AT&T Customers...HELP ME PLEASE!

[disney_family_1247]

I will give you the background: when we moved to our current house almost five years ago, we could not get cable (no service here). We signed up with Cingular for our cell phone service, Directv for the television, and Bellsouth for the phone and DSL. Then, AT&T bought Bellsouth and Cingular. AT&T keeps advertising all of the savings from bundling, and we have ALL of our service through them (Directv is offerred through them too). After an hour long telephone call with lots of transfers, several emails back and forth, and hours spent on their website (slowest site in history, even with their DSL), we are nowhere!!! We need to save money, and they won't even give us options. We hate our local cable company (service is availabe here now), but we are about to switch everything to them. We are considering just having cell phones and no home line anymore.

Does anyone have advice? What's the cheapest way to deal with AT&T? Any tips on getting them to name a price would be greatly appreciated.

 

[LizinSTL]

I will give you the background: when we moved to our current house almost five years ago, we could not get cable (no service here). We signed up with Cingular for our cell phone service, Directv for the television, and Bellsouth for the phone and DSL. Then, AT&T bought Bellsouth and Cingular. AT&T keeps advertising all of the savings from bundling, and we have ALL of our service through them (Directv is offerred through them too). After an hour long telephone call with lots of transfers, several emails back and forth, and hours spent on their website (slowest site in history, even with their DSL), we are nowhere!!! We need to save money, and they won't even give us options. We hate our local cable company (service is availabe here now), but we are about to switch everything to them. We are considering just having cell phones and no home line anymore.

Does anyone have advice? What's the cheapest way to deal with AT&T? Any tips on getting them to name a price would be greatly appreciated.

Interesting. I'm an employee's spouse and a customer. I've enver had that many problems when I'm trying to "add" services and you are because bundling triggers a "new sale." Usually the service reps are thrilled to help you since they draw a commission on the sale.

I agree that the website stinks as far as adding/changing services- we can't use it at all because of our type of account. But I've found that calling the phone number listed on your bill really cuts through the mess.

I don't think we saved a penny bundling our cell and home phone but we just have 1 bill now so it's more convenient.

As far as I understand, you can only bundle TV OR wireless- not both. Our tv (u-verse) is on a different bundle than our phone/wireless. I think the bundles all include unlimited long distance too- if you don't require that, then you are better off just doing combined billing vs a bundle.

 

[owensamo]

I think its because you're a bellsouth customer. We're having similar issues trying to change our BellSouth account. I don't think they have the systems integrated yet - we get an "AT&T" branded bill in the mail, but when we log into the account, it's still under Bell South branding on the website. So far, no luck for us either.

 

[stm61]

we are also Bell South, and now AT&T as well. I was able to bundle Direct TV, we already had service, we can't get cable and can't get anything without satelite. It saved about $5 a month. I'm getting really aggravated with them because every week we get some kind of advertisement to bundle the house and DSL services. We can't get DSL, and they have no plans to offer it any time in the near future. It's all around us, the map looks like they drew a circle and provide service everywhere except in the circle. Noone can explain why it isn't offered, it just isn't, and they rub it in every week by mailing out their offers.

 

[Lady SnowElla]

We have everthing bundled with ATT. We have the DirecTV, phone lines, long distance, wireless at home, cell phone family plan. It is convenient but I actually don't think it is anywhere the saving that they claim. I have been very tempted to get rid of our land line as we never use it except we have our wireless on it.

 

[WishIwerethere]

For what it's worth, I am currently having huge difficulties with AT&T customer service. Switched to their wireless and already had internet and home phone through them, so I got a bundled package for all three. It's still not bundled more than two months later, they required that I have no pending charges before they would even investigate fixing it (although I had disputed charges on both sets of bills), and they didn't respond to my email inquiry regarding inaccurate billing and erroneously turned off my wireless service twice during this craziness. I'm at the end of my rope with them.

And I wasn't with bellsouth.

 

[disynut]

You pretty much described our services at our house. I have always despised Bellsouth's customer service(the automated part alone makes me want to throw the phone through the wall) and like the other poster said, I don't think it's fully integrated yet. And it seems any time they tell you how much bundling will save you they "forget" to add in the taxes, more taxes, and fees on that bundle, and our bill always goes up. AND, when I call to go back to the way it was it's always "Well, it'll be two months before we can actually remove it from your bill"---bull. That is why I hesitate to change anything with them anymore, but I am tempted since we are like you, home phone, cell phone, Directv are all AT&T.

Maybe in a few months everything will actually be AT&T and things will be better. Good luck to you.

 

[ChickieToo]

After 15 years, I left AT&T for my local cable company and bundled everything there--two home phones, internet and cable with HBO, and it is much cheaper than paying the cable bill and then paying two AT&T bills every month.

The reason I dumped them is two-fold: poor customer service; and the phone bill was always higher than the pay-one-price bill that they enticed me with. The last straw came when I realized I was late with my second phone line payment and I called AT&T to ask if I had time to send a check or if they needed a cc. I wanted to send a business check, as it was used as a business fax line, and I'm just sick of the whole getting reimbursed for my cc payment thing. Anyway, she said sure, I had time, send the check. The next morning I'm waiting to receive a fax, and the line is disconnected. I called and told them the story and how the CSR said I had time to send a check and so forth, and they essentially said "tough". I had to reconnect by paying the bill on a cc, plus a fee for reconnecting which was $30. I said I was switching to cable, and I did that day. No regrets. The internet is much faster than it was with AT&T DSL--with AT&T I couldn't even watch a video without it stopping and starting a lot.

As an aside, my sister and her family have the AT&T "cable" system called (I think) Univision, and there is a hitch with that too: You need cable boxes to run the TVs and you can only have 4 boxes to a residence. So, for example, if you have 3 kids with TVs in all their rooms, plus a TV in your room, plus one in the family room, one of the five TVs needs to be wired together with a box on another TV, and then both TVs need to be watching the same thing--they can't work independently. It's a real pain.

AT&T keeps sending me e-mails saying "We miss you, come back," but unless something really drastic happens to the pricing with the cable company, I would never go back.

 

[SandrA9810]

I've only had their cell service.
Unfortantly Bright House, which I like to compare to Metro POS, because it's like pre-pay by the month. They're the only ones to service our complex, no other DSL or cable company, so I had no choice for cable and internet. And with our porch facing the east, it probably wouldn't work with a satalitte that has to face southwest.

 

[SandrA9810]

It's always best to wait till the end of your contract to change any features or upgrade or else they might penalize you for ending your current contract. And yes, if you originally signed a two year contract, every two years you have the ability to cancel it, or it will automatically go into a new two year contract.

 

[lauradenise4779]

I worked for BellSouth (now AT&T) for 10 years, up until last year. I worked in rating...which means anytime your rates went up for anything other than cell service, it was because of a change I made. You're welcome

Anyways, the best thing I can suggest is asking to speak with someone else. If the rep you speak with isn't willing to work with you, ask to speak to their supervisor. I know, it's one more person to talk to, but usually it's worth it. Trust me...it CAN be done. There is no reason you shouldn't get a bundled rate.

 

[Iluvjiminy]

We had our phone with Bellsouth then AT&T. We never used our long distance so instead of paying for it I wanted it taken off the phone. They were charging us an outrageous amount for something we didnt use then............I got a phone bill for nearly $500.00 I called the phone company and was like ummm....excuse me I had this long distance stuff taken off my phone months ago and you people are still charging me for it?!?!?! That's right $500.00 for long distance that I had told them to take off the bill nearly a year prior. The guy I spoke with told me that until that $500.00 was paid in full they could not make changes to my bill............huh? I was livid to say the least, got very ugly and he finally got his supervisor. All that was fixed thank goodness the charges were removed as well as the long distance service last summer. Well............our phone bill was still about $45.00 a month which was fine until two months ago...............when AT&T turned my dang phone off because when I paid the bill I paid them $2.34 less than the bill by mistake. Needless to say we switched our phone and bundled it with our cable and internet and life has been wonderful ever since. I'm not sure what happened when AT&T took over but I did not like the headache that came with it.

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

I will give you the background: when we moved to our current house almost five years ago, we could not get cable (no service here). We signed up with Cingular for our cell phone service, Directv for the television, and Bellsouth for the phone and DSL. Then, AT&T bought Bellsouth and Cingular. AT&T keeps advertising all of the savings from bundling, and we have ALL of our service through them (Directv is offerred through them too). After an hour long telephone call with lots of transfers, several emails back and forth, and hours spent on their website (slowest site in history, even with their DSL), we are nowhere!!! We need to save money, and they won't even give us options. We hate our local cable company (service is availabe here now), but we are about to switch everything to them. We are considering just having cell phones and no home line anymore.

Does anyone have advice? What's the cheapest way to deal with AT&T? Any tips on getting them to name a price would be greatly appreciated.

We went to a DSL only plan with AT&T 2 months ago.

What you are describing is AT&T's 'DSL Direct'. It has DSL service without local or long distance. You will still have dial tone, but it's unusable. The dial tone is only for AT&T's testing.

Here is the info from their site:

"FastAccess DSL without a voice line is available at several speeds and
price plans for qualifying customers. 24-month price guarantee for all DSL
Direct speeds.
FastAccess DSL Direct 768K: $19.95 per month
FastAccess DSL Direct 1.5M: $37.95 per month
FastAccess DSL Direct 3.0M: $42.95 per month
FastAccess DSL Direct 6.0M: $47.95 per month
Please call 1-866-949-0023 for information regarding FastAccess DSL Direct 768K. "

 

[Bren's Mom]

Here's my recommendation for dealing with AT&T:

Get any offers in writing, including all of the install/upfront charges, monthly charges, how long that price is good for, etc.

Otherwise your bill might be much higher than quoted, you'll spend hours on the phone trying to fix it, will end up canceling and filing a complaint with the attorney general for your state...oh wait, that was me...LOL...

Fair warning!

 

[JB2K]

Usually falls into one of three categories:

• Former SBC (old Southwestern Bell/Ameritech/Pacific Bell/SNET)
• Former BellSouth
• AT&T U-verse (new IP-based TV/Phone/Internet service in certain areas)

Bundling any of those three may be a problem (as I had U-verse TV/Internet, but had an old legacy SBC landline -- both were billed seperately until I changed the house phone over to U-verse).

As for bundling wireless (former Cingular) -- that shouldn't be a problem with any of the above...

 

[disney_family_1247]

Thanks for all of the responses! It's interesting to see that I'm not the only one who has had some of these problems. The funniest (not funny "ha ha") thing to me is that when I sent a detailed email after my husband's failed phone call, the response just stated that wireless is a different department, so she couldn't help me. Does that mean that if I contact wireless, they can help me with the home phone, DSL, and Directv??? I don't think so.

 

[eatatmidnight]

Right now, I'm not sure that any provider has good customer service or honest business practices.

I guess the thing that tics me off about AT&T is that we have been phone customers of theirs for over 20 years, cell phone for more than 8 years and internet customers for more than 5; yet the best prices are for new customers.
I am not a big fan of any of the companys that offer the services. They advertise the good rate for 3-6 months, but never tell you exactly what it will cost after that time. I would change to the cable company, but I've only heard terrible things about Charter's phone service (and they have filed for bankruptcy)

Good luck with your decisions.

 

[disney_family_1247]

Wait, Charter filed for bankruptcy??? They are our only other choice! I did an online chat with Charter's customer service the other day, and he did give me the price after the into price, which impressed me.

 

[eatatmidnight]

Wait, Charter filed for bankruptcy??? They are our only other choice! I did an online chat with Charter's customer service the other day, and he did give me the price after the into price, which impressed me.

Yes... in March. Here is a link.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Paul-Allens-Charter-Communications-Bankrupt/1238165618

 

[bumbershoot]

This might not be your situation, but since you were with another company before they were bought, you might have a better price than they can offer right now. We've been in that situation just with cellphones since they went wiht Cingular, and we can't change anything (other than simple addons like messaging) b/c they don't even *offer* our particular package now. We want fewer minutes, but our package is lower than the fewest minutes they offer...really frustrating.

Anyway, that might be your situation.