A month before I left to move here, I called ATT to get information on terminating my phone. I was expecting to terminate right after I arrived and had access to my new Alaska cell phone (the one and only cellular company- GCI). I was told that...(1) 'actually, ma'am, your phone will work in Alaska. We use local towers and if you use them for an extended period of time, we'll work with you to find alternatives, but the company takes care of any cost involved with using other towers, not you as the customer, even if we don't actually service the specific area you're moving to.' ... OK, so I don't have to be so anal about getting my new phone quickly, my old phone will work for a period of time. Excellent. Little did I know...
... the customer service rep I spoke with didn't actually check the location I was moving to when I gave it to him. He just used a blanket answer even though he specifically asked me and I specifically told him exactly where I was moving. And even I, as the customer, had gone online to find that ATT does not service anywhere besides the area around Anchorage and Fairbanks.
So I arrived in Anchorage and my phone kept working. I uploaded pictures from the airport to this blog and got on the plane promising my parents and my work mom that I'd text when I arrived so they didn't worry. See... I was arriving around midnight EST on a Sunday so a calling would have been a bit much.
So the next day, I was able to get on the internet in my temporary housing and email everyone to let them know I'd arrived. Luckily, everyone had assumed that was going to be the case and didn't panic.
Fast forward to today...(After roughly half a dozen phone calls to ATT)
... During my first post-arrival call (2), I was told instead of terminating service (over a $200 charge), I could transfer service to another ATT customer, they could take over my line (and phone number) and we'd be golden. And even though there was a clause that if they were not a service provider in an area someone was moving to, your termination fee was waived, I was not eligible for this clause because there was a secondary clause stating that this was not-applicable if you received your phone through a promotion such as get a free phone for signing up for a 2-year contract because they ate the cost of the presumably expensive phone. ::SIGH:: I got in touch with family and close friends and the question was asked by my brother if my unlimited data would transfer too? Good question, I hadn't asked that, so I called back (3). See I signed up for my plan just before unlimited data was taken off the option menu with ATT. I was able to stream Netflix, YouTube or music to my heart's content. My brother, who got his about 6 months later wasn't able to take advantage of this and -mostly- good-natured, liked to poke fun at me about hating me for this particular feature. See, he often got frustrated for having to keep track of usage and not really being able to watch and explore what he wanted. Something about wasting the phone's potential I suppose.
(3, cont) I was told that NO, my unlimited data plan was not available during the transfer and anyone receiving my phone would have to select an existing plan option. My family told me they'd think about it and get back to me. (4) at this time, my father called to see if he could get information out of them and work on trying to get it transferred since it was actually a lateral transfer of a plan. Apparently, the answer was skirted around since he was not the plan-holder. (5) I noticed that while I was waiting to find out from family, I was charged the full amount for the next billing cycle instead of the reduced suspended rate of $10/month. My bill was explained, something about date of changing plan vs date of new cycle, and then options for termination/transfers were explained again. Still could not transfer unlimited data. Then I got word from everyone that they did not want plan if they couldn't have the unlimited data. Next came my call yesterday to ATT (6) After talking to 1st customer service rep and her attempting to give me the option to transfer service (again, bad stalling tactic. you're cohorts have been there and done that) I was transferred to a termination specialist. He then asked again if I wanted to take advantage of the option to transfer services. I told him no and why and he was appalled and very apologetic that i was given that information and that I absolutely could transfer the unlimited data. I informed him that I'd been told REPEATED since 2-3 months ago that I could not, he made the comment about how he didn't know how I could be given such misinformation. 'the same way your representatives didn't actually look up my destination to find out if you actually did/could service the area I was moving to' 'you were told you'd have service?' 'yes, and then i got here and did not' 'of course you didn't have service, we don't have towers anywhere close to you at your location' 'and yet I was assured I would, I'm getting a lot of false assurances from you guys lately.' Then he proceeded to offer to call those who might be interested in taking over my plan, with my permission of course (it's not my permission to give, jerk-face), and outline the plan details to them. I'm sorry, you guys have had 3 months to help me figure this out and you've used stall tactics and false information to get me to this point. I'd just like to terminate outright. Grand total= $79 NOT $245 as it was originally 3 months ago. the price magically kept dropping, and more than the promised $10 a month. I've dealt with some interesting cell phone companies over the years. I can't wait until customer service actually gets good with any of them.
BTW, EVERY call was started with "thank you for being one of our preferred iphone customers with us here at ATT where you can talk and surf at the same time, my name is ______, how can I help you today." while I appreciate and agree that it's a great feature, can we change it up a bit? It got real old, real quick.
*** Calls are numbered within parenthesis. Ex] (1) is call #1, etc.
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