I’m not sure what to do about this. AT&T has turned into an unrelenting sales monster for AT&T U-Verse. A bundled package that includes land line phone, Internet, TV and cell phone.
This has been going on for almost 18 months. It started with phone call after phone call. At one point it was three times a week. I finally lost it and just cursed that S.O.B. out for five minutes. I threatened to use an Air Horn the next time they called. That shut them up for awhile.
Then the letters started arriving. Every single week a letter from them offering AT&T U-Verse. That hasn’t stopped in over a year.
Next came a personal visit to the house twice!!! The first time I slammed the door in the guys face. Six months later he catches me in the carport trying to get into my car. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested. He kept wanting to setup an install date that could easily be canceled. :dubious:
At this point I wouldn’t take their wonderful AT&T U-verse if it was free.
I’m a loyal 14 year DirecTV customer. That happens to mean something to me.
My landline is already unlimited for local calls. They want to set me up with a limited local call option or charge more for unlimited local & long distance. I don’t make long distance calls from AT&T!!! I have a prepaid phone card that I’ve used since 2003.
Saving twenty-five bucks a month doesn’t excite me. Hell that’s one meal at Outback Steakhouse. I’m just not interested and saving a few bucks isn’t an incentive.
Basically I just don’t like the bundling at all.
Is anyone else caught in this nightmare? What the hell do you do about it? When they start knocking on your door it’s just totally out of control.
The horrible part is I’m trapped as their “customer”. They are the only option for DSL and the only decent option for my LandLine. I orginally had a Cingular prepaid cell phone. Then AT&T bought Cingular and my phone converted to a Go Phone. They got me by the balls.
The salesman that cornered me in the carport last night said they put in new lines into the street for AT&T U-verse. Supposedly each internet connection has it’s own dedicated line.
I knew last Spring our street and quite a few yards were dug up for something. It took them over a month to do the work.
Since they sunk money into this that’s probably why they are so unrelenting in trying to sell U-verse to me. They want to corner all the communications in your house in one bundled package.
A couple of weeks ago one of their salesmen knocked on my door. He spent like 5 to 10 minutes estimating how much I would pay for their service, which turned out to be the same as I pay now but with less TV channels. He then tried to set up an appointment. He spent the next 5 minutes pretending I had agreed to switch and all that was needed was to set up the appointment for installation. He seemed absolutely shocked and flabbergasted when I told him I wasn’t going to agree to anything based on his door to door spiel, that I needed to do some research first. That despite the fact that he could not even answer the one question I had for him (what’s the monthly download cap). After a few more shocked “but what do you want to research?/the best research is to install it for a month” lines of attack, he gave up and left. He didn’t even leave me the estimate or phone number as I requested.
They’ve hired a 3rd party marketing company to do all of the door-to-door sales, but the service only exists in a very few, metropolitan markets. They’ll hire anyone with a pulse, and pay them commission only.
I’ve never encountered any of them, and actually had to call AT&T to ask about the service.
Unlimited local and LD
24 Mbps Internet
9 zillion channels, and a few premiums. Plus, I can record 4 channels at once, and I like the interface better than Comcast.
I have AT&T, but I called them - not the other way around. I’ve never been solicited except for perhaps junk mail, which I ignore anyway. All I have is internet - I don’t like bundled services.
If someone comes onto my property trying to sell me something, they are forcefully run off with threats to call the police and have them charged with trespassing if they ever attempt this again. I will never buy anything from someone who calls me or comes to my door soliciting* so really they don’t need to waste their time.
And the Rottweiler accompanies me to the door if someone I don’t know comes knocking. He’s very friendly but really fucking imposing.
I have zero tolerance for adults coming to the door trying to sell me shit.
*Local kids selling things for school events or whatever are fine, sometimes I even buy and I’m always nice to them.
I’ve wondered if the local phone offered by U-verse is a real land line?
I keep my land line because of it’s reliability in emergencies. Land lines were the only reliable phone service on 9/11. The Cell networks overloaded and crashed. They often do that after local Tornadoes hit too.
I am still taken aback by the aggressive and non-stop demand that I go to this package. It’s every bit as bad as when I had bill collectors calling twenty-five years ago. I got my bills paid and in order back then because I hated those phone calls so much. Now to have it happen all over again for a sales pitch is just appalling.
I’ve got the opposite problem, It looks increasingly likely I will have to move into Chicago at some point in the mid to near future but the place I’m going does not have Uverse, that’s practically a deal breaker for me. I have had Uverse for several years now and LOVE LOVE LOVE it.
I chose “once in a while” because I only get junk mail from them, every couple of weeks or so since moving in to my new home. Their their regular post-introductory-special prices are the same at Time Warner Cable for pretty much the same phone/internet/TV package, so I couldn’t see a reason to switch.
I’d be interested in learning more about U-Verse but it’s not offered in my area, nor does ATT have any timeline when they’ll get around to it. It’s available about three blocks away, so I find this very annoying.
I finally got Caller ID earlier this year, so I’m guessing that the U-Verse sales calls are among the calls which I’m now screening out.
We get a door-to-door guy at least once a quarter (I wouldn’t be surprised if they have come more often, when we’re not home). The last time, I wasn’t home, and the sales guy confused the hell out of my wife, and had her convinced that I had already made some agreement with them to switch to U-Verse (which I had not). When I got home, I had to spend 10 minutes talking my wife down from all of that.
I’m honestly on the verge of calling AT&T and saying: “listen. I have my land line with you. I have my cell phones with you. I do not want you to supply me with TV…I have friends who have U-Verse TV, and they don’t like it. I want you to stop trying to get me to switch to U-Verse. Please stop sending me letters and making sales calls. If you do not stop, I’m switching my land line to Comcast, and my cell phone to Verizon. Got it?”
Not anymore, but they finally stopped after I informed AT&T that after the last screw up they made with me that I wouldn’t do business with them again if gave me a year of service free.
They quit calling (I did have one door knocker not that long afterward - there’s an AT&T customer service training center up the road from me, and that happens occasionally)
It’s a land line in the sense that it’s hardwired to your home like POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) but it’s voice over IP (VOIP) just like the cable companies offer. The fiber or coaxial cable into your home does not supply power. Phones require power. POTS provides power. VOIP phones need power from an AC outlet, or power injected into the ethernet cable that they also communicate over.
So, it’s a “real” land line in the sense that it is entirely based on terrestrial communication, but it doesn’t function the same as POTS which is probably what you think of a land line as. If your power goes out and you have no backup, you have no phone. But it’s also not susceptible to overloading like mobile networks are.
I finally lost it and just cursed that S.O.B. out for five minutes. I threatened to use an Air Horn the next time they called. That shut them up for awhile.