AT&T: Determined to Lose

AT&T (aka SBC and Ameritech) has been the landline phone provider at our home for several years, but perhaps not for much longer. In mid-December, our home phone suddenly stopped working. After determining the outage wasn't caused by anything inside our home, the Middlewife asked their repair service to look into the matter, and was assured there would be no charge unless the problem was inside our home. A day or two later, the phone began working again. So far, so good.

But the new phone bill that recently arrived lists a $71 charge for a repair on 12/15, even though no one ever communicated that we'd done anything to justify such a charge, let alone how to avoid doing so again if the repair were somehow our own fault.

Then began a round of phone calls by the Middlewife. Different people had different messages, of which our favorite was the lady who insisted that if we didn't want to be charged for service work outside our home, we need to add AT&T's inside wire maintenance program for $4.95 a month (up from $3 a month the last time they tried to foist that on us, back when Consumer Reports was strongly advising against adding that "service") and that otherwise we'd always be charged for all repairs, whether or not they were in any way our own fault. Other reps assured the Middlewife that wasn't the case, but she was left having to file a protest of the charge, with no assurance anyone would ever do anything about the protest, let alone remove what we consider a spurious charge, or at least explain to us what AT&T thinks we did wrong to deserve the charge.

As the old Saturday Night Live joke goes "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." Except now, thank God, they are no longer the only phone company. We also have cell service through Sprint that has recently improved in quality here at home, and our excellent cable supplier (Wide Open West) would also love to be our local phone service provider.

Given that most of the action on our AT&T phone is unwanted political and fund-raising calls, why exactly is it we are still paying them at all, let alone whatever they feel like charging for whatever excuse occurs to them?

If the charge remains without an adequate explanation, the home phone will either be switched to a new supplier or disconnected.

The funny thing about this is that we were just thinking of switching our cell service from Sprint to AT&T (aka Cingular.) No longer!

In short, AT&T may succeed in confiscating an extra $71 repair bill from us one time, but only at the cost of permanent loss of all present and future business from us, not to mention the possibility readers of this message may take warning from our experience.

I don't expect them to care; MCI didn't, a decade ago when one of their reps decided to up our monthly bill with them without authorization, and the company refused to rectify the matter. I'd been with MCI for over a decade, but Sprint got our business the next day and has kept it for the decade since. I must have received a hundred mailings from MCI wanting me back afterwards, but none of them ever offered to do even the tiniest thing to make things right again.

Is Sprint better? Maybe not. I'll never believe a Sprint cell phone rebate promise again after they unilaterally decided to reduce the promised rebate on our Treo 650s in half for no reason. Their 2 year service agreement just ended, so there's a good chance I'll eventually switch from Sprint for cell service too, but not to AT&T if that repair charge remains.

I'm not surprised when Goliath companies behave badly. I'm just determined not to reward them for such behavior. Thank God I still have options. Thirty years ago, there were none.