Dear AT&T U-verse: I fucking hate you

The BBQ Pit
1

When I moved in June, I made the mistake of signing up for AT&T U-verse at my new place. I love the service itself, but trying to get my bill correct has been an exercise in futility.

I got my June bill, and none of the special rates had been applied. They were charging me full price for TV and internet and for the “free” HBO and Cinemax. They had also charged me for the installation fee, which was supposed to be waived because I had signed up online. I called, I was promised a credit for the installation fee, and they supposedly got my billing straightened out.

I got my July bill, same story. I was being charged full price, being charged for the HBO and Cinemax, and they never credited me for the installation fee. I called, they swear I’m getting that credit and that they’ve straightened out my bill.

I get home, and I find out they fucking downgraded my service, took away my HBO and Cinemax, and added a motherfucking sports package that I would never, ever in a million years ask for.

I was too pissed off to call them again that day. I knew I’d completely lose it on whatever unfortunate soul answered the phone, so I waited two days until I felt like I could be civil. I called, they apologized all over the place, I got a $99 credit for my trouble, and they upgraded my internet to the next tier at no extra charge. Supposedly, my billing has been straightened out.

I got my August bill, and it’s completely fucked up. I’m still being charged for the sports package I never asked for, I still haven’t gotten a credit for the installation fee, and I’m being charged extra for that “free” internet upgrade that was supposed to compensate me for their idiocy. I call (after waiting a few days to cool down), I vent a little (without raising my voice or cursing), and they swear they’re going to take care of everything.

I got my September bill, and the TV charges are finally correct, but they’re still overcharging me for the internet upgrade that I don’t even want anymore. I don’t call because I’m too pissed off to deal with it.

I got my October bill. It’s in motherfucking Spanish. My AT&T homepage is now in motherfucking Spanish. I don’t know when I’ll be calm enough to call them about this because I’m about to fucking go postal.

How fucking stupid can they be? Is there even one person there with an IQ above room temperature? It should not be this fucking hard to get my fucking bill fucking right. Fuck. I don’t remember the last time I dealt with this level of incompetence, and I’m an attorney, albeit a relatively young one. I deal with plenty of fucking idiots. I give up. I’m going to cut off the service, which is unfortunate because I really like it. I never in my life thought I would say this, but I should have gone with Charter.

TL;DR – Fuck you, AT&T U-verse. Fuck you in the ass with a sandpaper-covered baseball bat, you worthless motherfuckers.

2

This is the part where I started laughing uncontrollably.

3

Could you maybe write a corporate-friendly version of this and send it to AT&T? I mean definitely cancel the service, they’ve been less than useless. But someone besides a call-center level employee should know about this.

I also had to laugh about the Spanish bill. It sounds like (if I had to guess) that maybe they kept mixing your account up with somebody else’s.

4

Semi-serious:

Is there someone who works there who you seriously pissed off at some time in the past? Maybe you cut him off in traffic, and he managed to track your license plate or something?

5

AT&T U-Verse > Bright House. In case you didn’t get the gist, I <3 AT&T. No complaints whatsoever.

BTW, you wouldn’t happen to live in Central Florida, would you?

6

I think it should be edited only to remove “fucking” and “motherfucking” (well, OK, change “them” to “you”) and sent directly to the CEO.

7

You do, I hope, agree that the OP has reason to complain. Right?

8

I think it’s the same with all the damn companies. I just talked to Verizon for an hour, and got cut off once and had to call back. I was promised a rate of $74.99 for two years. I was told that that rate never existed. I was also told that the cheapest rate was $94.99 even though I have a flyer from them saying they have a package for $79.99.

Fucking assholes wouldn’t agree to any damn price, I had them cancel my ‘free’ Showtime because they said I could only get the Showtime or DVR free. Now I have no Showtime and my DVR is still not free.

I have my original order number of which they told me they recorded me with the correct price, but they kept telling me there’s no way I got that price. My bill is now $85.99, which is $5 more then the package, I have a two year agreement :confused: and I have less channels.

I should have just stayed without the damn TV but it was cheaper with all three then just the phone and internet. Now I can’t go back because they cut my fucking phone lines.

So I’m right there with you. You might want to write things down, I did, for when you have to go through this next month when your bill is $200 and it’s in Russian.

9

I feel your pain. I mean I really feel your pain. Well, except for the Spanish thing. I signed up for AT&T U-verse in February, and I have yet to receive an accurate bill. They also keep bugging me to pay electronically, rather than sending a check. I guess they figure people don’t check their accounts, and once the payment is set up they’ll just let the wrong amount be taken out month after month. There are now so many different credits being applied to my bill that it’s almost impossible to figure out the correct amounts. They also seem to think that if I have a very low bill, because of credits for past errors, I shouldn’t be upset, even though the credits are still going against the wrong amount.

The sad thing is that I finally chose AT&T, after years of indecision, because I had never had a problem with the phone or dial-up internet that they provided. I’d like to dump them, I just don’t have much faith that Comcast is any better.

10

Never trust a company with the Death Star for a corporate logo.

11

I’ve had the exact opposite experience with Uverse. Great service whenever I call, never a hiccup on the billing, when my remote acted up they replaced it for free.

I’m looking for work and called to check out how much I could save by downgrading and the service rep was able to lower my bill by over $30/ month with no downgrade and upgraded my internet.

12

Same here - also signed up for uVerse when I moved, and I was concerned about getting it hooked up ASAP because I work from home and was trying to complete the move over a weekend. I didn’t want to have to take any days off, nor work from a coffee shop for a week or more while waiting for someone to hook it up. So I called them in advance and really stressed that point to the rep. Even though the first appointment wasn’t officially available until at least a week after my move-in date, he was able to work some magic and get me an appointment the very day I moved in.

13

Miller, looking at your post, I’m laughing too now. It’s just so ridiculous. Motherfucking Spanish.

Euphonious Polemic, who knows? Maybe someone involved in a lawsuit? It’s a small world. I really think they’re just incompetent though. There are a lot of U-verse horror stories out there.

Omg a Black Conservative, I haven’t lived in Central Florida for several years, but I still have a lot of family there.

Edward The Head, I’m really afraid I’ve somehow wound up under contract. I wasn’t when I initially signed up, but I wouldn’t put it past them to put me under contract somewhere in all this mess.

I think I might take the advice of some of you and clean this up so I can forward it to some higher-ups. Maybe someone will learn something?

14

I dunno, I think some people in corporate might need to see it just the way it is. I mean, the sheer incredulous hatred is so brilliantly illustrated, I’d hate to chance you losing any of the passion there. They might miss the point if it were more subtle.

Course, that’s coming from someone who submitted her English Honors final paper (with illustrations) with the topic: “X Book (not giving the title, sorry) is a Steaming Pile of Fucked-Up Horse-Shit.” I got an A- on it to boot. (The minus was because the teacher felt he had to at least *try *to encourage me to get my point across without resorting to crude language, but I could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.)

15

God, that’s awesome.

And yeah, I love UVerse, blah blah never had trouble - you know the drill. I think everyone is just bound to get fucked over hard by a business at some point. For my husband and I it was Verizon. Back when it wasn’t common to have no-roaming, no-long distance charges packages, we made sure that we’d have a calling area that covered a nearby city that we liked to visit, so there’d be no long distance fees for calling there. The map showed it, and we were assured that it would be fine.

We traveled there, and couldn’t receive phone calls. Calls to our cell phones went to voice mail, requiring us to call our own phone numbers frequently to see if friends were trying to reach us and retrieve the messages. All of the calls we made, including to voice mail, were counted as long distance, and our bill was huge. Verizon customer support basically said yes, that shouldn’t have happened, and no, we aren’t going to refund you anything.

They had the audacity to be shocked when we cancelled when our contracts were up.

16

I like Brighthouse, especially now that their latest digital cable software upgrade gave me back the fourth fast-foward speed.

17

Are you posting from some alternate reality, or are you confusing your ISP with AT&T?

Inter Alia, my mom wants to know if, as a lawyer, you would be willing to organize a class-action lawsuit.

She was promised a rebate on the modem & router they sold her, but inexplicably it required a mail-in coupon. The charitable conjecture is that they mailed it to the wrong address.

Now they tell her that if she pays the full rate for several months, eventually they’ll retroactively change it to the promo rate she was promised, & she’ll get credits. Having worked sales & having dealt with AT&T, I suspect this is a total bald-faced lie.

18

I could’ve written this (except for the part about pushing for electronic payments, probably because I already pay electronically). I was promised a 12-month promotional price on the Internet service, with the pricing to take effect “within two or three billing cycles.” It never did, and I had to call three times to deal with phone agents trying to sort it out.

They were always friendly and willing to issue corrective credits, and I did eventually get the equivalent of the 12-month discount, but it wasn’t evident until I got out several months of bills and a calculator and added up their bizarre series of haphazard billing credits—$15 one month, $40 another, $27 the next, with no apparent pattern. If the promotion is “$24.95 for 12 months” or whatever, why not just freakin’ charge $24.95 for 12 months like you’re supposed to, and have it take effect right away?

(Full disclosure: almost zero problems with the Internet service itself, and mostly smooth sailing with the VoIP add-on—can’t speak to the TV service as we’ve never used it. It’s just the incompetent billing that’s been frustrating.)

Oh, and I’m not sure what resulted in the OP’s receiving a Spanish bill, but I did briefly and inadvertently change my preferred language to Spanish while looking at my account page on the AT&T website not long ago—apparently there’s a link that can be fat-moused fairly easily. I switched it back immediately, but I did get a confirmation letter in the mail saying that I’d changed my language to Spanish.

19

Out of idle curiousity, what language was the letter in?

20

Given the competence shown, probably French or Esperanto.