ATT mysterious hard hit credit inquiries

Theres nothing wrong with caring about your credit but im no 'fanatic'.  I was moving, wanted get my intenet with ATT turned on at the new house. Simple stuff. They said they had no services in that area but they did have a 'vendor' that offered....get this...50M down AND UP at my new place for 25$ a month! I asked three times about the 50M upload, three different times about the price, three different times if they are telling me a bursting speed or if that based on 95th percentile. The ATT rep and his 'manager' !!!ured me i was legit because it was just unbelievable. He said he had to get authorization for me to not have to pay a deposit. I asked, specifically, if it was a credit check, he said 'not really', I said is it a hard check because if so its not worth it. I was shopping for a car, every point matters when you are making these big changes, new job, new house, car shopping, etc.. This guy laughed at me and said "you're not buying a house here 'sir', you're getting internet, internet doesn't affect your score 'sir', that's not how credit works - also I would have to get your permission if it was a hard check...should I continue or not?". So...now I felt stupid but it was just all sounding like too good of a deal and this guy did such a good job at being an !!! that I didnt even realize I kinda gave him permission and then I apologized to him for thinking this was the best internet company in the whole world. He got back on, said I had to pay $150 deposit, and I was like thats impossible, what info is he basing this on? He said he checked 'three times' - I asked, did you do a hard pull on my credit? I'm like, I told you not to dude. He again, laughed his snarky laugh and !!!ured me i was 'safe'. So, couple weeks later, after moving, still car shopping, new job (stressful) I found I have a total of 9 inquiries added to my report thanks to ATT, three each for direct-tv, dishnetwork, and windstream, which dropped my credit scores on two of three by over 110 points! They say it dont affect your credit, they can spot multiple ones, they have to get your permission, it's all non-scottish cr@p!!! So I spent literally days on the phone with ATT who say its not their employee but a contract company for windsteam, windstream said the company works for ATT, dish network and direct tv didnt know what I was talking about and one of them gave me the number to their corporate office WHICH WAS FREAKING ATT - THE SAME NUMBER THIS ALL STARTED AT!!!! A freaking nightmare. One chick at ATT actually told me she 'didnt care who employed the contract company, it wasnt her job to find out, it was mine to ask when I was on the phone with them'. I called ATT, he said he was an ATT rep. Crazyness guys.