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.

So…if you have been paying attention, the site was have some issues these last few months.

After some security, datacenter and partner issues…I’ve moved the site to a new server.  Things should get more active and there will be some changes.  My old server wasn’t capable of handling some features but now…I’m going to be introducing some cool ways to keep in touch and to learn more about how to build your business.

If you happened to have added yourself to the directory while the server was having issues, you might have to resubmit your information.

Thanks for bearing with me during the bumps in the road.

I’m heading to Kentucky to see my Soldier for his family weekend.  I’ll be back on the 7th and will get caught up then.

If you are waiting for approvals and admittance into directory or your pictures approved, they will be done when I get back.

Thanks for your patience!!

I might have been a bit hasty, and already annoyed with them so I assumed it was from them and that they’d just gone from annoying me on the phone to being complete theives.

Well, it was pointed out to me (Thanks Robert!) that the urls weren’t quite right.  Oh. Damn.  I normally catch that right off the bat.

So.  I apologize if that wasn’t from MerchantCircle.  I will be investigating it a little further, but I’m thinking now that it was a phishing thing…and I totally bought it.  I’m so embarrassed.  There were red flags all over the place too.  *sigh*  At least I didn’t actually click the stupid links.

(warning:  I’m not happy here.  I’m venting.  I feel like they are trying to con me and force me to pay them money in order to stay on their network.  I’m also posting this because I have recommended well over 100 people use their service and most of those people read this blog.  I believe everyone I’ve sent to MerchantCircle has a right to see what they sent me - and my response)

I received this email from them today:

*********************

SUBJECT:  Increase your Google ranking: Become a Top Merchant 

Dear Wendy,

It has come to our attention that the business listing you recently created on the MerchantCircle network might not be a valid business. Please note, that we are very concerned with the accuracy of our directory and the integrity of our network. Therefore, our system has generated this email to determine the validity of your business and the accuracy of the information you submitted.

Our Terms of Service Agreement  specifically states that“[i]n consideration of use of the Service, you agree to:

(a) provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the Service’s registration form (such information being the “Registration Data”) and
(b) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data to keep it true, accurate, current and complete.”
(See http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/tos.html)

Thus, it is a violation to provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or MerchantCircle has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete. If we have reason to believe that the information you submitted is inaccurate or untrue— we have the right to suspend or terminate your account.

Accordingly, you account will be automatically terminated with in 10 business days, unless you respond support@merchantcircle to rebate this email.

Best Regards,

The MerchantCircle Team
MerchantCircle

**************

So I emailed them the following:

***************

I’m very confused.  Are you soliciting me or threatening me?  Or perhaps you are threatening me if I don’t upgrade to a Top Merchant status?

I’ve been asked about MerchantCircle by more than a few of the local businesses who belong to the networking group that I own here in the Tampa Bay area.  I tell them I’ve never had any problems, and never had anything bad to say.  I recommend they register and get their business in there.  But I have to say this email just went too far for me to ignore.  I will have to share this with my clients and my networking groups or I’d be doing them a disservice after recommending that they use Merchant Circle.

Here’s how I’m seeing this:

You send an email with the subject:  Increase your Google ranking:  Become a Top Merchant.

THEN You seem to be saying that you are concerned I’m not a valid business but you don’t request that I provide any proof to support that I am.

You also list a portion of your TOS, as if that says anything other than what would be considered a common sense issue.

Then you tell me you have the right to suspend my account…

I’m not even sure what this means, “Accordingly, you account will be automatically terminated with in 10 business days, unless you respond support@merchantcircle to rebate this email.”.  How do I rebate an email?

So which is it?  Are you going to tell me that in order to qualify as a valid business I need to upgrade to a paid account?

Pardon me if I seem a touch defensive, but you are threatening to cancel my account and there is no valid reason why, except (to me) it seems you want to force me to use your upgraded, paid service.

You KNOW I’m a real business because you have repeatedly called me on my business phone to verify my business is valid.

And while we are discussing your way of doing business…why do you submit, on your own, without my input or blessings, requests for connections to companies I’d never endorse or recommend and even some who are direct competition? What if there was a lawsuit barring someone from contacting another person or business and you just choose to send a request as if it was made by that business?  What if you just “connected” me with some thief or molester, known locally by all, and it looks like I’m endorsing them by inviting them into my network?

Maybe by doing this, you are just getting people to visit the site to accept these connections and all you are really doing is trying to boost activity to get the Google bot on the site more so you can “increase people’s google ranking”?  Or are you trying to get more people to click your Adsense ads?

It seems to me you are going to chase away more people than you will keep with this tactic.

I do hope you can answer my questions, and explain whether you were threatening or soliciting me, as soon as possibly so I can update my network members.  I look forward to your response.

Thank you,

~ Wendy Milonas

Graphic Design & Illustration, Website Development, Web Hosting
www.wendymilonas.com

*******

If anyone else sees this differently, I’d love to hear your point of view and offer them an apology…feel free to comment and share your point-of-view.

Thanks!

I added logs to the blog, and I added details on the Write Post window, describing what the buttons were for.  You can visit that post here.

~ Wendy

We’ll be posting over here:  http://blogging.networkofwomeninbusiness.com/blog/

Join us if you’d like to learn how to set up your blog and then maintain it in a way that earns you more money!

This looked like an interesting resource for you to check out: Blogging Women

Feel free to comment about that site. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Outline is available here

I find it fascinating that one person read this and commented, “Oh good, so we’ll have some structure now.”

I honestly don’t see where it says that. Maybe I’m just too close to the whole thing to see it any way but how it is meant to be?

I think that some people are not quite understanding the whole purpose and some people are really trying to make the group into something it’s not. Letting go of the recent model for networking (which countless people claim just does not work) and getting back to networking to build relationships would benefit us so much more.

Our meetings do not have an agenda. We usually arrive in a staggered attempt to be on time. We introduce ourselves as we arrive and then we just start chatting. We do not spend time on the “three minute advertisement” from each member because it’s not really very effective. After belonging to over 40 networking groups via meetup.com over the last 5 years…that model is always the one that gives me a headache. It’s not worked for me, or for anyone that I’ve asked. There are a few slightly pushy people who claim it works, but no one I know will do business with them so I have to wonder if they aren’t being entirely honest.

We are working on ways to make sure we each have more information about who we met with at the meetings. We discussed goodie bags today. I think this might be a good way to let people review what you do in their own time. Goodie bags could also include samples of products so you know that everyone understands what you do.

I also wonder if people who join the group understand what is involved with starting a networking group of this nature. I know of a few people who have undergone such a venture and they also have commented on the subject. This is not an idea that just sort of became a site that sort of became a project that sort of got really big. This is a planned out project. It has a series of goals. It has a business plan.. It’s been researched, changed, researched, changed…you get the idea. I, personally, have spent hundreds of hours on just getting this started. Jessica and I have spent tons of money and countless hours at Starbucks for our brainstorming and weekly business meetings. This is a well thought out plan, and we are sure it will work.

So, please give the group a chance before you decide it’s not for you. You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to, but it’s not going to cost you anything if you do. We are getting a new member every other day at this point. I would say that by the end of July, we will be getting at least 2 new members a day. We are also adding 4 new cities in the near future.

We are expanding at a healthy rate, and we will keep going until we make it.

So, hang on and enjoy the ride! We are bound for some great destinations!!

For anyone who has had issues with the site behaving badly this week, I apologize.  I thought I’d install something to make our profiles more easily accessible and more search engine friendly.  Unfortunately this effected the registration process and who knows how many other things.  I have sorted out the registration issues (I hope!) and will be doing the “please let it all work” dance until I’m sure it’s all working properly.

IF you do come across a page that does not let you in (when you are logged in already) please let me know!

Thanks!!