Customer Service is Terrible (you won't believe this saga) AT&T please reply!

Customer Service is Terrible (you won't believe this saga) AT&T please reply!

I have had a series of run around calls with AT&T Customer Service over the past week.  It all started with an upgrade in speed for our AT&T Uverse service.  As soon as this happened I found that my I-cloud email would no longer connect to the server when the home WiFi was on.  So thinking it was an Apple Icloud problem, I called them.  The Apple service people were amazing, and problem-solved calling me back 3 times over a three hour period and finally we realized that the home WiFi was the problem since my iphone would connect to icloud email just fine with I turned Wifi off, but had the same problem as my laptop when I turned home wifi on. So they suggested I call AT&T customer service which I did.  The Apple technician even sent me a list of steps and checks that he had already completed, including with my permission turning off the firewalls on our AT&T Uverse gateway to see if that would have solved the problem, it didn't.  However, when I finally got to an AT&T Uverse support person after being on hold for over 30 min. I got an uninformed person who could only go through her script and couldn't understand or wanted to understand the information I was trying to convey.  So I insisted that I talk to someone who was more knowledgeable.  I was sent to Tier 3 tech support and after being on hold again for a very long time, was told that I actually needed tier 2 support and had to again wait on hold.  In the process of that call, even though the person said they would stay on with me to explain the situation, we were disconnected and I had to start all over again.  You can imagine what that was like trying to explain all of this again to a completely new person.  Anyway, after getting to tier 2, I was told they would send me a new gateway via Fed Ex. that was on 12/26.  It arrived as promised on 12/30.  Surprisingly the new Gateway corrected the icloud problem, don't know why, it just did.  Must be something about the higher speed not being compatible with the older gateway model we had or something. Anyway, we followed all of the replacement gateway steps, and everything was working well, until about 8 hours after installation then everything quit, phone, internet, tv.  We had connected the new gateway to the old Belkin battery back-up that AT&T had installed with our original gateway.  Nothing says in the instructions that the old back-ups were not compatible with the new gateways, we discovered this on our own this morning doing research on-line.  So we called AT&T again this morning asking that the appropriate battery back-up that is compatible with our new gateway also be sent.  Since this isn't a back-up failure issue, for which we know that ATT will not replace those, but a gateway failure/non-compatibility issue.  So we spoke to a very nice ATT customer service rep. after the usual high call volume wait, and he told us that Belkin has a contract to mail out those battery back-ups to customer and gave us the number to call at Belkin (866-539-5791).  I asked how would Belkin know that he had authorized that we receive a compatible battery back up for our new gateway, and he said they have the same account access info that they do, so I believed that and made the call.  The woman who answered at Belkin said that our current battery back-up is out of warranty and that we had to purchase a new one.  We told her this isn't a warranty issue for our current battery, it works fine, it just not compatible with our new gateway and that ATT said that we were supposed to get a free one that was compatible through Belkin.  She said no such arrangement existed, was very rude, would not refer us to a manger or other customer service person and tried to give us a website to arizonabattery.com to get our new battery.  I asked if they supply the free battery we are supposed to get and it was obvious they wouldn't and we ended that call.  So I called AT&T back again, waited again for about 20 minutes and again had to repeat that we had just called Belkin who had no such arrangement with AT&T as we had been told and was told by the new AT&T support person that there was no record in our account of the call we had made within the past hour and that they would not be telling customers to call Belkin.  So they were calling me a liar, I asked that they research who it was in their customer service department that I last spoke to and who gave us the Belkin number.  Since that person is purposely misleading customers, and the funny thing was that we felt he was the most helpful and knowledgeable of any of the AT&T customer service reps we had talked to, so either he was purposely lying to us and not documenting the call on purpose, or something else is going on.  I have insisted that a manager call me back about that, none was available at the time, and someone is supposed to call me back in 30 minutes.  It is past 30 minutes already, but I remain hopeful.  Anyway, back to the battery back-up.  Since they wouldn't mail us one we asked that technician come to our home, which they have scheduled for 1 - 4 p.m. today.  We assume that when we get to talk to one of their technicians, this will be remedied easily and the customer service agent wouldn't believe the information we read on AT&T's own customer support website that the battery back-up we need is the Revision B Gray one, not the Revision A Black one that we currently have.  We actually asked if it made sense for their company to waste the time of a technician and our time waiting for the technician to arrive, than to just send us out the battery that their own website says we require.  So in all I have now spent (including the time with Apple support which was actually a AT&T Problem), about 12 hours of my time, most of it on the phone with technicians (if you can call them that), for a problem that started with just going to a higher level of internet speed, which was given to us as a perk to retain us as AT&T customers.  I should have changed to Comcast at the start, and saved myself a lot of time and stress!!!!  You would think that they would have customer support technicians that at least know as much as their own websites, or know how to look up info just as customers can do.  Also support people who document their calls appropriately, instead of lying to customers.  I have never been angrier with a company.  Anyone know how I can get this story more visibility, customers paying as much as we do for ATT Uverse services (over $200 per month) and who also have AT&T Cell phone service, both for many years should be treated better than this!!!!!!!

 P.S. the Customer service manager just called, she promised to investigate their person that misdirected us to Belkin.  Then the technician that is on their way called to say they no longer carry the battery back-ups on their trucks, but he would call around to other technicians to see if any of them had one.  I have my fingers crossed!

P.S.S. Technician just arrived; he was able to locate the appropriate battery back up for the new Gateway they sent us.  It is now connected and working well.  I knew that once we got a technician here, we would be all set.  The on the ground technicians in our area have been wonderful the very few times we have needed to use them.  It is the phone people that are inexcusably uninformed regarding most issues that we call them about, again we research ourselves online before we call, like AT&T suggests you do, so they should be ready to help with higher level of support issues!