Why is everything so difficult with your company!

About 5 months ago (Jan 2018), my husband reached out to DirectTV and AT&T to ask if we switched from Direct TV to Direct TV Now if we would loose the promotion we originally signed up for through AT&T. He was told by BOTH companies that Direct TV Now is still effective and switching to that would NOT be an issue for our AT&T account, months went by and our bill was fine, no issues. So we assumed all was good with our account. 

 

Then our April bill I noticed that the promotion discounts were not applied, I called on Wednesday April 11th at 9:49am and was on the phone with someone named Dax from your loyalty department, this phone call lasted over an hour. During this time Dax was "researching" my account and specifically told me "The promotion discounts were not applied to your account due to a delay on OUR system, its not your fault" he proceeded to inform me that "Switching to Direct TV Now would not affect our promotion or the discounts and that the discounts would be applied on April 16, 2018 and that moving forward I should not have any issues with this happening again nor would I have to call back and waste my own time trying to get things straitened out" he even said "I guarantee this information for you". When I hung up the phone with him I was assured and guaranteed I would not have any issues and all was good with my account and with us being with Direct TV Now. He told me all this information numerous times and I felt as though I could trust what he was saying since he was a representative of the loyalty department through your company. 

 

Well, April 16th came and my account still had not been updated and showed the discounts amount ($85.43) as a past due balance, I was told by Dax during our phone call to pay my normal amount of $411 and not to worry about the remaining because it would be adjusted on the 16th. Needless to say it was not adjusted and I had to take time away from my own business to call customer service and try to get things taken care of, again. I spoke to a lady named Priscilla on April 16th at 12:40pm and she informed me that I did not meet the requirements anymore to receive the promotion discount and that I was previously misinformed. She repeated this information to me numerous times in a condescending tone over and over as if I did not understand her... I did in fact understand what she was saying but she was not listening to my concerns in that at this point I was told by 2 previous reps from AT&T that switching to Direct TV Now was NOT going to affect my promotion. Had I known it was going to cause us to loose that promotion, we would not have switched, that is why we called and checked before hand. We took words from representative of your company and the information they told as trustful information. (I am sure you can pull the recording of these phone calls since you state they are recorded for quality purposes, I would recommend doing this). 

 

I asked to speak with the manager of Priscilla because she stated she was not able to do anything to help me or to fix the account and put it back to the way it was or sign us up for the new promotion which does allow Direct TV Now as part of the promotion. Priscilla offered me nothing to resolve the situation, she kept repeating she couldn't do anything and I basically had to fight with her to have a manger return my call. An hour later a manager called me back, I was not able to get her name but again right at the beginning of the conversation she stated they were not able to do anything and that was that. Basically telling me I am screwed and they are unable to help as I dont meet the requirements anymore - what no one is understanding is I called to ask BEFORE switching, I was informed by AT&T it was ok to switch - if you had been in this situation and were informed that information from a company you did business with, you would take their word for the information they are telling you, correct? That is how the customer/representative relationship works. As a customer and someone who runs their own business I was shocked at such horrendous customer service from everyone I had spoken to, especially this manager - and would never treat my own clients this way. Especially if one of my employees gave wrong information to a client - the proper thing to do would be to resolve the situation for the mix up. Instead I was only told "Sorry you were given wrong information, there is nothing we can do" So your telling me that an employee from AT&T informs a customer of wrong information and the customer then gets penalized for it? Explain to me how that makes sense?

 

After not being satisfied with this manager I was speaking with I requested another phone call from her supervisor, which was also a fight to get to speak with someone else. Shortly after I did receive a phone call from a guy named Treston, We spoke on, April 16th at 2:15pm - he also informed me there was not anything he could do to fix the issue that "Systematically it was not possible" I am sorry but I dont buy that as a reasonable reason for not fixing my account. There is always a way to override the system.  

 

Treston informed me that he would submit my account to the case management department and I would be notified within 14 days if they approved the request, he also stated that there would not be any late fees associated with my account until the case management department made their decision about my account and to not pay the balance showed currently on my account for that reason. He also tried to bribe me with $200 worth of accessories for the mix up on all of this, I dont need accessories nor doI want anything else from AT&T at this point, it was a nice gesture but it doesn't fix my current issue. He stated he noted all this in my account and that if I had any issues I would be able to call back and speak with him directly. He stated  he was putting me on hold while he submitted my account to the case management department and would be "right back" all the sudden as I am sitting on hold I got switched back into the automated system... another representative answered and I briefly explained what happened and that I would like to speak with Treston as he said I could call back and speak to him. This rep that I got switched to was completely unhelpful, he stated that managers dont make outbound phone calls even after I just explained to him that I was literally just speaking to a manager that CALLED ME. He ignored what I was trying to explain and instead tried selling me more AT&T products, really? that is the last thing I wanted to hear was a sales pitch as I have been extremely unsatisfied and frustrated with AT&T, this rep also informed me that I didn't meet the requirements for the promotion and there was nothing he could do. Out of frustration I ended this phone call as I had already spent too much time and energy away from my own business trying to get this resolved. Funny how I, the customer am trying to resolve the situation but no one from AT&T is willing to do so. 

 

I decided to contact AT&T customer care by phone in one last attempt to resolve the issue, I spoke with Shelly id#sg59h on April 17, 2018 at 10:08am - she stated the issue was in fact a billing error and was instructed by her supervisor to take the "past due balance" off my account, she also stated and confirmed with me that the BOGO deal I initially signed up for is still active and there were no issues with us being with Direct TV Now versus Direct TV. So she adjusted the bill and actually made me stay on the phone with her while she did this and until my account showed a zero balance on my end, this was the ONLY person I spoke to that was actually helpful. At this point I felt and was re-assured that next billing cycle should be all good with no concerns. Unfortunately the following months bill came for May and it was again not correct. I called before I paid the normal amount we paid and was told again that it was a billing error and that the discount would be applied automatically within just a few days. Again that did not happen and I had to call AT&T again to try and resolve this issue. 

 

On April 12th, 2018 I contacted AT&T again about the current bill, I called at 12:26pm (MST), I spoke with Celeste id#284CB98. She informed me that I was not eligible for the discount anymore due to the fact that we switched from Direct TV to Direct TV Now. I am hoping you can see a trend within this email, that every time I have called I get told different information, it is very misleading. Anyways, this phone call lasted over 2 hours and it took a lot of back and forth for her to inform me that if I re-instated our account with Direct TV that we would be eligible for the promotion that we initially were put on. I asked her to remove the negative balance shown on our account and add the promotion discounts that we should have received for the May billing cycle and she stated she couldn't do that without manager approval, I stated that another agent weeks ago was able to do that while I was on the phone so I did not believe that a manager needed approval, or that it wasn't something thing she could not do right away, since it has happened before. Again misinformation to your customers. I stated to Celeste that I wanted to speak with her manager and was happy to hold while she got them on the phone. All of a sudden she transferred me to Direct TV, I was shocked that this happened without her telling me what she was going to do and was just transferred like that, not very great customer service skills. Not that this is your problem per say, but I was transferred to about 5 different people within Direct TV to try and get things resolved, which was about another hour out of the same day, totaling close to 3 hours now. While I was on the phone with one of the Direct TV agents that Celeste first transferred me to, all of the sudden the "manager" that Celeste was going to get came onto the line, she stated that she would call me back after they "went to lunch", I literally laughed out loud at this statement as it is complete unprofessional to state that to a customer as well as totaling avoiding my concerns and issues I have been having, her name was Nancy Calhaun based out of Texas, that was all the info she would give me about herself. Needless to say, I did not get a return call from her on Friday as she "promised' she would. I eventually had to hang up with Direct TV as I was not getting any assistance and was completely frustrated at this point with everything else. I decided it would be best to try again on Monday. 

 

I call AT&T again on Monday, May 14, 2018 at 1:09pm (MST), I spoke with an agent you seemed a little more pleasant, unfortunately I did not get her name or ID# but she informed me that the system noted we would need to reactive our Direct TV account and that was the resolution based off all of the previous cases that were opened... Fine, we are totaling willing to re-active that account as we were trying to do that from the very beginning. 

 

I then call Direct TV to get the account re-activated, I was informed by them that we would now need to pay a re-activation fee as well as a fee for the equipment because the time we cancelled that account until now was not very long and that is their policy. As you can imagine I was not entirely happy with this information because we would have never switched in the first place had we been told the proper information from your AT&T representatives! As you can imagine this is extremely inconvenient and totally unnecessary, I feel as an AT&T customer I should not have to pay these fees since the problem occurred from representatives at your company and the misleading information we were told. I would highly recommend pulling ALL of the recorded conversations from our account to verify all this information and the amount of unnecessary time we have spent trying to correct this issue. 

 

I decided to call AT&T again later in the day on May 14th at 3:09pm (MST), I spoke with a lady named Belinda or Melinda, this time I was actually calling to try and get an email address to send this email to but was told I would need to write a letter which in this current technology day didnt seem right. At any rate this representative asked if she could have the opportunity to help me out. She stated that she would contact Direct TV while I was on the phone and make sure that I was not going to get charged any set up fees considering this whole situation could have been avoided had we not been told misinformation from AT&T in the first place. Finally I thought this situation was coming to end. She gets me on the phone with the Direct TV agent and we start going through the info to get our service set back up... well this agent informs me that I because we live in an apartment complex there are only certain vendors that can come install and that I would have to actually contact them instead... so she transfers me, she transfers me to Century Link as they are an authorized vendor for my complex... frustrated again that I being transferred all over the place I kindly explain to this Century Link agent the situation and he says that their system does require payment up front for the equipment and that I would then need to seek reimbursement from Direct TV, knowing how difficult this WHOLE thing has already been, I felt that getting reimbursed from Direct TV was going to be another hassle and wasted time on my part. The Century Link Agent decided that he would conference call Direct TV into our conversation and see what other options were available. The first person he got on the phone was not able to re-instate my account, the second person he got on the phone was also not able to re-instate my account, the third person was also not able to re-instate my account - the reasons they gave was that it was because we lived in an apartment complex and the Direct TV agents kept trying to give us a different number to call which was for the Century Link, which was the person who was already conferenced into the call with us! I hope you can follow this and follow the frustration that is building with all of this nonsense and back and forth. The Century Link agent and I were trying to get the Direct TV agents to at least put a note in the system that I was not pay any fees and that I would in fact be reimbursed by them if I did pay Century Link up front for the re-install. NO ONE at Direct TV could understand this simple request.... We hit a wall again... The Century Link agent and I were then taking with a fourth representative from Direct TV and he was telling me that my boxes that I returned 5 months ago were still showing active.. I was completely shocked at this information, it made zero sense to me and he could not explain why or anything really... he just kept saying the boxes showed active and they would need to open a case to find the boxes and send them back to me... at this point, during this conversation me and the Century Link agent were almost at 3 hours of time with all of this back and forth nonsense. Not to mention the hours I spent earlier in the day trying to get this fixed. Both the Century Link agent and I ended the phone call when this Direct TV agent transferred us again to a different department for what would have been a fifth time! All of this is completely appalling, frustrating and could have totally been avoided if we were told the correct information from the beginning when we initially asked about switch in the first place. 

 

So now, I the customer am being penalized for all this misinformation given to me? Can you explain to me how that makes sense? I call to check if switching Direct TV accounts will affect my promotion, I was told "no it wont", so we switch and then MONTHS later its now an issue? This whole thing makes zero sense as to why I am being penalized for this and have to now try to get resolution on my own. It is extremely poor business practices on your part for not backing what your employees say, even if it is wrong - as a business you correct the issue for the customer, plain and simple. 

 

I was a long time customer of Sprint and regret leaving their service as we never had this issue from them, in fact I could call Sprint periodically and ask them if there was a better promotion available that we could switch to, without question they would always look and see if there was something better for me, they were excellent at customer service and resolving issues and at this point I highly regret our decision switching to AT&T due to these recent events. We have 6 phone lines with your company, does that mean nothing to you?

 

We have not even had AT&T for a full year yet and we are completely unsatisfied in every way with your service and level of care of our business representatives. I am requesting that something be handled to get this issue fixed or we will file a case with the Better Business Bureau and any other form of complaints to let everyone know how dishonest AT&T is and how they really dont care about their clients. 

 

During my research in trying to even find a valid email address for AT&T, I found thousands of other complaints from other customers about AT&T and the customer service provided, I found thousands of people also looking for a valid email address for customer service complaints and how difficult it was for people to reach that information or reach a manager to speak with. It almost like your company hides behind the reps that answer the phones because you know the process of AT&T is not helpful to customers. The chat service is just as bad as calling into the "customer service line" - I would highly recommend looking at your process and reevaluating the business model you follow because it is extremely difficult and only causes your clients to be frustrated with your company. (just my opinion)

 

As the customer I have done nothing wrong here, I was simply following the instructions of YOUR representatives, now AT&T needs to make it right. I am trying to make an effort here and fix the issue that your company messed up on and am getting ZERO effort from your company to resolve the issue. If nothing is done to correct this concern, you will loose us as a customer and I will make sure every platform or forum for AT&T knows how horrible your service is. 

 

In doing some more research on AT&T I have found 22,953 complaints on the BBB site against AT&T and found only 13 positive reviews. I also found the AT&T "Code of Business Conduct"  https://ebiznet.sbc.com/attcode/index.cfm which explains your companies "vision" it explains the core values of how you do business and interact with customers, it states "we hold ourselves to highest standard, always doing the right thing, operating in integrity, honesty and transparency in everything we do" - NOT once have received this level of service nor is AT&T owning up to their own downfalls, mistakes, dishonesty I have received and integrity. I have also found countless forums of other AT&T customers complaining of the service they have received.