[Phredd]

I've been reading MacNN for years, but this is my first post. I just had to share my experiences with AT&T customer service. Definitely no better than Sprint. I was overcharged (in some cases double-charged) plus they refuse to give me the free phone I would have received had the Cingular salesman not given misinformation; telling me that if I signed up for service in early June, I would have to wait 18 months to get an iPhone.

The worst of the bad charges was the $175 termination fee for my daughter who tried AT&T and cancelled within 2 days. The customer service rep insisted that I didn't deserve a refund for the termination fee. She finally caved and acted like she was doing me a favor. Then she thought I was greedy for asking for a refund of the activation fee -- it's in their contract!

In the beginning of June, I was ready to sign up for new service, but the salesman told me that if I signed up then, I would have to wait 18 months before I could replace my phone with an iPhone. So I waited, even though that meant sacrificing the free phone I would have received with the new service. Turns out, the salesman was wrong. You can replace any phone with an iPhone at any time. So I wrote a polite letter asking for a free phone. I said I'd be happy with any phone, just something to use as a spare if I ever have to service my iPhone. Ron Ramsey, manager of Special Operations insists that the information the salesman provided was correct -- at the time. He may have believed the information at the time, but as we all know now, anyone who had service, no matter how recently they had signed up, would have qualified for an iPhone on June 29. The information provided to me turned out to be incorrect. He won't budge: no free phone for me.

[MacinTommy]

sorry to hear. What I've found with att is that if you're persistant enough they will usually give in. I got refunded my activation fee for the iphone because it didnt activate for the entire weekend. At first they said no then i mentioned closing my account and the key words "long time customer". Goodluck.

[Mrjinglesusa]

Sorry to hear about your experience. Myself, I've been with AT&T for a couple years and have had great service (both customer and coverage).

[MacosNerd]

I had them when they were cingular and they were no better (or worse) then verizon who's my carrier now.

Too bad about your problems

[DigitalEl]

I've been with all 4 majors at one point or another (albeit Verizon back when it was Bell Atlantic) and they all suck. If I could have my iPhone on any carrier, I'd take T-Mobile, b/c (in my experience) they suck less... But make no mistake. They. All. Suck.

I'd rank 'em this way.

1. T-Mobile - Fewer coverage problems, cheapest.
2. Sprint - Dropped calls left & right, 3G goodness.
3. AT&T - Nothing good to say, but they're better than...
4. Verizon - Killer network, but pricey, plus they put that crap custom UI on everything. Blech!

As with everything, YMMV.

[ghporter]

I had "AT&T Wireless" before Cingular bought them. Then I had Cingular. Now I have AT&T. It's all the same. But in my experience, bad customer service is out of the ordinary. That's not to say they're super or anything, but they are almost always decent and they folks on the phone try to be helpful. They can only do so much with the systems they have though. It can take a couple of months for a change in service to show up correctly on the bill, for example, but if you call Billing when you get a bill that's wrong, they WILL make it right. I've never had to elevate a problem above the first tier of customer service-and I have some really complex issues with my service.

So the best thing you can do, Phredd, is to call Customer Service and complain that you were not satisfied with the service you got in the earlier call. Ask for a supervisor immediately, and when you get transferred, make sure the person you're talking to IS a supervisor. Then explain the whole thing calmly and factually. That should get your problem on the way to being straightened out.

I actually rate the carriers quite differently from the way DigitalEl does. I put AT&T at the top because they cover where I need coverage better than anyone else and provide a bunch of special or enhanced system features (not phone features-stuff like multiple phone lines at a big discount, and a corporate discount that saved me tons of money when I bought three RAZRs) that make them work better for me. None of the others even provides analog coverage in some of the places I spend time-and I'm not talking about the Gobi Desert here, but rather about 50 miles outside Houston, Texas! I despise Verizon for crippling the phones they sell. T-Mobile has never impressed me with either coverage or services, and Sprint's buying Nextel didn't make they any more appealing than they were before.

[butterfly0fdoom]

It is, to a point, your choice who to believe. No salesperson could have known if you could upgrade to an iPhone without paying a termination fee. Only the top-level people at AT&T and Apple knew. What if he was right? You wouldn't be ranting like this, then. You'd be damn happy he told you that. I had thought I would have to wait out the full two years, not just the 18 months. No one knew what was going on until it came out. Don't misdirect your anger. The salesman's answer was what everyone had assumed at the time. You could have just activated a regular plan and then bought an iPhone afterwards, too, to get your free phone. In the end, it's your problem to deal with. If you look into older threads from around the time the iPhone came out, you'll find plenty of confusion about how buying the iPhone worked in regards to upgrades. Even after it came out, it wasn't completely clear. He didn't give you incorrect information, he gave you the worst case scenario since everything at that point was speculation.

That said, I've used both sides of the California part of the current AT&T (PacBell and AT&T Blue) since I had my first phone, and I've had no problems with them for all 6 years.

[Phredd]

Thanks everyone for the words of advice and sympathies.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

So the best thing you can do, Phredd, is to call Customer Service and complain that you were not satisfied with the service you got in the earlier call. Ask for a supervisor

With the resistance to refund the termination and activation fees, a manager, Jason Allen, was supposed call within 48 hours. (Yes, I did get names.) He never called.

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

No salesperson could have known if you could upgrade to an iPhone without paying a termination fee. Only the top-level people at AT&T and Apple knew. What if he was right?

If top-level people knew, but didn't give the correct info to the sales people, who should suffer? He wasn't right, even if he believed what he told me at the time.

Maybe the top-level people at AT&T intentionally misled everyone so that those of us who would be getting iPhones would wait until the iPhones were available. That way they saved giving out hundreds of thousands of free phones! Good business, but very dishonest.

[ghporter]

AT&T is currently going through some "extreme" corporate changes, both in its products and its internal structure. Call back and point out that "Jason Allen was supposed to call me back by <insert the appropriate time here> and hasn't done so." They should get cracking on finding Jason and getting him on the phone to you quickly. Do NOT let them off the hook-but keep in mind that these folks are mostly working stiffs and they have little control over what they can and can't do. Politeness works much better than anger.

I also doubt that "only the top-level people at AT&T knew" anything. I don't doubt that they were not as effective as they should have been-and probably as they'd like to have been-in getting the word out to all levels. But remember that the iPhone was VERY BIG for them too, and that there was a LOT to handle in getting ready for the roll out. Balls get dropped. It is very unlikely that anyone intentionally withheld information from customer service workers just to save some money. One does not stay in business with that sort of dishonesty going on because people find out-and tell their friends.

[butterfly0fdoom]

Originally Posted by Phredd 

Maybe the top-level people at AT&T intentionally misled everyone so that those of us who would be getting iPhones would wait until the iPhones were available. That way they saved giving out hundreds of thousands of free phones! Good business, but very dishonest.

No, the top-level people at AT&T didn't tell anyone. No one said anything. Everything was up to speculation. This is an Apple product we're talking about here. Nothing is concrete and nothing is revealed until it's ready to be announced by Apple. Like I said, it's up to you who to believe. AT&T had nothing to do with the secrecy. There is no misleading going on, there is no dishonesty going on. It's called "Typical New Apple Product 'Should I Buy Or Should I Not Buy' Syndrome". I guess you're new to this...?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

No, the top-level people at AT&T didn't tell anyone. No one said anything. Everything was up to speculation. This is an Apple product we're talking about here. Nothing is concrete and nothing is revealed until it's ready to be announced by Apple. Like I said, it's up to you who to believe. AT&T had nothing to do with the secrecy. There is no misleading going on, there is no dishonesty going on. It's called "Typical New Apple Product 'Should I Buy Or Should I Not Buy' Syndrome". I guess you're new to this...?

I was under the impression we were discussing actions after the roll out. That is a different thing from the ultra-uber-hush hush stuff Apple does with everything before it's released.

[Phredd]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Balls get dropped. It is very unlikely that anyone intentionally withheld information from customer service workers just to save some money. One does not stay in business with that sort of dishonesty going on because people find out-and tell their friends.

I'll take your advice, give them the benefit of the doubt and write to another department. I fear the Special Operations may be the last word, but I'll give it a shot.

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

No, the top-level people at AT&T didn't tell anyone. No one said anything. Everything was up to speculation. This is an Apple product we're talking about here. Nothing is concrete and nothing is revealed until it's ready to be announced by Apple. Like I said, it's up to you who to believe. AT&T had nothing to do with the secrecy. There is no misleading going on, there is no dishonesty going on. It's called "Typical New Apple Product 'Should I Buy Or Should I Not Buy' Syndrome". I guess you're new to this...?

If the top-level people at AT&T didn't tell anyone that iPhones would be available to everyone, how do you know it wasn't to mislead us? This isn't about Apple. It's about AT&T and whether their typical 18 month waiting period for upgrades would apply.

[benj]

I posted on my blog (owlgarden.net/wp) about the problems I had with my Nokia Phone and cingular.I tried to find someone who knew something about the Nokia or the CORRECT Cingular MEdianet configurations. Blame always went to the other party and
each side screwed up what the other side configured (which was screwed up too).
The problem with "dual corp" devices are the companies that converge. They
don't talk to each other. This is true of Palm/Carrier/Treos, and of Apple/ATT. At least,
as in iTunes, Apple is aggressive about functionality in their handling of the iPhone.
But PLEASE- Apple and ATT need to converge on 1 thing more: RANGE. Compared with the Nokia, my iphone doesn't get phone service as well as the Nokia, even though it's the
same network. WTF?

[butterfly0fdoom]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I was under the impression we were discussing actions after the roll out. That is a different thing from the ultra-uber-hush hush stuff Apple does with everything before it's released.

Part of his complaints is that an AT&T salesperson told him in early June that he wouldn't be able to get an iPhone for 18 months if he opted to sign up at that time. He says he was being misled and was gyped of a free phone. No one knew what would be going on before the roll-out. My point is he's misguidedly blaming AT&T for keeping things quiet until the roll-out in typical Apple fashion.

Originally Posted by Phredd 

If the top-level people at AT&T didn't tell anyone that iPhones would be available to everyone, how do you know it wasn't to mislead us? This isn't about Apple. It's about AT&T and whether their typical 18 month waiting period for upgrades would apply.

What would they have to gain from misleading you? Keep in mind Apple nearly has AT&T on a leash for the next 5 years. AT&T couldn't tell their employees anything. Most likely because Steve Jobs likes to keep things on the quiet side until the roll-out. If the iPhone were any other phone, then the salesperson wouldn't have been lying. But because NO ONE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON, he was going by what the worst-case situation would be. Are you some sort of misanthrope? Or some sort of conspiracy theory person?

[Phredd]

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

What would they have to gain from misleading you?

Very simply, the cost of the phone that I would have received in early June. If it was accidental misinformation, then why wouldn't they correct their mistake when I asked?

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

NO ONE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON

Do you really believe that the top-level execs at AT&T didn't know what was going on in early June? Do you actually believe that they turned over complete control of how AT&T would handle their own subscribers to Steve Jobs?

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

Are you some sort of misanthrope? Or some sort of conspiracy theory person?

First three days on MacNN and I'm already being called names. Very mature.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by butterfly0fdoom 

Are you some sort of misanthrope? Or some sort of conspiracy theory person?

Name calling is not appropriate here. The appearance of wrongdoing is enough to make people think that it exists. Not everyone thinks that Apple's hush-hush operations before a product is announced is a completely bad thing.