AT&T are retards
When I first moved to Houston, I was quite happy with the service provided by AT&T, for my Internet and TV. Their Uverse service was a bargain at only $60 a month, I thought. All the CSI I could ever want to watch.
However, in attempting to break off from their service, I've found them slightly less than accommodating. I called two weeks ago to set up cancellation of the service, and the first problem was that I couldn't remember the four digit PIN I'd apparently set up when I initiated the service. I claim I never did such a thing, but the woman on the end of the phone wouldn't let me cancel without such a thing. After 15 minutes of haggling, she put me through to a nice gentleman who agreed that this was ridiculous, and put the process of terminating the contact in action. He told me that I would be sent UPS boxes in which I could return the equipment - modem, cable box, remote etc. All was well. Or so I thought.
Two weeks later, and I still hadn't received the boxes, so with only three days to go before my departure, I called AT&T to check the situation. I ended up spending 50 minutes on the phone. First of all, she told me that they didn't normally send out boxes until after the termination date, contrary to what I'd be told. After being put on hold for several minutes I was actually informed that there was a two month backlog on boxes. Two months! They're only boxes - how hard are they to get hold of? Anyway, without a box, I couldn't send back my equipment, and would be charged $300 for not doing so. The conversation went something like this:
- You should take the equipment with you and we'll send the boxes to your new address.
- But I'm leaving the country, and if it's going to take two months to get the boxes somewhere - well I have absolutely no idea where I'll be. Surely there's some other way I can return it? Maybe you can give me the address to which the equipment gets sent - I'll just ship it myself?
- But if you ship it yourself and it gets damaged, you'll have to pay.
- That's ok, I'll take that risk, it's better than paying $300.
- Oh, no, actually we can't give you the address, it's just a warehouse and you won't have the stickers on the box so they won't know who the modem came from.
- But there's a serial number on the modem, that's crazy. Ok then, well maybe there's somewhere I can drop it off, or maybe someone can come and collect it for me?
- No, that's not possible.
- So is there any way I can get the equipment back to you without one of your boxes?
- No.
- This is retarded. What you're saying is that the only possible way to return the equipment is in one your boxes, of which you currently don't have any. But if I don't send it back, I'll be charged $300.
- Yes.
Sadly, the ending of the story isn't as interesting as the middle, so I'll leave it at that, but it's safe to say, I don't intend to have any dealings with AT&T in the future.
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