Dear AT&T service. As a customer for over 10 years, I have to say “bravo”. I remember, back when AT&T wireless was Cingular, that if I had a dispute over a bill, or a charge, I’d call Cingular customer service, and within half an hour the problem would be solved. I was happy, Cingular was happy, we both left: happy. I assume you’re glad you put an end to that whole thing! Since those glory days of yore, I’ve noticed AT&T has stepped in, and made numerous fixes to a system that wasn’t broken. And I wind up with you. AT&T, thank you for cutting off mine and my family’s cell phones because your layer upon layers of accounting and departments and undying commitment to a bloated corporate bureaucracy says the money I sent you doesn’t count.
I’ve been on your automated bill payment for over three years now, and never had a problem. That is, until sometime in February when your system decided it had had enough of me not interacting with AT&T in anyway and decided it had been far too long since I last called and it wanted to hear my voice. From what limited information I’ve gathered from your customer service reps, that’s a good a theory as any. Your system tells your customer service staff that I “changed” my service. What did I change? How was it changed? Who did that changing? Who knows. Certainly not me, or your legion of customer support staff. All I know, is what they know, and apparently you’ve designed a system where they don’t know squat. After calling about 8 times, and talking to at least 15 different people we’ve all “brainstormed” and “thought outside the box” and all that other corporate lingo and we’ve come to this conclusion: Yes, I paid my bill, but the money hasn’t made it to the wireless department, so therefore, I haven’t paid my bill.
I just want to say that again, because it bears repeating. I’ve paid my bill, your system confirms I paid my bill, but somehow, my bill hasn’t been paid. I imagine to a person with a severe case of schizophrenia this make perfect sense. However, to me, I’m just confused. Oh, and by the way, I would like to commend your customer service staff, who despite the limitations of your system, did try their best to fix my problem before shuffling down the line of extensions they have posted on their phones hoping I would become someone else’s problem. Especially the staff members who, through what I can only assume is Saint like generosity, offered to let me pay the bill a second time. Most companies out there, set a price for a good or service, a customer like myself, pays the price and that’s the end. Not you AT&T, you give people the chance to pay a second time or risk having their service, which has been paid for, shut off.
After talking to Beth, or Paul, or Raj, or Voldemort, whomever, there were so many I can’t remember their names, after discussing my options most times I was transferred to your accounting department where I was assured they’d probably, maybe, possibly be able to fix things. And, may I say, your commitment to stopping texting and driving is very noble. After listening to the commercial for, I’d say six times, while waiting for a representative to answer my call, your system would, without any reason or provocation, unceremoniously drop my call. And since, no one bothered to tell me which accounting department I was being forwarded too, when the call was dropped, I had to start all over again with your customer service reps who swore their computers told them that bill I paid wasn’t paid. Sure I used your website to try to find your accounting department, no such luck. The other option I was given was to use the phone number attached to my bank statement, and call them. I thought that was a good idea. So I called the number, about three or four times, only to be answered by a robotic voice telling me they were busy, and call back later. No option, no chance to fix things, just a bitter distracted robot telling me to call back later. I hope that robot is okay, he sounded really upset. You all should look in on him. The phone number on my banking statement seems to me to be a pretty important line. I assume that line is the line that will actually fix my problem, and I imagine it is manned by one overworked, under paid/appreciated representative named Ralph. I would really like to talk to Ralph, but he’s so busy I can never get through.
I decided, after my many misadventures, that maybe, maybe something was wrong on my end. So I went to your AT&T website, and reset my password. It had been so long since I used it, I couldn’t remember what it was. After resetting my password, I looked and saw under my account, that it was: low and behold, paid in full. It showed that I had paid my home bill and cellular bill. It showed where the money went, and what I was spending my money on. I thought: “Surly this proves I have nothing to worry about. Their own computer system acknowledges I’ve paid my bill and my balance of $0.00 will make it so I can rest easy”.
Oh AT&T, you got me. April Fools day was two weeks ago, but you got me. You stinkers. I woke up to find my phone no longer had access to the internet, nor could I make any calls with it. My family and I, were thrilled! Oh the laughing, and joking we had, thinking this was the best late April Fools day prank in the history of pranks really tickled our ribs. Until we realized, dang, they’re serious. I can’t say it was all bad, I was looking forward to another 3 hours of phone tag, get nothing done, bash my home phone against a table kind of day. Alas, it was not to be. When I went on my computer to look up, one last time, and verify my account balance, aghast, I could no longer even log into my AT&T account. So there was no really way to prove that your system said what I know it said. Luckily I managed to take several screenshot of my bill and save them to my computer. I’m not paranoid or anything. It’s not like I thought you’d pull something like this. I’m just saying, I’m glad I did it.
AT&T your customer service and treatment of paying customers is something to be envied