. AT&T would never fix a tower near my house either and when I switched to Verizon they had an issue with a tower and fixed it. Even told me what it was. I was very impressed.
[doublepost=1492604181][/doublepost]

Most of the time it's a soft pull so it doesn't impact your score.

Wrong, it is a hard pull. When you switch carriers and sign up for a new one, it is a hard pull. Anytime after that being with the same carrier it will be a soft pull.

I just switched to Verizon in Feb and it was a hard pull on mine. My Credit Karma alerted me instantly when they did it too.
[doublepost=1492604213][/doublepost]

Does switching carriers (requiring a credit check) affect your credit? I just switched to T-mo, and was considering going back to AT&T. They wanted to do another credit check. Not sure if I want to keep playing the switching game if it's going to affect my credit score.

It's a hard pull not a soft. Only time it's a soft pull is when you are already with that carrier.

 

[ACG12]

The op said his att service is bad at home and work so definitely try Tmobile. They offer wifi calling.

To try them out you could try metropcs which is tmobile. And yes metropcs provides wifi calling too

I did not know metropcs had wifi calling, thanks for that info. I'm just trying to cut my cell phone bill by as much as possible. I rarely use it for actually talking and don't need very much data due to wifi at home and work.