I don't know if this is the right forum to share my customer service experience of lack thereof or not, but I certainly haven't gotten any help from anywhere else, so I don't really have anything to lose.
I bought a wireless prepaid go phone and a $25 fill card with intentions of opening a go phone account. I bought a refurbished phone online which was restored and "checked to be in working condition" before it was sent. The phone did not work from day 1. It would not hold a charge. After calling in, I was told to refund the phone at an ATT store and buy a different one. The people at the store said that there would be a $40 restocking fee. The phone cost me just over $20, so I said--I don't think so. I called back again and they were apologetic and agreed to send another phone. They said to send that phone back after we got our replacement phone. They sent the replacement phone with no battery. I called and they said to use the battery from the original phone which we did. The battery would not hold a charge. The problem was not the phone, but the battery--shocking I know. Knowing that the third time was a charm, we had another phone sent. This one gloriously held a charge and was in working order. However, when we went to add the $25 fill card, it would not work. My son called in and was told the reason that it didn't work was because it was a tracphone. Interesting since we ordered an ATT phone from an ATT store. We later learned at the ATT store that our # was reassigned as tracphone prematurely by a couple of weeks.
Following the 3 strike rule, I decided to cut our losses, get a refund and be done with it. Oh, if only it were so easy. We called in and were told by a rep. to just take the phone and the card to an ATT store to get a refund. So, off to the ATT store I went. The person working there explained that they were an independent reseller and could not help me, but if I went to the main store downtown, then they could take care of everything. Very incorrect. I went to the downtown location and was informed that they could not refund a go phone card at all. They even showed me the policy.
So, I called again and was assigned a case number. I called just a bit ago on the case # because I had not heard a word from them. After I called, I learned that the case had been closed becaused they had tried to contact me three times and I never answered. I was on vacation that week. No one ever left a message--not one word on the answering machine. This is beyond infuriating. I have been bounced from person to person (or computer to computer).
The bottom line is that I paid $41.99 for a phone that was never activated and a card that was never loaded. I have no intention of using ATT ever. I just want a refund. When I get a human on the phone, I am transferred to Mr. Robot who wants to know my account number. I don't have an account number because you all can't seem to get a working phone that I can open an account with.
Any suggestions on how to get this resolved??