Complaint Review: AT&T U-Verse

I am trying to sort out in my head how a company gets so big when they have the worst customer service I have ever encountered.  In September, 2010 I moved into my new townhome.  I wanted to try AT&T U-Verse because I was intrigued by the "record in one room and watch in any" feature that they were offering.  I scheduled an install date. for cable, internet and home telephone service.

The technician came out and shortly after arriving informed me that some work had to be done at the pole first and that, of course, that couldn't be done until a few days later.  Those few days went by and I saw an AT&T truck out front, but they never said anything to me and still, no cable, internet or phone service.  This went on for two weeks.  I saw several trucks, but never had anyone come to my door; I made several calls, only to be told that they were "working on the problem".  After three weeks went by, I called again, this time to be told that they had no service in my area and I could not receive my install.

Keep in mind, everytime I spent in excess of two hours on the phone with AT&T I informed them that I had an child with a very rare and dangerous form of epilepsy, as well as autism.  He was very distraught because his schedule was so disrupted without being able to watch his shows that his seizures had increased greatly.  After I found out that they could not install, yet no one had bothered to tell me I was just in shock.

I then called Comcast.  I had an install date for the next day, had cable in one day, and had absolutely no issues.  I have had Comcast for two years.

Then, on April 5, 2012, I made the mistake of listening to the customer service representative on the phone when I called to upgrade my older son's phone to an I-Phone.  She began trying to sell  me AT&T U-Verse and I immediately  let her know what happened the first time and that I would never go down that road again.  She obviously is a good salesperson, as she convinced me that AT&T was much better now and that these issues would not reoccur.  She even told me that I would receive a $400.00 Visa gift card just for signing up.  As a parent of a severely handicapped child, every penny helps, and I gave AT&T the benefit of the doubt, and once again scheduled an install date for AT&T U-Verse.

Apparently I should have my head examined.  The technician showed up on April 12, 2012, only to immediately tell me that they had sent the signal to the wrong address and he could not complete the install.  I could hardly believe my ears.

So, once again I got on the phone with AT&T.  After two hours and being sent to India and I think Pakistan, I got a manager on the phone who appeared to know what he was doing.  He apologized profusely and told me that it would be 72 hours before they could resend the signal to the correct address.  Now, keep in mind, I understand that my address of 29A and the address of 37 are so similar, but I was extremely angry that they felt once again that my time is not valuable and I could wait 72 hours for them to correct their mistake.

I continued to dispute this time frame, and as I am still disputing this, the original technician shows up at my door with a manager saying they would fix the problem.  The man on the telephone I was still speaking too had no knowledge of this.

Needless to say, after another hour (it is now 5:00 PM) he tells me the signal is to the correct address now and it will now be 1 hour per box for install.  I had 7 boxes being installed.  Apparently I would be having breakfast with this technician.  The technician and I agreed that this, of course, was not feasible for him to spend the night at my home installing these boxes, and he assured me he would return two days later (today, April 14, 2012) at 11:00 a.m. and finish.

On Friday (yesterday, April 13, 2012) I received a text message telling me that I needed to phone AT&T and reschedule my install.  Yet another two hours on the phone with every other Country known to man, I was scheduled for today, April 14, 2012 between 1:00-3:00.  Of course, the 11:00 technician never showed up and when my husband called to confirm the 1:00-3:00 appointment, lo and behold, this appointment did not exist!  He also spent an hour on the phone only to be disconnected.

Giving up, he left and went to the store.  He received a phone call from my cousin at 2:00 PM that AT&T was at the door.  He hurried home to find a technician there who was there because we had an "outage".  When this technician was told that there was no outage, but rather it was supposed to be an install, he called his manager.  His manager showed up and they have been working to install for the past 3 1/2 hours.  They haven't even put in a single box yet.  So again, it is 5:30 PM and at an hour a box, I can again expect two extra people for breakfast.

I will reiterate, that I still have that child with the rare form of epilepsy and autism and once again AT&T is causing his condition to worsen.

So, again, how can AT&T be such a large company, with thousands of advertisements saying how wonderful they are?  How can the people at the corporate office, who collect the big bucks allow their service to be so absolutely horrible?  Do they condone this?  Do they even know about it?  Are the employees of AT&T all dyslexic that 29A and 37 confuse them so badly?  How can the people working at the offices give a customer an install date, and it just magically disappears, but then someone can show up for an "outage" on service that AT&T hasn't even figured out how to install yet?

I am irrate.  I am very seriously considering taking this story to the news?  False advertising comes to mind.  Poor customer service comes to mind?  Discrimination for handicapped individuals runs through my head.  I can only assume that if I ever do get service that this same process will begin again when I call to ask where my $400.00 Visa gift card is, even though I was told by three different employees I would receive it and have a paper at home offering the same.

At this point I feel that nothing short of a free year of service and an $800.00 Visa gift card would even begin to repay me for the endless hours on the telephone and the stress we have been through.