I moved to a new apartment last weekend, and as part of the move I switched from Time Warner cable/internet/phone to AT&T Uverse service. I made the change because AT&T advertised higher download speeds for a similar price, and my TW connection gave me troubles with Netflix and sometimes Youtube.
With respect to the cable and internet installation I have to say AT&T was stellar. I had a few issues with my Time Warner installation and none of them were present in this. My download speeds are within 10% of the advertised speed, and I’m enjoying my service greatly.
The phone installation was a nightmare. I tried unsuccessfully for two weeks to transfer my number, then had to give up and try unsuccessfully to have AT&T assign me a new number. Here’s how it worked.
In the 2nd week of August, I called Time Warner and notified them I’d be terminating my service on August 23rd. They offered me a lower rate, but I really wanted to try Uverse so I continued to cancel. On the same day, I set up my Uverse service online, and the site told me my number could be ported. Great!
About a week later, AT&T called me to tell me there was a problem porting the number; apparently the number had a pending order. I called Time Warner, and the only pending order was the cancellation. We decided to remove the cancellation order since I could cancel when I turned in my equipment. I called AT&T and asked them to try again. I still had about 4 days before moving, so I figured it would be fine.
Nope. AT&T sent me a few emails the day before the move to indicate there was a problem. They were trying to port my cell phone number, which had nothing to do with the number I asked them to port. So I asked them to try again, with the right number this time.
No dice. AT&T called me the day of my move to let me know there was still a pending order on the number. Time Warner insisted there were no pending orders. I couldn’t do anything because I was busy moving, so I put it off until the next day; I still had 2 days until the installation. I told AT&T to assign me a new number, and after a few minutes the person on the phone told me what my new number would be and I happily continued to wrap up my move.
The day the tech was scheduled to do the installation, I got a call from AT&T. The robovoice let me know there was a problem porting my number (!) and I’d have to reschedule the voice installation. What? I talked to a representative and there was apparently no indication that I’d already been assigned a number. I asked her to assign me one, and she got confused and decided to remove my voice order. At this point, the installation tech was at the door so I told her whatever and ended the call.
The installation tech had the number I’d been told I’d be receiving before, and knew nothing of the number port. We decided to try the voice install and see what happened. Interestingly enough, the phone halfway worked. I could dial out, and caller ID would show my old Time Warner number. But any attempt to dial in failed. The tech couldn’t really do anything, but told me some stuff to tell the phone support so they wouldn’t waste time sending another technician to “install” the phone kit. So I ate lunch and started that call.
It was an hour-long ordeal. The first tech support guy couldn’t really do anything because the woman earlier in the morning had removed voice service from my account. He transferred me to someone in sales. She added voice service again, and helped me notice that I’d lost the promotional credits to my account in all of this and re-applied them. After doing that, all she could do was schedule a voice installation, but when I explained that I was already installed and just needed a number she went to talk to some supervisors and figured out she could connect me to someone in high-level tech support. This guy was very confused that I was calling him from a cell phone; apparently he thought I was calling him from my voice service that I had already explained I didn’t have. After I explained (twice) that neither my cell phone number nor the Time Warner number should be ported and I needed a brand new number, he got to work. Some 20 minutes later, he told me I had a number and read it to me. We did a test call, it worked, everything’s happy.
The number he read to me isn’t the phone number I have. It was a kind of final problem, but it wasn’t tough to call my cell phone to figure out what my real number was.
What the heck happened? How could AT&T screw up phone service this bad, isn’t it their traditional business? Why did they give up on trying to transfer my Time Warner number and start trying other numbers associated with my account? Why didn’t tech support on Tuesday know what tech support on Monday had done? How did my installer get “Give this man number A” without my account having a note of that? Why couldn’t the final and helpful person read me the number he *actually* assigned to me?
Aside from that, I’d highly recommend Uverse, I just had to vent about the phone process.
I GIVE UP: Unfortunately I did not have such a happy ending. I transferred all of my service from Comcast to ATT Uverse on MAy 29, 2010, because they promised me that they could reduce my monthly bill. The installation went fine and after a couple of hiccups, everything worked fine. In July, I started being disconnected in the middle of my phone conversations or my phone would ring but not in my home and voicemail would never pick. I was constantly getting calls on my cells by people looking for me and making sure I was ok. AT&T tech support has been to my home at least six times to repair my phone. Some of the techs worked on my phone as long as 5-6 hours at a time. The lines inside and out has been changed, all cords have been changed, the have exchanged my modem at lease 5 or 6 times. One day they changed it twice in one day. I have chatted with the online support. They frustrated me so badly that by the end of the conversation, I was typing in CAPS. There is no way to get to any higher up managers through that irritating phone tree. When I demand to speak to a manager, I was told by one Bus rep. that none were available but someone would call me within 24-48 hours. What kind of service is this. AT&T’s customer service STINKS. Last Friday, a technician came to my home and told me that they can’t fix my service so they were going to change my service back to regular phone service,without any additonal cost to me, if this was ok with me. I did not care. All I wanted was for my phone to work. So he came in and placed the order with the business rep. He had to go through the same phone tree that I had to. The rep asked to speak to me so I could give her my passcode. She then told me that the cost for my 2 lines would go from $50 to $57 a month. I told her that the support tech told me that there would not be any increase in my bill. She told me that they had no business tellling me anything about the cost and also that since I was breaking the bundle, my internet and TV service was going to go up $60 per month. I tried to explain that I was not breaking the bundle, AT& T was. She told me that it did not make a difference. I asked to speak to a supervisor and he told me the same thing. He said they have no way to adjust the cost. I find it hard to believe that their is not some one up the chain of commant at AT&T, that can make decisions to accommodate customer in my predicament. No one at AT&T has offered me any type of aommodation. I am just immobilze at this point. There is no more fight in me. I am waiting for my 120 day limit so that i can so back to Comcast or some other company, and be treated as a new customer so that I can receive some of the promotions. This has left a bad taste in my mouth for AT&T, accept form my cell phone. I have had my wireless service for at least thirteen years. No complaints – wonderful customer service.
Pingback: Att customer service number
I’ve deleted several comments. I don’t like doing that, but these were very spammy. I appreciate that DISH network employees found this post amusing. I didn’t mind that they name-dropped they’re company. But I draw the line at gushing reviews of DISH and links to websites that do “unbiased” research and find DISH superior to all of the alternatives. You can’t get free advertising on my site. Sorry.
When I called to get uverse service for my apartment, i just ordered internet and television. On the installation date, no one showed up (and I had to take a day off from work to be there). When I called customer service, of course they apologized but the soonest available install date wasn’t for another 3 weeks! For the inconvenience, they said they would give me the first month of service for free. After it was finally installed (no problems with the installation) and I got my first e-bill (i signed up with auto debit), I noticed that they had charge me for the services. When I called customer service it took me almost 3 hours to get to a rep that could find the notes on my account that said I would get my 1st bill waived (i had spoken with like 3 other representatives that said they didn’t see anything about free 1st bill). I finally got my “first” bill waived on my second billing cycle. Despite that hassle, I fell in love with the DVR service and the ability to surf the internet and stream the files on laptop to my tv. It seems that AT&T needs to work on their communication becuase apparently certain call centers can pull up some information about your account and others cannot (and vice versa).
Pingback: Att Customer Service Number | Internet Business Blog - How to start your Online business, Tips and Resources
Never done this before but an at my wits end. They took out $1200. out of my (and my mothers) checking account without permission. It was easier to take care of my mothers things with mine as she is blind and just one less thing for me to have to do. I have been on the phone with ATT since September 28, 2011 and keep getting the run around. Each time I call I get a different answer. I was given a case number and was told they would expedite my case because of having to put my mom in a nursing home and having to apply for medicade. I had to get my own checking account because of this and told them that in May or June when I moved. They wanted to know if I wanted to be on automatic pay and I said no due to the above issue and they were not to use that account. THEN in September they took out all this money from my moms account that I have to account for to Medicade. I am livid. The guy I talked to today said that I was on automatic pay and I told him that I never was. He said I had a balance due…I said well, if I had a balance due why didn’t they take it out of the account them? Doesn’t sound right. How can companies just take out money from a customers checking account without permission????