I got my AT&T service May 1st and have been bitching ever since. Since I was beyond my “buyer’s remorse” period they wouldn’t let me out of the contract. I spoke with corporate. I spoke with tech support. Finally I went to the store level. I made sure they knew I wanted out of the contract and if necessary I’d stand in front of their door telling potential customers all about the evils of Charlotte’s AT&T lack of a signal. They asked me to try one more thing… a new Microcell and if that didn’t work they’d let me out of all of it. I kept an email “diary” of events plus tech supports keeps a record as well. I even did extra work on this. Even with the new Microcell, I called tech support twice there after. Skip over the blue text if you could care less about the emails back and forth.
June 20th:
1- MANY times during a Microcell call it starts off OK and then 15 minutes into the call, the person on the other end tells me they're only hearing every other word.
2- My phone will not send/receive data with the Microcell.
3- I called tech support on Saturday and was told there was nothing they could do. (86 minute call with them and the Resolution Dept)
4- I called your store Sunday and spoke with Ramsey. He gave me some suggestions.
5- I called your Escalation dept today and was told they couldn't do anything on a corporate level and suggested I speak with the store. She said early termination would be $308 per phone.
I want out of my contract. I want a refund. I have tried.
My salesman Sudan replied:
I’m really sorry for your problems with the microcell. This is not a normal circumstance with the device so I talked with my manager, we would like to encourage you to try another microcell to see if we can improve your experience. If this doesn’t work, since this is our last resort, we would like you to bring in your equipment with boxes and everything back and we agree to go ahead and cancel out your contract. I hope this suits you preference, if not let me know what else I can explore for you.
June 21st:
Kevin, I'll be in 6-21-11 at about 9:30 to swap out the Microcell. I REALLY want this to work. I have the Inspire. I don't want to be at your place for too long today as I lost a lot of time yesterday. If possible, I'd like to have as much set up as possible:
1- Can you find out if 1475 download speed is really that terrible (tech support seems to think it's OK) or are we still thinking it's the Microcell?
2- Anything you can do to get the new Microcell "registered" in advance would be awesome.
3- Customer service said she checked with your store the other day and someone suggested that we downgrade from 4G or 3G or whatever to a step down while at home using the Microcell for better reception and to make the data sync work with Microcell. She said there's a way to tell our phones to do that automatically while here at home????? The steps she said to do didn't work on my phone and I never tried the other since it wasn't here at the time.
Last night we decided not to try anything more but this morning we decided to give it another try. Thanks for your help. You have both been personally wonderful. Thank you to your district manager as well. While I'm not thrilled with your company, I am with your store. You guys rock.
Kevin, the new Microcell connected quickly! I still have no data from it though. Like playing Words With Friends tries to send my move and says "Network connection error, please try again later". Maybe it's just the app so I'll try other stuff tomorrow (gotta go to work). If I switch to wi-fi it then works. I don't know about phone calls yet.
June 22:
Both phones will not load data while using the Microcell. I've tried pulling up normal web pages. No go. Do I call tech support again?
June 23:
My internet speed was clocked at 1476 download. With the new Microcell, I still cannot pull up a web browser (Explorer or Firefox) or even the Android Market. I called Time Warner and for yet another time, increased my internet speed. During my call to the rep, about 5 minutes into the call, he couldn't hear me. He said I sounded garbled. They remotely reset the modem and a speed test now shows 22672! Screen shots from Time Warner and Speedtest.net (as recommended by your tech support) show below. Am I not supposed to be able to access the internet via the Microcell? With the increase in speed I will need to test a bunch of voice calls. Updates to follow...
I called tech support and spoke with Casey. She said I should be getting internet access. She said when someone makes changes to their internet you have to go to AT&T's site, deactivate and then reactivate the Microcell. I may not be able to see this until tomorrow depending on how fast it links up today.
I came home from work. Microcell is up and running. No internet. I restarted my phone just in case. No internet connection. What am I doing wrong? Is there a setting I need to do? So frustrating!
June 28:
I called tech support again this morning. I tweaked some settings on my router and changed out the order of the way things were connected. It's now modem to microcell to router so that Microcell get's "first place" in the connections. It still didn't work but I rebooted all devices and now am happy to report I have internet on my Inspire through my Microcell without having to change to Wi-Fi. The next test will be call quality which I'll try out tomorrow when I'm off from work by giving my mom a call.
Now I'm left paying $18 more a month on my Time Warner bill to increase internet speed so that Microcell could piggy back off that. I doubt highly that I had to be so high in speed although I do understand that's the "fun" of trouble shooting. If there's anything more than a $75 credit over 3 months, surely I hope you'll accommodate. What can you do?
Never mind. I was told when I got home tonight that my other half Jim's father wasn't able to hear him. Every other word was garbled. Jim had to have his dad call us back on the land line. I'd like to come in tomorrow with the phones, and Microcell and ask for a full refund on the equipment without early termination fees as agreed upon in a prior email. I think I've given this a very fair shake and you're more than welcome to review my file with your tech support.
I want to thank both of you for trying to keep us... you guys have been awesome. As I've been instructed previously I will get my service reconnected elsewhere first and then come in to return the equipment on Thursday morning.
I called Verizon, ordered phones, they mail the phones out and when they arrive all I have to do is install the SIM card and battery and it will automatically activate and take the phone number from AT&T.
I was told by the AT&T assistant manager that I should activate Verizon prior to returning the phones. I must tell you that although I have a lot of stuff in “writing” and thought I’d have to fight with AT&T. It had been 2 months… 30 days over my “buyer’s remorse” period. I went to AT&T and the manager refunded me the cost of the phones and cancelled the contract without an early termination fee! Meanwhile, Verizon will refund me the early termination fee they charged (which I fully expected).
If AT&T had reneged on their offer, I would have picketed. I wouldn’t have spent all day but I would have done it an hour or so here there. If all else failed, I would have let my credit take a hit raher than pay them over $600 to terminate plus the $200 I already paid.
On the Verizon side, I negotiated the phones from $250 to $200 each. It’s the HTC Thunderbolt which is almost identical to the HTC Inspire. The side buttons and charging port is located a little differently and my new phone has a “kickstand” on the back with extra speakers and 2 cameras, one on the rear and the other on the front for video conferencing.
There’s a good review about there phone here if you’re interested. I will bitch about the wonderful kickstand in a later entry.
Jim is off to Atlanta for the holiday weekend. I didn’t go for a couple of reasons. Number one, I thought I was working for the 4th because my center was closed for the previous holiday. I thought we were on an every other rotation. The second was that we would have left Friday after work and I would have had to leave early Friday and taken Saturday off. I would burn through my PTO faster than Jim. It turned out 2 days prior to Friday I was offered to work 9-5:30 on Friday due to staff shortages. No big deal. Jim can have some one on one family time and I’ll go the next trip.
Speaking of hours and crap like that, I’m happy to say that I’m one of the top 10 of 44 employees in my department which means that my chances of success increase when schedule bids come up. I’m hoping a 9-5ish Monday through Friday schedule comes up. I’d even deal with 12-9 Monday through Friday. I just want the weekends off to enjoy the RV with Jim.
That's a LOT of blue text my friend, but you're nothing if not thorough in your correspondence/email/dialog/record keeping. I applaud you. Makes for better blog rants.
ReplyDeleteSorry you missed the Atlanta trip. But now you have the weekend to rest, relax, and rejuvenate however you choose. No dusting, okay?
Adrian just started a customer service job St the ADT Call Center. She is in training. So far so good. She is also hoping for a M-F gig eventually, and a better schedule. Her beginning shift is 1pm - 10pm with Sundays off and another weekday off TBD. She gets paid holidays and good benefits - and GREAT hourly pay. So she thinks she can manage and accrue some seniority. I hope she likes the job. Any pointers for a young gal just starting out?
There was actually more text than that. I cut some out. LOL.
ReplyDeleteNo dusting. Just video gaming.
My advice? Marry wealthy. Hopefully she'll get next to some awesome cubicle mates like I have. They make the day go by faster when she can stand up and chat between calls.
Oy! What a time you've had! Glad you got your refund and are back with Verizon!
ReplyDelete