AT&T: EPIC FAIL.

Blogged on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Complaint, Contradictory.

I have AT&T for phone service, and I get my high-octane caffeinated DSL through this phone line (although sometimes it’s like the internet’s on decaf, because of the slowness). We used to have cell phones for long distance and any other random calling or texting we wanted to do, but since January we’ve used only Skype for outgoing calls that aren’t local.

However, for some reason (and maybe it’s my at-times-decaffeinated internet that’s to blame), Skype has been letting me down recently, and while I can hear who I’m calling - THEY CAN’T HEAR ME. Possibly this is a FAIL on the part of my headset, or it’s a FAIL for Skype.

At any rate, it seemed like now was a good time to add some cheap long distance to the local plan. However, there’s a little 22.95 charge that’s ‘in dispute’ on my account because when I ordered the super-high-octane (but only slightly more expensive) DSL service in January, they promptly lost my order and had to end up shipping my router overnight about a month later. At the time, the helpful service person told me that I would not be charged for shipping.

Of course, LIE! EPIC FAIL LIE! I was charged for the shipping. I already have to buy the router and pay the difference for the extra-special DSL I wanted, but I sure as hell was not okay with paying overnight shipping for a mistake I didn’t make.

So I called them, of course, and they were too busy to answer the phone. No, really. When their ‘call volume’ is too high, their phone system says, sorry, kthxbai! Try the internet! I went online and submitted a help ticket thingy, and got a response back pretty quickly via email that the disputed charge would be taken off within a few months.

It’s still there, however, even though I have paid up every other penny I owed them. And because it’s hanging about on my account, making it look like I’m a non-debt-paying internet-hogging sleazebag, I can’t order long distance online. So I called them.

First I have to tell the automated line what I want:

WELCOME TO AT&T!

(pause)

(overly cheerful phone-answering robot smartly deduces that the phone I’m calling from is the phone on my account)

TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE CALLING ABOUT TODAY! DO YOU WANT… TO PAY YOUR BILL? … NEW PHONE SERVICE? … (pause)

So I tell it that I want TO GET LONG DISTANCE, because if you don’t speak in BOLD ALL CAPS it tells you kindly and firmly that it cannot understand what you want, can you repeat yourself please? Bloody sarcastic phone robot.

The robot puts me through to customer service, which kindly informs me that due to an extremely high call volume, nobody can answer my call. So I should try the internet! Kthxbai!

I try the internet. Internet says: Due to a technical difficulty, we cannot process your order at this time. Please call Customer Service at (the number I just called).

EPIC FAIL, AT&T. BIG FUCKING RETARDED EPIC FAIL. Also, I hate you.