AT&T Service Nightmare
I previously was a Sprint customer for 15 years and decided to switch to AT&T to benefit from a slight discount since I had Uverse/DirecTV and Digitalife with AT&T and haven’t experienced any major issues with these services in the past. And I had been contacted by AT&T multiple times to gain my business.
I did the switch February/March 2016 and was told by the male rep I qualified for the AT&T Switcher Program which would refund me up to $600 per phone line (I ported 3 over and added my already paid for Ipad), I qualified for my company’s corporate discount and I qualified for the Buy One Get One Free program (which they didn’t tell me it was free up to $650 so I’m paying the difference of the extra phone – and they would charge me the first 3 months for the phones). I ordered a 4th line since the phone was going to be “free”.
To make a long story as short as possible, when I ordered the phones, I tried to tell the rep which phone to associate with each phone number I was porting over. He told me it didn’t matter which number he assigned because I can switch them back and forth by switching the SIMs card. He didn’t think about if I needed to make changes to my account or plan.
First issue: I didn’t receive the phones I requested within the 3-5 days I was told I would receive them. It took a couple of weeks. I spoke to over 4 different managers who couldn’t tell me why or when I would receive my phone. They all gave me a different answer.
Second issue: I didn’t receive the type of IPhones I requested. They told me they had to activate the phones over the phone in order for me to ship them back to get the correct ones. Once they activated them they told me I had to pay for the taxes on the second set of phones and they would refund me the money once they received the first set of phones back. I couldn’t ship them back until I received the second set of phones because I already ported my numbers and wouldn’t have phone service. Since that wasn’t an option and I wasn’t going to pay for taxes a second time they told me to exchange them in the store and they would have the manager waive the restocking fees waived. Of course, that didn’t happen. So I called back and I finally spoke to the 5th supervisor who finally credited the restocking fees to my account and I paid the restocking fees.
Third issue: I decided I didn’t want the 4th phone the same day I received the phone in the mail and returned it two days later without using it. Because the rep who set up my account didn’t assign the correct number with each phone, they charged me for the phone I returned since it was assigned to one of the numbers I kept. It took weeks for them to figure out how to correct it. I spoke with over 6 different reps and managers and they all got it wrong until the last one.
Fourth issue: The Switcher Program received all of the information they needed to process everything on April 1st. I received the AT&T Reward Cards for 2 of the 3 phones within a reasonable amount of time. I’m still waiting on the 3rd card as of now (I don’t understand why they weren’t all processed together). Again, I’ve spoken to over 4 managers and they all gave me different information pushing the process date back to now June 22nd. They said they are waiting for AT&T to approve the refund. I asked to speak to someone in regards to it. They said there is no contact at AT&T. I asked them to transfer me to the cancellation department at AT&T.
Today I spoke with Maria in the cancellation department. She gave me the run around for a while and then told me that it hasn’t been processed because the bill I owed on May 28th hasn’t been paid yet. I told her the credit should’ve been processed weeks ago and if I received it I would’ve paid the bill then and not made an arrangement to pay it June 29th because at this point I wanted to give AT&T enough time to send my reward card because I refuse to make another payment until I receive the service I have paid for and deserve. She told me there’s nothing she can do. I told her I wanted to file a complaint. She said the Supervisors were busy and she would have to schedule a call back in which the supervisor would call me at 10:15 am. It is now 2pm and no one has called me.
The past 4 months have been the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced in my life. I hope the two years it takes me to pay my phones off is worth it for AT&T because as soon as I pay them off I’m going back to Sprint. The small discount is not worth the headache and time I’ve spent talking to over 30 people including managers, getting the run around and being misled. I see you get what you pay for at AT&T.