Halleluja! AT&T: 1 year later

In the wake of the SNL skit poking fun at AT&T's signal problems, I noticed it has been almost a year to the day since I bought an iPhone. Now while I managed to escape their service in July it took quite a bit longer for me to escape their contract. And I only now assume to have escaped the contract as I can no longer log into their website and I haven't recieved letters from any collection agencies. AT&T has failed to directly contact me on this issue: EVER...so I'm just guessing.

So the adventure started because Verizon refused to allow me to try the Samsung Omnia without locking me into a 2 year contract. I had allowed my agreement to lapse and then purchased a BlackBerry Storm. But, when I tried to exchange the Storm for the Omnia I was told that I would be bound to a new 2 year agreement. Apparently the 30 day trial is shared between the phone and the service and any change to either within that time negates the trial.

The Omnia was Verizon's final chance to retain me as a customer at that point and since they wouldn't let me see if I liked the phone enough to keep their service, I canceled my contract and left the store...heading over to the AT&T with my head hung in shame I asked for an iPhone. The rep hooked me up with my account, activated the phone, applied my RIT employee discount, sold me some screen protectors, and sent me on my way. Aside from a few odd hiccups at Wal-mart involving the phone refusing to work since it thought the SIM card was out, nothing seemed odd for the trip home. I brought the phone home and immediately set about jailbreaking it. The phone was working out pretty well for a while, apart from some of that GSM noise and sketchy signal. Over the next few months living in Rochester the signal problems grew worse and the noise became more annoying. I'm not sure if it was actually making it more, or if I'd just slowly grown to hate it.

AT&T support seemed only grudgingly willing to help me concerning my poor reception. While I understand the description of the issue leaves a lot to be desired as a technical support request, these people are being paid to at least try, which they did not. And from a customer perspective separate from the technical problem, they didn't help me at all. These people refused to admit there were any issues, kept repeating that I was in a good signal area like saying it again would make it true, and they wouldn't even consider compensating me for the poor service by giving me even one-time discounts.

I was dropping calls sometimes 3 times within a minute. It was horrifying. And I wasn't even in a major metropolitan area, I just had poor signal. And it wasn't my phone because as soon as I left my room, or stepped outside if I was in a particularly sturdy RIT building, I was able to use the phone perfectly well. As a former Verizon customer for several years I had never experienced the frustration of a dropped call. In fact, I can't remember it happening to me before this, EVER. This constant dropping of calls and failing to ring even once caused my overreacting mother to call the county Sheriff's office to investigate my apartment and make sure I was ok. I have NEVER been so angry at a phone company.

Eventually, after almost 4-5 months of this I got them to consider this might be their problem. They offered to replace the SIM card on the phone, which I knew wasn't going to help, but I decided to play along since they were finally paying attention to me as a customer and not the enemy. Unfortunately, just a little after this I had to graduate and move, so we postponed the replacement until I had settled in my new apartment. When I called again after moving, the rep at the other end, while being slightly kinder than anyone else I'd spoken to up until this point wasn't any more helpful. I was told I was 3 miles away from the nearest tower, with the maximum range of GSM being...survey says...3 miles. The guy basically told me I was out of luck, there's nothing they can do regarding compensation, my options were either step outside every time I need to make a call and hope they build a tower nearby in a few months or switch carriers. So took the sensible option: I switched to Sprint when the Palm Pre came out in July. After ~8 months, I was finally free. Or ... crap.

While Sprint was being really good to me, discounting me for poor service and eventually giving me a device which gives me flawless reception in my apartment for free, AT&T was trying to charge me a cancellation fee. They sent me 2 bills, each 2 months apart for the fee. They didn't call, they just sent me sporadic bills. I finally called them and I was again confronted as the enemy. I got through the first level which told me nothing could be done, and the next level who told me they couldn't do anything, and that level's manager who told me I was completely unjustified in asking for the fee to be dropped. (The fee they charged me to cancel the service I wasn't getting...yeah.) But he'd put it into arbitration just to get me off the phone. A representative from the cancellation department would contact me within a week.
A week went by, then 2, then a month, then 2...and no call. Eventually it was December again, and I decided to pop into my att.com account to see if the fee was still there. And much to my surprise I no longer had an account with att.com. I can only assume that AT&T finally decided to drop the cancellation fee they had no basis for charging me. Greed is not a basis. But they must have been so embarrassed at their own unreasonable handling of my case and took so long to make a decision, that they decided not to call me.

So, 1 year later... AT&T has completely spoiled any chance of my considering them a responsible entity. They are a bad company, with a crappy network, a slew of crappy phones, and some of the worst customer service I've ever had the displeasure to receive. They are a joke, and it is funny...in a very sad way.

--PXA