at&t U-verse service is the worst I've ever had

This will be a long post.

I've had at&t for 20+ years, before that my parents had at&t. Once my contract is up in April of 2015 I'm done with at&t forever.

Since I changed my service over to U-verse, about 15 months ago, I've had nothing but problems. Problems with my service, problems with my bill, and problems any time I've called for help.

Let's start at the beginning. I moved from an apartment with DSL to an apartment where U-verse was available, so I "upgraded" to U-verse. I asked to have my modem sent to my old apartment and I would set it up because I couldn't guaranty I would be at the new apartment and was actually going out of town. Also I declined having a technician install my service as I’m an IT professional and Network+ certified. After spending an hour on the phone, I was told that wasn't a problem and it was noted in my account. The modem was sent to the wrong address. I had to call again and after spending another 15 minutes on the phone I found that the modem was still being held at UPS. I drove across town, picked up my modem, and connected it. It didn’t work. I called and spent another 30 minutes on the phone only to be told that they sent a technician out to my apartment and hadn’t turned on my service because of that. After another 30 minutes on the phone I finally got someone to agree to turn on my service without a technician and I got my internet set up.

Within a week I received 2 statements from at&t for my new service. Each of them had a different total on it. I figured whenever I got my first bill the correct amount would be shown and I’d just pay that. I had already set myself up for autopay so I wasn’t worried. One and a half months later I still hadn’t received a bill and nothing had been auto drafted from my checking account. So I called at&t again. After spending 30 minutes on the phone and being told that my account was closed I finally got someone to figure out that I’d been given an entirely new account with a new user name and password and that all correspondence was being sent to an e-mail address that had been assigned to me that I didn’t even know existed. I was also told that my account was getting ready to be cut off due to lack of payment. I’d been set up on electronic billing without my consent and none of the autodrafts I’d set up had been applied to this account. I logged into the at&t site with this new account information and took care of my payment and everything seemed to be going fine.

Four months later my service stopped working. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say that I checked everything necessary to make sure that it was working properly. I wasn’t getting service on the at&t side of the network. I called and after spending an hour on the phone I was told that a new modem would need to be sent. I explained that I do this kind of thing for a living and was pretty sure that the modem/router was fine. Finally, I got tired of arguing and just said as long as I’m not going to be charged anything, do what you think you need to do. Three days later I got the modem and guess what? It didn’t fix the problem. I called and spent another 30 minutes on the phone. At the end of that call, I had to take half a day off of work and wait for a technician to “fix” the wiring problem that I obviously had in my apartment. 3 days later when the technician came he discovered that they had a bad port on their fiber switch, that I shouldn’t have been sent a new modem/router and that I shouldn’t have even needed to take any time off work because the problem was entirely on their end.

The next month I got a bill for the “new” modem/router. I called and said that because I was forced to get the “new” modem/router in the first place they needed to RMA the extra modem/router and give me a credit. This took another 30 minutes. During the conversation I was told I should just pay for the equipment that I didn’t ask for and they’d give me a credit within 3 months of getting the modem/router returned. I never got the RMA. I took myself off autopay, paid the actual U-verse charge, and called again. After 15 minutes I got an RMA e-mailed to me and was told they were noting my account so not paying for the modem/router shouldn’t cause any more problems. The next month I still had the charge for the modem/router on my bill. I paid the actual U-verse charge and waited. Then I got a disconnect notice. I called back and spent another 15 minutes getting the customer service person to check and see that they had received the modem back several weeks prior and finally gave me a credit for the piece of equipment that I didn’t ask for, want, or need.

Now, most recently, I bought a house. I put in an order to move my service on the att.com website. I selected that I did not want a technician. I got into my house earlier than I expected and called to see if my service could be turned on earlier. After spending an hour on the phone I was told that they would be turning on my service on Tuesday May 27th without a technician. When I got home on Tuesday, I had a note from the technician that was dispatched saying that because no one was home, my service hadn’t been turned on. I called and spent another hour on the phone arguing that I didn’t need a technician and that my service could be just turned on. The operator insisted that I needed a technician and after speaking with a supervisor, I made arrangements to have someone at my house on Saturday May 31st, so that my service could be turned on. Friday May 30th, I checked my at&t account to make sure that everything was still scheduled correctly. The only order on my account was one that had been cancelled. I called back on Saturday morning to make sure that a technician was being dispatched to turn on my service. I was told that a technician was being dispatched on June 7th to turn on my service. I was livid. I told the operator that I wanted what I was promised and was placed on hold for 20 minutes at which point I was disconnected. I called back for technical support and was told that the earliest available appointment was Friday June 6th. I spent another hour on the phone trying to talk to someone to deliver what I was promised when it was promised, but all I could get anyone to do was tell me how sorry they were.

Every time I call at&t all I hear is the word “Sorry.” I finally agreed with the last one and said everyone in your whole d****d company is sorry. This is the sorriest company I’ve ever heard of.

Why don’t you people stop being sorry and start fixing things? I hate at&t. I can’t wait for the day I can cancel my service. I’ll probably sing a song and dance.