My recent and most unbelievable situation was the following:
I had a Galaxy S3 and my contract due in 7 months. I wanted the new Samsung Edge 6 and tried to buy it from AT&T without using the “Next” program. In my account I have 5 telephone lines and the internet and that’s why Next wasn’t an option because everyone knows the total of every invoice and a change of numbers would be a problem.
Anyways, they kept turning my options down and letting me know that I had to stay 3 generations back of a phone because the only way was using Next. After several calls of useless representatives that didn’t helped at all, I had no choice but to enter this TRAP of NEXT. These were the requesitions:
- They said that my contract would maintain untouched. That I didn’t have to pay the cancelation of it. And that it would due on December
- I had to pay the balance off ($175) at the moment because the account had to be at $0 for the program to work
- That the only extra amount in the invoice would be the $30 per 30 months
- That the offers will not change.
All these lies were told very nicely, because is a sell.
The problem started when the first bill arrived with $142 over from the normal payments including the phones $30 charge. We instantly called and here is where it all begins.
- They started investigating by asking questions and one of the questions were “did you pay something under the table to the employee?”. Really? What is this level of disrespect? Stupid representatives talking to customers that way? WAY TO GO AT&T!!!
- Then they started assuming that we had not paid some month and started looking for late fees. Come on!!! We have 5 lines and an internet. Money is not the problem here. The problem is when they think you are stupid, we actually save all payment receives, so they had to shut up and accept we were paying right.
- They asked if the $175 payment was rebounded by the bank. I HAVE NEWS FROM YOU AT&T, WHEN YOU PAY WITH A DEBIT CARD AND DON’T HAVE THE COMPLETE BALANCE IT SAYS THIS MESSAGE: “DECLINE”.
- They informed that when we accepted the Next program, we were charged for the cancelation of the contract, which was random because more than 3 representatives (1 by phone and 2 in stores) told us that the contract would not be affected. They realized that information was true so they discard it. By the way, my brother lives in Nebraska USA and he asked the same question, with the same answer.
Every time we called, we had to spend a minimum of 1 hour by phone trying to solve this problem. By the time they finish researching, a manager, told us that it was a phantom charge, that it was not real. And according to them, they would eliminate it.
A week passed and they called again arguing about the same issue. But this time they changed their version.
- They said that the charge was because the old phone wasn’t paid and that was the charge. Are you kidding me? A 4 year old phone (when Next didn’t exist yet) still wasn’t being paid? And when does this story appear if AT&T charged me $175 , a trade in older phone and a contract to get a Samsung Galaxy S3? This is a lie.
- Again they bring up the contract excuse. But this time, they assure that to get the Next program the contract had to be cancelled. OH AT&T YOU BAG OF THIEFS AND LIERS. We asked a couple of times and they insisted that these program would not affect the old contract.
- Finally they invented a new excuse. They told us that when I paid the $175 to clear the balance, I’ve only paid a quantity just to be eligible for the NEXT TRASH PROGRAM. When I asked, several of times to the employee if the account was in $0 and she affirmed this statement. We have all receipts from each payment and we are clear.
After each excuse, with a lot of rude representatives, we are tired of this scam. They don’t do a quality check up with their customer service agents and these don’t know what other excuse to tell. Even their “managers” had bad manners and a horrible attitude. I don’t have an issue with the signal because it’s great. But for an expensive service, this is no way to treat your customers. Talking to them like it’s a kindergarten class or worse, like they are always wrong even with prove in their hands.
What’s the matter with you AT&T representatives? Don’t you have more excuses or stories? Does your service is decaying at this rate? Do you even read this complaints? Do you care about your customers?
I have to say that not every representative is an inept (sorry for the true expression) but a lot of them could have better attitude when dealing with a customer and don’t treat the customer like it’s a liar.
The real liar here is AT&T.
Thank you for nothing!