AT&T is fistfucking me! What should I do?

The BBQ Pit
1

My cell phone gets zero fucking reception in my neighborhood, and in my apt. I rarely use it anyway, but it’s been annoying me for quite some time. My “contract” recently expired (signed a 1 year in 2002) this past December, since any sane person would switch, I decided to do so. I call up AT&T to make sure I’m in clear, and that’s when they toss me over to some customer retention asshole. The tell me that I “verbally agreed” :confused: to a change in my plan (additional minutes or something) and that I was locked for another year. I told them, they were fucking insane, and that I was going to go down to my local phone store (where I signed up).

<off to AT&T store (they now have Tmobile, remember this)>

There was a different guy there, so they didn’t recognize me. I walk in and ask they guy,

Me: so If I sign up, how long is the contract?
Asshole: A year, all our contracts are for a year.
Me:: That’s good, because I would hate to get locked in for more then that.
AH:: Nope, they’re all for a year.
Me:: Actually it’s funny that you mentioned it, because I was just on the phone with your customer service people and they tell me…

Asshole starts telling me some bullshit about if you do it online or over the phone it’s actually 2 years, blah blah blah. He offers me with a new phone, or to roll me back to my old plan. I explain to him that I DON’T GET ANY FUCKING RECEPTION, not that I’m unhappy with my minutes or anything. He continues bullshitting me, telling me that there isn’t anything he can do, except give me a different plan or give me a free phone. I explain once more, that up until 15 minutes ago they had a person who would have like to stay with them, but the phone barely works around my house. Now, they have someone who will go out of their way to fistfuck them at the smallest opportunity, which is considered a bad thing.

After the 5th time of explaining that unless they put up some more friggin towers, there is nothing they can do for me, the guy says, “switch to Tmobile then”. (which he happens to sell in the store as well)

AH: Well, what we can do is switch you over to Tmobile
Me:: That’s what I’m trying to do, but AT&T is fucking me.
AH:: Nah, no problem, I can just switch you right over, it’s easy. Switching over is different from just terminating.
Me: And how about if I wanted to “switch on over” to Sprint? Verizon?
AH:: Oh, in that case you would pay the fee.
Me:: :confused: :rolleyes:

It ended with the guy telling me to come back and talk to his boss.

What they’re doing to me is obviously bullshit, but I don’t want to get stuck in some limbo as AT&T will not release my number until I give them their blood money. I’ve thought about going to my bank and telling them to withhold any payment to those fucks, but again, then they won’t release my number. I can’t lose my number, I’ve had it for 5 years, but I’m literally about to go picket out front of the goddamn store.

FUCK AT&T!

2

A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Tell them to get fucked. You’ve fulfilled your contract and you’re now a free agent, and don’t let their bullshit fluster you.

My contract with Cingular ran out, and I moved to an area they don’t serve. Getting them to simply terminate the phone services was an adventure in itself. I finally called the customer service line, and told the droid that I wasn’t haning up until my cell phone service was terminated without renewal.

You might picket the store with a sign that shows the title of this thread…

3

Check your account online, and see when your current plan started, they’re all dated. If it started over a year ago, you know for sure they are bullshitting you. If the website has a “free $50” offer for extending your contract, you also know that you’re month to month.

When I switched to Verizon, about a week after my contract cancelled, they switched me over in about an hour and never bothered me again.

If they say you extended your contract, they will have date you did so in their records, and what you changed. I think if you get a new plan with more minutes, they try and extend you from the date you change.

4

**AT&T is fistfucking me! What should I do? **
Apply a little KY jelly. That’ll help.

5

Of Course they’re fucking you! Why do you think there’s a picture of the Death Star in their corporate logo???
http://attwireless.com/images/global/common/att_logo.gif

6

And the small fact that I never verbally agreed to anything in the first place :smiley:

A concern of mine though.

The most important thing during this ordeal is keeping my number. Don’t I need to keep it active in order to transfer it over? I couldn’t terminate the account, and then have the number ported, right?

7

Sounds like what I was going through with T-Mobile about 4 months ago. What you need to do is keep your old AT&T account active so you don’t lose your number, just dont sign another contract with them. I personally went with Alltel because I was able to try it out for 2 weeks and if I didnt like it I didnt have to keep my contract. I wanted to make sure I had a company that provided service at my house, same problem you were having. So pick another service that you like and deal only with them. They will port the number over for you and you shouldnt even have to deal with AT&T.

8

Why did you tell the guy in the store anything about your discussion with customer services? Why didn’t you just say as soon as he’d said 1 year; “Cool, my year is up, cancel my contract.” Number one rule when dealing with mega-corps, who don’t know what they’re doing and tell you different stories from different people, is to pursue the story that suits you and let the others slide back under the filling tray they came from. Any other way and you’re just inventing problems for yourself.

And isn’t a “verbal agreement” for a contract worth the paper it’s written on?

9

Whatever lube you decide to go with, please record the whole escapade and send it to me. I, uh, my friend is really into phone-conglomerate-on-SDMB-poster action and she says it’s harder to find than you think.

10

I’m also weary of signing up with, say, Sprint, and then AT&T won’t release me unless I pay a fee, but then Sprint will say I signed up and now I owe them dough as well.

I wouldn’t put it past these assholes.

11

I would love to, but if I cancel my contract, my number is toast.

I’m signing up for online account now, I wonder if that will be considered “please extend my contract for 5 years” :rolleyes:

12

I was being fistfucked by Verizon because I had no reception around my house whatsoever. We refered to this as the ‘Dead Zone’. When none of our neighbors had the same problem we realized needed to look into a bit more.

Then one day I moseyed into their local store and whined about it to the 19 year old tech geek. I have underpants older than her - not that they fit.

I was given such a reproving look when I told her that " No, I haven’t read the owner’s manual." Have you read the owner’s manual on your car, chickie? Owner’s manuals are written by Thargon’s from the Outer Rim of Fungul. Drunk one’s at that. I have always suspected that tech people are Thargon’s as well. I fully expected her 12 ft long prehensil tongue to come shooting out of her plastmatic head and wrap itself around my carbon based life form neck.
I was given a code to punch in to get the updates in the system and now I get reception at my house ( it still isn’t stellar, but at least I don’t have to sit on my lawn to talk to people during ‘my’ time.)

Now, at least once a week, I am punching that code in to update any updates.

Now, I don’t feel as fistfucked anymore, but I still don’t like them. Bastidges.

13

I can’t seem to dig up this info on their site. Just my monthly billing history and a bunch of other bullshit. Is there are account overview or something that I’m missing?

14

Well, I’m off to go back to the store and talk to the boss. Helpful suggestions all, thanks.

Here’s hoping I don’t get arrested.

15

Not sure if this is the case here, but some companies are paying the penalties onyour behalf if you “port over” your number (and account) to them. This could be why you can switch to T-Mobile without incurring cancelation fees (T-Mobile is essentially buying your account from AT&T), but not if you switch to Verizon or Sprint (they’re not willing to pay the fees on your behalf).

I’d ask more questions about this.

16

AT&T pulled some crap with me 2 years ago and they’re why I have no cell phone now. I was on a corporate plan through my aunt, and it gave me 100 free daytime minutes a month, plus free weekend and evening calls. It was great for a whole year of the 2-year contract. Then they suddenly started charging me for my daytime minutes, at 25c a minute!

When I called to complain, they told me that there was no such corporate plan in their computers and they had no obligation to give me those minutes. I went to read over my contract and get the plan number, and called back. Another rep this time, who told me that the plan was actually only for one year, not 2, and so I was on a different plan now (Hmm, when did I agree to THAT?). After faxing them a copy of my signed agreement, they changed their story to “the plan was erased when we changed computer systems, so we have you on this new plan which is similar.” Similar my ass!

I will never deal with AT&T again. Lying bastards! I don’t know if I just kept falling on asshole customer service reps, or if they train them to be like that, but I spoke to at least 5 reps (and some “supervisors”) during all this mess and not a single one of them actually tried to fix my problem. They just kept trying to get me to agree to stay on the new, more expensive plan.

17

Thanks but no, the asshole at the store is a Tmobile dealer as well, and it’s moot considering he won’t be getting my business again.

As far as the fees, there shouldn’t be any. AT&T is saying they will charge me $200 for breaking my contract, which fucking expired 3 months ago! I’m not breaking anything.

18

Switch to T-Mobile. Catherine Zeta-Jones’s contract contains a reach-around clause.

19

A couple of things…

If you port your number to another carrier, AT&T can not refuse to release your number even if you owe an early termination fee.

If you are sure that you didn’t agree to a contract extension for some sort of upgrade you may want to call AT&T and ask for details and the date of whatever they claim got your contract extended. It’s quite possible that the “retention” rep just lied to you and porting your number will end your troubles. But it’s also possible that if AT&T really thinks that you owe them money they could mess up your credit if you ignore any early termination fee.

I recently ported my cell number from AT&T to Cingular and I have been happy with them. (Cingular is buying AT&T Wireless.)

20

Did they actually admit that your contract expired 3mo ago? I can’t believe they’d still threaten you with a termination charge!

Just to make you feel better, an AT&T rep managed to get me so mad that I cursed her out and hung up on her. I believe my words were “You’ll never get another fucking dime from me!”. Of course, they did, but only until my contract was up. That was a nice blood pressure raiser, I’ll tell ya.

When I switched, I basically resigned myself to getting a termination charge, but I was more than willing to pay, just to get away from those fuckers.