Yet another bad customer service experience. How can a company survive when it treats its customers so badly? This expereience follows on a similarly horrific experience in July.
Saturday I tried to order a phone upgrade online. I couldn't get through to the checkout because it required me to add another shared data plan, and wouldn't recognize that I already had one. I spent an hour trying to get this to work, and then called for help. After another hour, the rep processed the order for me. I received the email with the button to read and accept the terms, and did so. This email had the order number in it.
By Monday, the order still had not shown up in my online account. I had troubles ordering a phone for my son in July, and didn't want a repeat of that bad experience, so I called to find out what the problem was. After more than 2 hours on the phone, talking to at least 3 different people, I was told that no record of the order could be found in any of their order systems. I had to leave for a meeting so I hung up.
Last night, I received a call from ATT and that person was able, after still MORE time, to determine that from their end it looked like I hadn't accepted the terms of the contract. This, despite the fact that I still had the email with the button for accepting the terms, and I can still press that button, and get a message sayign that I had accepted the terms already. I was told that this order was now no longer active, and that if I wanted the phone, the agent would be hapy to process another order for me. I was tired and not at all sure I wanted to spend any more time with ATT, so I said no thank you, I will look into other options for wireles due to how unhappy I was with how things had gone so far.
This morning, I received a text that my order (same order number, but now with TODAYS date) had processed and I would receive another text when it shipped. Since I had been told my order was no longer active, this was a surprise. Since I had told the agent last night that I did NOT want to initiate a new order, this was even more of a surprise. I logged on and sure enough, the order is in my account now, and it reads "processing". I logged in to my credit card and found a payment to ATT pending ther. I called ATT immediately -- within 30 minutes of getting the text-- and asked that the order be cancelled, and my credit card be refunded, since I had been told that the order was no longer active I had gone elsewhere to get a phone. I spent yet another hour, repeating my story to 4 different people, and 1) they can't cancel the order, even though it hasn't shipped. 2) they cant refund my card, even though I was told this order was cancelled. . Laughably, I was offered a "free iPhone case" with the phone that I have told them I do not want.
When I expressed my dissatisfaction, the agent had the gall to state that ATT has won all kinds of awards and the JD Power customer satisfaction survey, so mydissatisfaction must be rare.
How is it possible that a company can charge my card, put an order in my account, and then can't cancel the order 30 minutes later, when it states in my account that the phone wont ship for AT LEAST another 3 days?
How is it possible that not one of the representatives I've talked to could do ANYTHING to help me, and to make me want to stay a customer? Is ATT so big that they don't care about 10+ year customers leaving?
I need to find another provider.