I have been with ATT since cell phones looked like bricks! Since that time, I have never canceled my service on any of my phones. A few weeks ago, I ran across a group on facebook of parents with kids that have Type I diabetes. My nine year old son was diagnosed last year. Anyway, the parents developed a program called "nightscout", which allows you to plug a cheap android phone into your CGM or continuous glucose monitor and trasmit the info to the web. Basically, it helps monitor your childrens blood sugars through out the day. With little technical knowledge, I decided to give it a try by purchasing a $50 moto g phone and hooking it up to a $6 a month TING plan with a $3 data plan. Parents of Type I's gotta save where we can.
Here's the rub: I had 5 phones with ATT. Other than forking out the $320 a month, I had very little to do with setting up the phones or upgrades. So needless to say, when I ported my old Iphone 4 to TING, I was unaware that it was tied to an upgrade one of my teenage sons used back in August to get an Iphone 5. After messing around online with my bill, and after the port, I noticed that the phone line(old iphone 4) I was porting, actually had a next plan assigned to it, and the new Iphone 5, which is still with ATT, is only paying $15 a month. As soon as I noticed the $424 early termination fee, I called ATT customer care.
Well after an hour or so, customer care, who wanted to help, but could not figure out a remedy, decided to have me visit my local store for assistance. Big mistake. Store manager in Springfield, TN was arrogant and unwilling to assist. He kept telling me to call customer care. How difficult would it be to put the next plan onto one of the two phone lines that I was paying $15 a month? or maybe we could just port the phone back to ATT and reinstate the charges. Well, I decided to try customer care one more time. Frontline folks were very kind and helpful, but once again, they were unable to assist. I was transferred up a level to some guy named Robert. He took a look at the account and once again came back with nothing. He offered to transfer me to collections. After about 10 seconds, I was disconnected.
Extremely disappointed in the lack of customer service. I was willing to work with just about any option, but no one could do anything to correct a wrong phone line that had been ported to another carrier. This companies lack of understanding and refusal to work through an issue has caused me to rethink my commitment to ATT. Next up - Arbitration.