Phone - Samsung Model SGH A157

Plan - $25 Monthly AttGoPhone Plan includes 250 minutes of talk time and unlimited messaging.

I sure hope someone can help me. I've tried multiple other avenues to get some help but I'm not able to get through to anyone.

For several days my phone has been alerting me every 5-7 minutes that I have a new text message. I've tried multiple times to turn it off but the instructions for this setting on the phone are non-existent. I can't find anything that resembles the problem in the manual either. I've tried turning almost everything on/off only to keep hearing the alert sound.

The display also is telling me the messages are new even though I have pulled them up and opened them repeatedly - even responded back to a few but it still keeps saying they are new messages. I had to turn the phone off to get any peace - this means if someone does call me I can't hear it because of this problem with the phone.

I've attempted to call TWICE each time I had to go through 7-8 sets of instructions through the automated system to input my number, pick choices, etc and I got disconnected. The second time was after it finally said it would connect me with a customer service person.

Then I looked at my account online which in turn brought up more questions because it was saying that I owed money and I've only had the phone for a few days and paid the monthly fee when I set up the phone. It also doesn't identify the plan name on my account so I was concerned about that. I tried using that live chat that isn't really live chat because its just some poorly designed robot chat software that acts as an agent. Only it cannot answer the simplest questions - believe me I tried. So after looking at the website for over an hour trying to find an answer - which did nothing but cause more frustration as the navigation is extremely poor - for example if you click on a link that you think will take you to the page it says it will - it doesn't. It takes you to a page with dozens of other choices that don't include the choice from the ORIGINAL link.

After searching another 20 minutes I found a place to send a note by going through multiple links of the "contact us" link on the website. I've never seen so much smoke and mirrors on a site - its almost as you don't want ANYONE to contact you. Anyway, I was asking the questions I had since I couldn't find the answers anywhere on the site - but after typing a long paragraph explaining my issues I hit enter to sign it and it WIPED OUT the ENTIRE page. I rechecked it again several times by typing a few letters and hitting enter and it did the same thing. I also rechecked multiple things on my own computer to make sure it wasn't a virus or something else. feeling very frustrated I typed another message and also complained about the poor automated phone system and site problems - this time I didn't touch the enter key and hit send, so I got the message that it was sent. However, its been a almost a week and no one has bothered to answer - I also typed my name, phone & email within the note because I didn't see it anywhere on the form or the page I was on.

Doesn't make a lot sense to use software like that as the text editor for your customers to send messages when it actually wipes out the text as soon as you hit enter - because the fact is - is that everyone hits enter when they're done with a letter so you can sign your name. If AT&T thinks this is practical (I don't) then perhaps a warning should be placed above the box that says DO NOT HIT ENTER OR YOUR TEXT WILL DISAPPEAR!!

These so called communication tools that you supply your customers with are the worst example of communications I have ever ever experienced. Its pathetic for a company that's been around as long as telephones have existed provides such poor communication equipment, uses software thats useless and in fact does the opposite of what its supposed to do, has a site with poorly constructed navigation and the list goes on. I am a graphic web designer and a tech site moderator, so I know my way around sites and this one is the worst I've ever encountered. Not only are the links mislabled but its impossible to find a live person through any means you provide.

(Another example is when I signed up for this forum. after I finally got the link that I had to click on to confirm that I am a real person before I was allowed to ask a question here - it sent me to the forum for Uverse TV.....unbelievable)

I don't require a lot of phone usage so I picked a plan that was cheap. I know you get what you pay for but this is beyond ridiculous. There is not one single viable option that AT&T provides that will put me in contact with a live person. That is completely UNACCEPTABLE for a phone company.