Saturday, January 05, 2008

Dear AT&T Michigan:

You SUCK.

Thank you.

--Amy BB

Seriously--Internet started to crap out around Christmas. Some CSR tells me it's my modem. How, I ask, can she ascertian that when she is halfway around the world in a call center and has not in fact SEEN my modem? That modem is defective, she tells me. Then isn't it their responsbility to replace it? No, here's the sales office, I say fine I am calling Comcast for my high speed Internet needs.

I got it working again, until it crapped out AGAIN Wednesday. So I called. This time, after the guy tries to sell me a MORE EXPENSIVE INTERNET SERVCE (because i I am not happy with your service, certainly, upsell me, that's a GREAT IDEA) they finally allowed me to set up a maintenance visit (mind you this is ny fifth call in like a month, just perhaps they could have done that on, OH, the second call?)

It's set up for two days away. This does not work as the vast majority of my clients communicate with me via email and Strollerderby expects 2 posts a day which are not submitted by carrier pigeon or a series of tubes or anything, we use the Internet. Luckily my favorite coffeehouse has free wi-fi, which worked for Thursday but not Friday because I had to sit home waiting for them.

When they finally called to tell me they were on their way, the guy also told me that they were replacing a control box in my neighborhood, that that was why I was having problems, that there would be no point in looking at the line because there was no DSL signal anyway anywhere in the 'hood, and no he couldn't tell me why no one had thought to inform me of this before so I had to waste hours of time on the phone with them and sitting at home waiting for them while I could have been getting things done. Oh yes, and I likely would not have the Internet for THREE OR FOUR MORE DAYS.

I reacted like, well, like you would expect an eight-months-pregnant woman who'd had little sleep the night before and who depends heavily on the Internet to get her jobs done and who is not, let's just say, the least dramatic person on the planet when she's in her right mind to react. Crying, fury, while explaining I was going to lose at least one job because of their incompetence and my little three year old wouldn't be able to have shoes and I hope they were happy.

Yeah.

Cried for half an hour, talked to Paul (who because he is lovely and kind did not mention that maybe just maybe I was overdramatizing the situation), put it behind me and went to the coffeehouse that night to get shit done.

Today, after we all got back from running errands, guess what? Phone message the problem was resolved and here I am blogging away.

FUCKERS. I am so pissed I am not even happy about having the internet up sooner than promised.


Two fairly sucky options here: stay with the incompetents or take my business to Comcast. I hate Comcast. But I really hate being jerked around like a puppet when I am just trying to get a fairly essential service I AM PAYING FOR to work.

Does anyone who reads have Comcast internet? Any good? Anyone else hate AT&T as much as I do right now?

7 comments:

Lisa said...

I've read your blog for a few months now, but don't think I've commented until now.

I had to ask my husband what our provider was before returning to Comcast, because your story sounded so similar to ours (faulty modem...we had it replaced, then we were getting like 1/4 the speed we were paying for...idiots). We were, however, with Talk America, not AT&T. I'm pretty sure we've suffered with them before though too.

Btw, we're in northern Macomb County. I also hate Comcast, though the hate is beginning to fade now. Late last summer, we signed up with their Triple Play (internet, tv, phone) for about $99 and have only had a couple outages that lasted maybe 30 minutes or so. When my husband called on those times, their recording indicated they were already aware and working on it. We have a digital box for one of our tvs, which includes On Demand (which I love for the kids - ours our 4 and almost 2). But I'll stop before I sound like a commercial, because I still do hate Comcast, even if it is way down deep. ;)

Good luck to you with whatever you decide to do, and all my best for a healthy and (relatively) stress-free remainder to your pregnancy!

Jan said...

Oh, man, Amy, that SUCKS.

I have Comcast and have never had any problems that they weren't happy and able to resolve.

Also cable modem is faster than DSL, hands down.

Er, uh, also 'hi'. I followed you here from Moxie.

Linda said...

We, on the other side of the state, have Comcast. Aside from random times that our internet suddenly does not work and we are told that it is "planned downtime" and then we ask how we will be notified of this downtime in the future and maybe how long everything will be down and then suddenly it's back up again because THEY HAVE NO F-ING IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND WERE JUST HANDING ME A PILE OF BS, it's fine. No complaints.

kate said...

I dunno, Comcast sucks too. But it IS faster than DSL. We have comcast & you have to look at the bill *carefully* because about the half of the time it is a complete fiction, and the cable goes out fairly regularly. But, when you call about the bill they fix it, and when you call about the cable being out they send someone to repair it. Looks like Lisa in Macomb has better luck with Comcast than we do.

caramama said...

Man, that sucks! And I have been there! For us it was Comcast, but we are in the DC area, so it would be a different service, wouldn't it? And now, they've been great. But in our last place, our block would go out. Just our block and they would never know about it. Apparently it was some box for our block that kept going down, and no one else would call it in.

I made hubby deal with it, as I would get WAY to pissed off (especially when pregnant!). He even got so frustrated/angry/pissed off that he was often talking to managers. The bright side is that they would not charge us for service on the days it went out. And once, it was out for like a week. They gave us much the same song and dance that you got, but once they figured out the box it was, they fixed it no problem. Grrrr.

They've been great at our new house, though, but I think it's like HMOs... they are great as long as nothing is wrong or out of the ordinary.

Maybe you can call and get refunded for the days you were out of service? For us, hubby told them how it affected our jobs and they agreed that it wasn't fair to pay for the service we weren't getting, especially when it affected us so.

Sorry this is so long, but I get all revved up about this! Hope you get good service whichever you decide to do!

In the thick of it said...

I never have had AT&T as an ISP. But I did have them as my cell phone carrier once. They were AWFUL! Their service sucked all around - from the actual cell service to customer service. I use Verizon now. BIL actually uses Verizon for his ISP and he has their Fios TV and he really likes them.

christina said...

hey, i just found you through brooklyn girl and we're over in ypsi township. my husband and i both work at home si internat is priority #1. we have comcast (for internet and cable) and although he HATES them more than anything he won't give up the supercharged internet and we've never had an issues with it and honestly it's great.