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January 24, 2013

U-Verse Woes

If I don't have a post for a while, it's because U-Verse is playing up again. I was without internet for a good bit of yesterday evening and I finally called tech support and a recorded msg. told me the outage had started up again and to NOT reboot my modem. So, I didn't.

After being without Internet all day today, I called again and got a real-live person who told me to reboot my modem. So, I did.

All was well for a while until about an hour after getting back online when I was knocked off again. I did the modem thing again and so far, so good.

Yesterday I got an email about my telephone bill.  It was nearly twice the usual amt. and I was floored.  I went to the AT&T site and paid my last month's bill (not due for a few more days) and tried to find out why it was so high, but the site is really hard to navigate (for me), esp. trying to find detailed information about the bill.   I made yet another call and yet again had to wade through the computer prompts to find out what the deal was. 

After being put on hold - again, for the umpteenth time this week- (I think I've spent more time on hold than I have online since Friday) I got to speak to another real-live human.  I voiced my displeasure as politely as I could (my tongue is still bleeding from biting holes through it) and found out I had been charged $49 for service connection and $100 for the modem.  I was not told about either when I signed up for U-Verse.  I mentioned "Deceptive Trade Practices" and "Duplicitous" several times and reminded them they were "not the only game in town", telling them I could get phone, Internet and cable from the cable company for about what they had been charging just for phone and 'net PLUS they offered much greater speed. I  managed to get a credit for twenty bucks for the outage and half the service connection fee reduced off the bill.

During the brief time when I was online, I did some research about the outage and AT&T is blaming it on a software upgrade that "only" affected 1% of their customers. I was in that 1% but it didn't make me feel special.   I read a post by a woman in the AT&T forums that said she had been offline, surprising to her because she had had U-Verse for three years and only been knocked offline a couple of times.  Me?  I had had U-Verse for six days and been offline for four.

They'll not be getting any recommendations from me.

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