I’m sitting on the phone waiting for AT&T to fix something that they screwed up on…you think I’ll ever get it resolved? I am starting to doubt it.

Here is the problem…

Almost 2 years ago I bought a line with a phone and then a line with an aircard. I made sure we could upgrade both lines to an iPhone within the next two years or so. Well, we went to upgrade and it seems they neglected to tell us that upgrading the air card would cost us $500 to upgrade to an iPhone (that’s the refurbished phone…no clue what a brand new one is!). So 3 and a half hours after first talking to a customer service rep, we get a supervisor who says just order a new line and it won’t charge you…ok, so we now are stuck with an extra line. BUT I want my iPhone! I’ve been working for this for ever (or so it seems)!!

So I place my order and I got receipts and I got email confirmations and I’m waiting ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL day for that UPS truck. I’m so excited I can hear it even when it’s not there. My kids are perched on the doorstep waiting for it. It’s a family thing at this point.

Well, the UPS truck comes…and hubby’s phone is there…but mine’s not. ok. I can keep from crying. really.

I go inside and call AT&T. Their customer service has no record of my order. Hmm…kind of odd since I have a confirmation they emailed me. After lots of research with lots of people who don’t have any idea of what goes on beyond their desk….I get told by Melissa in the ecommerce dept that “Either they couldn’t verify my information or I exceeded the number of phones I could order online.” Um. Could you elaborate on that? She read the exact same thing again. Well..that was totally useless so I asked for a supervisor. Kaitlyn basically told me there was a limit on the number of iPhones you could order online. HUH? You’d think the supervisor (Matt and Eric) who told me to order them might have known that?? As well as the person who was chatting with me from AT&T while I placed my order and was helping me walk through it???

So now I have to start the battle with them in the morning. The law firm I regularly do some work for, and where my mom is a paralegal, is going to contact their corporate office in the morning and see what they have to say about this whole mess

I have never been so disappointed in my life. I am totally heartbroken. I’ve been working my butt off for so long to get this phone and now a handful of people who could care less if I am a satisfied consumer are going to make this not happen.

Tomorrow I will find out if the corporate office is as uninterested in their customers as their supposed customer care department. I know that if I were to treat a client like this, it’d spread like wildfire and I’d be out of business.

So, I’ve wasted 2 full days on phone calls and waiting for deliveries and they just won’t fix the problem. They told me to go find a Best Buy to buy a refurbished iPhone from and then get it activated. Can you believe that? They don’t want my money and have sent me somewhere else to buy something that they have in their online store. Absolutely insane!!

I’m figuring this out in my head so it might be wrong but it seems pretty simple to me…

What they could have: 2 refurbished iphone sales $300, 2 iphone lines (about $250 a month), and an additional line at about $60 a month…oh, yeah, and the phone we’d be buying for the additional line.

What is going to end up if I don’t get my iPhone really darned quick? 1 returned iphone, no extra line phone sale, no lines at all when I cancel my account.

Seems like a no brainer on the business end of it all. But the customer service people aren’t interested in solutions…only in putting in their time to earn that paycheck (at least that is my opinion of it all)

I am a die-hard Apple user, but this has me questioning why such a company would do business with such a total circus of fools, and force us to do business with them as well. I really hope I can get this all resolved. I would hate to have a bad vibe attached to my beloved Apple.

timeline of my trip through AT&T Hell:

• 2 yrs ago: start account and buy 2 lines with intention of upgrading to iPhone (salesperson says “yes, of course we can do that!”)
• Sunday: I tried to order on their online store and the store would not work, called but they were closed
• Monday: 3.5 hours on phone with customer service, ordered online with assistance from their online chat person (that took 1. 5 hours), received email confirmation for both orders (upgrade to iphone and additional line with iphone)
• Thursday: received one iphone, called for an explanation and got stuck with no solution at the end of the day (2-3 hours wasted on phone - full day of work interrupted waiting for delivery and aggravation beyond measure)

and what I’ve learned from this:

1. ALWAYS get everything IN WRITING and write down the person’s name! (from them via fax, email, etc if you can)
2. See #1

They all lie, I’ve been through tons of lies with TMobile, Verizon and Alltel. But if you can get it in writing, you can at least get a little farther than nowhere.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Wendy's Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.