Ok, earlier today I checked the mail, and what do I find but a $35 check from AT&T, my old long distance provider! At first I thought they were refunding a deposit that I’d completely forgotten about, but closer inspection revealled the following notation: “SIGNING AND CASHING OF THIS CHECK AND INDEPENDENT VERIFIER CONFIRMATION WILL SWITCH YOUR LONG DISTANCE, LOCAL TOLL, AND LOCAL SERVICES TO AT&T.” (Yes, it was in all caps, but much tinier font than what you see here.)
So I decide to read the letter attached to it. Looks like the best they can offer is $18.95, plus 10 cents a minute for every long-distance call. HA! SBC already offered me 5 cents/min., with NO monthly fee! That’s why I dumped your sorry bankrupt service in the FIRST PLACE!! (That, and the ridiculous $1.50 charge for the privilege of sending me a bill, even if my only out-of-area call that month was a one-minute call to my mother asking her to call me back.)
And you think a measely $35 check will “buy” me back??? It’s a nice trick, though. The check looks so real, that indeed, many of your ex-customers might unwittingly sign it, not aware of the “conditions” involved.
So go screw yourself, AT&T. If you really want to appease me, how about paying me the $2,000 I lost in stock value, when your stock plummeted from 63 to 14 in less than 2 years?? (God only knows where it is right now.) On second thought, don’t even bother with that. I’m done with your corporation. Piss off.
I remember getting on of these back in the day. It was for $60. The funny thing about it was that at that time I made about $10 worth of long distance calls a year.
My brother got several of those checks, from different long-distance companies, over a span of some months. He, fully aware of the conditions, cashed the first check, then switched his service back to the company he wanted, then did the same thing with each subsequent check.
I did that as well. It IS a real check. Cash it. There is nothing they can do to prevent you from changing your service. I took the first one, cashed it, and changed the service to someone else. They sent another check. Repeat process. They did this FOUR times and each check became larger. What a joke promotion for them. Thank you for the beer and smokes during my college dorm living days.
I’m with AchimbaProphet on this one. Cash the check! It is real, and while the conditions are printed on the check, there’s no mention of how long you have to keep AT&T. A day or two will suffice. If you then switch back to your current carrier, and AT&T sends you another check, cash it, etc. Take as much of their money as they want to give you!
Well SHIT, I already tore up the check into little tiny pieces and fed it to the squirrels. Thing is, it does seem rather complicated for just a measely $35 (which really is a lot of money, for me…) and I’m not sure if SBC would still offer their primo 5c/min rate (which, actually, is only for a year, after which it goes up to 7c/min, boo hoo hoo.) But I’ll keep that tactic in mind if another check does arrive.
I will NEVER go back to those blood sucking leeches. I once had these idiots as a long distance provider. I maybe had $30.00 to $50.00 dollars a YEAR in long distance charges. Imagine my surprise when I opened the last bill I ever got from these idiots. There were two long distance calls on it totaling nearly $100.00. One of those numbers was so weird it didn’t even look like a telephone number, international or otherwise. I knew no one in my house had called either of these numbers. So, I get on the phone and call these morons and explain the situation. Nope, they weren’t having it. According to them we made the calls and we were going to pay for them. One of those calls was some sex line. I argued for 20 minutes with the idiot on the phone. She was extremely rude and talked to me like I was scum of the earth. I asked for her manager, who was “not available”.
I argued some more and got nowhere. The next day I tried again and got another extremely rude bitch who wouldn’t let me talk to a manager. Long story short, I paid the freakin’ bill and promptly changed my long distance serve.
AT&T sent me several checks and call me on average of once a week. This all happened four years ago. You’d think they’d get a clue. Last call was two nights ago and I told them AGAIN to remove me from their list and explained why I would NEVER, EVER, IN THIS EARTH’S LIFETIME go back to AT&T.
Not sure if it would work but my sister got a check from AT&T for $100 to get them to come back. What they did is not sign the check, wrote “Deposit Only” on it and put it in the bank. AT&T never switched their service (supposedly b/c they didn’t sign it) and they got a nice chunk of change in their bank acct. LOL Might try it.
Just remember to eat lunch and get out a nice book before you call to cancel the AT&T service. They have automated their customer service and it takes 15-20 minutes and multiple menus to reach a human being.
I finally got so pissed off at having to call them on problems and remain on hold forever that I dropped their service entirely.
I made a nice part-time income from this about eight years ago. Some of the checks were for as much as $150.00. I didn’t care WHO my long distance provider was because I made virtually ZERO long distance calls. Since I had been laid off and was trying to subsist on unemployment checks, these little useless marketing ploys were like manna from heaven to me.
Sadly, they stopped. I believe Texas outlawed the practice, but I don’t remember for sure.
