Boo to AT&T!!

Bad form AT&T!! Last week I got a land line installed in my house. The lady who took my order said my DSL would be down for a day. The day after the phone was in I still did not have DSL so I called up AT&T. We had quite the argument!

I was told these multiple reasons for why I didn't have DSL service:
1. I requested they turn it off. (No I did not!)
2. They turned it off and in order for me to have it turned back on I would need to pay automatic payments because of "credit issues". (I get a bill in the mail every month and have ALWAYS paid it on time!) "Ma'am! In order for us to turn your DSL back on you need to start making automatic payments. Do you want to sign up for that right now?" (Again, I did not because of the previous reasons I gave and why oh why do they think I have a credit issue?)
3. They asked my name and phone number so many times I can't count. I kept asking if they wanted the phone number I used when I signed up for DSL back in July or the land line that was just put in. Every answer I gave was the wrong one and I "huffed" at and told that was not the one they were talking about. When I gave them my account number they put me on hold to talk to "people" and said, "Well, ma'am it looks like your name is different than the one we have for your land line phone number. That must have been someone else. But since you just ordered DSL and put a land line in it will take up to 3 days for the DSL to start working. (I didn't just order DSL, I've had it since July!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So, before I got off the phone I gave these words of advice:
1. You should know the policies and information of AT&T so that you can accurately give it to the customer, seeing as you WORK for AT&T.
2. You should perhaps LISTEN when people give you their name or phone number so that you don't need to continue asking the same question 20 times thus completely frustrating the customer.
3. If you have information about the situation you should let the customer in on it instead of waiting until they are completely and irreversibly angry with you. Maybe they could tell you that their name is Christine instead of whatever name you're looking at that seems to have the bad credit. Oh wait, I DID tell you my name was Christine about 49 times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was even a point in the conversation where I had to say, "I am so angry right now. I'm going to need a minute to breathe so I don't say something really horrible to you." Her response to me in a very chipper tone was, "Ok ma'am."

FAST FORWARD TO MONDAY
So over the weekend I received an automated call that said, "Congratulations!! Your new order for DSL will be working on Monday." Oh yeah, my "new" order that I've had since July. At any rate, Monday comes and I begin to check throughout the day to see if I'm back up and running. Finally at maybe 1:30 or 2 I decide to check in with AT&T to see when the ETA is on my DSL. I was told that I could now register and the DSL would be back to working.
"So, if I hadn't called to register I wouldn't have gotten my DSL back?" "That's correct." "Oh, because nobody told me that information!!!!!!"

After registering I was transferred to billing where I spewed my list of complaints to good ol' Nathan. He kept saying, "I don't understand. That just doesn't make sense." This was directed to the ridiculous information I had been getting from everyone. I wanted to say, "Join the club, Nathan, because I don't understand either."

So after all that Nathan offers me a free month of DSL. Thanks Nathan. I told him that I appreciate him actually doing something instead of just saying, "Sorry ma'am" like everyone else.

I'm a little nervous to post this, because if you know me at all you'll know that I feel like "Big Brother" is watching us. I don't talk about gas prices, I never talked about the administration in the teacher's lounge at my school, and I probably shouldn't be posting something bad about AT&T online. Oh well, I'll take my chances on this one.