My brief experiences with U-verse

A T & T U-verse Sucks

I had Comcast in Georgia and I was not real pleased with the long waits, usually 20 minutes or so, to get through to their Customer Service. I had been getting offers by mail for several months for AT & T U-verse cable television, which had recently become available in my area.

On Aug. 8, 2009 I signed up with AT & T, setting up the account with a Ms. Goodman at 9:10 a.m. with the U200 package for $64 a month, or so I thought, it really came to $78 a month + 14 for 2 receivers, but I didn’t know that until later.

I made a point of giving my ‘mailing address’ for bills. I haven’t used my street address for years due to substandard mail delivery in our subdivision.

On 8/18 the installer arrived and set up the 3 TV’s and I was satisfied with everything up to this point.

On 8/19 I phoned AT & T Customer Service to inquire about availability of the service at my Fla. Condo (not available) and verify the address for bills. They got it wrong, using the street address, so I had them make the correction.

Not having had any ‘welcome package’ or bill by 8/28 I phoned to inquire. They still had the incorrect address but would fix it, the bill had gone to the street address – they would resend and make sure the address was corrected to the P. O. Box.

9/14 phoned again, bill should be at the POB any day.

9/18 phoned and spoke to Mr. Scott a Supervisor told me the bill had been sent correctly to the PO Box and I should disregard any late fee, he would email a supervisor to escalate the matter.

9/23 called again and was told that my account had been accessed the day before by a ‘Team Lead’ who was checking on the email they got from Mr. Scott about the problem. I asked to have that Team Lead phone me and later got a return call from this supervisor at 3:40 pm, all was well and the replacement bill should be with me any day.

In these last several calls I had been making a point of suggesting that their software seemed to be causing this problem, lately everyone could see the POB address on my account, but for some reason when they sent out, or supposedly sent out, the bills/replacement bills they must be kicked out to the service address and I suggested repeatedly that they should look into this.

9/29 3:20 PM, spoke to Mr. Cameron, still no bill has arrived.

Oct 1st - the statement arrives at the post office box. Before leaving the post office I mailed off a Wachovia check #1050, for the $91.97 bill, in the enclosed envelope.

This arriving statement is the 2nd statement, the first one or the replacement for the first one has still never arrived. I see that rather than the $64 bill (+ whatever junk fees you get with it) has now turned into a ‘Previous Balance of $91.97 and that in addition to the I past due amount for the never received first billing, the 2nd months bill is for $89.60 which included the past due $5 charge that was suppose to be waived.

One reason for the unexpectedly high bill that I could see, was that I was being charged $7 each for 2 ‘Receiver fees’, this was the first information that I had about this charge. With Comcast you got 2 receivers ‘free’.

10/1 So after returning home I phoned and spoke to Cynthia, Mike Smith, Laura in Tech Support, Adam and his supervisor Leonard Williams. I wanted to turn in 1 of the 2 receivers as I had never even used the TV that one of them was attached to and at $7 a month charge I wanted to return it.

After speaking to the above mentioned people on this call, I found out that as ‘Billing’ had taken over the account for its having a past due balance and that no changes could be made in the service until it was out of ‘past due’ status. So I could NOT return their equipment. I mentioned that this seemed to be extremely stupid. Here a customer with a past due balance had one of their expensive receives and wanted to give it back to them and they wouldn’t take it!

If someone owed me money for something they had rented and wanted to give it back I damn well would be very pleased to get the thing. Guess AT & T is just stupid.
After this at 2:30 pm I phoned Lydia, I requested to be transferred to the Executive Office to put in a complaint about the poor service to date. I was told that they did not have any number for the Executive Office and complaints had to be put in through the Customer Service Department. I asked for the name and address of the President of AT & T Uverse. She did not know and had no address to write to him at.
On Oct 5th I phoned AT & T Uverse to find out if my account had been credited for my initial payment. It had not.

Later that afternoon I phoned Comcast and on 10/7 I will be back with them and the cost for their service with one DVR, 1 addl. receiver, 288 channels plus HBO and Showtime will be $65 a month.

After all these calls to get an AT & T bill to the correct address and I still have never seen the first bill!

On 10/7 Comcast arrived and installed their equipment.

On 10/8, I returned the U-verse items to a UPS store for shipment back to A&T. In checking with U-verse I found that my initial payment had been correctly applied and when they supply a corrected 2nd bill I will pay that and be very pleased not to be their customer.

Remember:
AT & T U-verse Sucks!

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