Ten things I hate about you

by Tim Faircloth on Jun 29, 2007, 11:58 am

It took me an hour to cancel my AT&T phone line. I sincerely hope the operator that handled my call reads this someday. If you’re out there, Mr. Bellsouth Operator, this post is dedicated to you.

I’d mentioned in a previous post that the worst one to remove was DirectTV, but I lied. AT&T customer service telephone line sucks donkey balls.

I’ll add that to the list of things wrong with AT&T. Their customer service phone line sucks donkey balls.

So I called a few days ago to cancel. I enter my phone number and traverse through no fewer than five levels of “automated support”. I then wait in non-musical hold.

Irritation #1: no music on the hold. At least give me some not-so-classic oldies to listen to so I know that you haven’t hung up on me.

Every minute or so, an automated voice says “All of our customer service representatives are busy helping other customers”…

Irritation #2: No shit, Sherlock.

…”On our website, www.bellsouth.com, you can pay your bill, change your account information, or view your last three bills.”…

Irritation #3: You can do everything online except cancel your account.

…”That’s w-w-w-.-b-e-l-l-s-o-u-t-h-.-c-o-m”

Irritation #4: It’s amazing how slowly and annoyingly an automated voice spells out “wwww.bellsouth.com”. It also bothers me that people need such things spelled out. I wonder how many people have their pen and paper out because they don’t know how to spell “bellsouth”.

After hearing the same announcement no fewer than thirty-five times (that means I was on hold for more than half an hour, folks), I finally get to speak to an operator.

Irritation #5: Thirty-five fucking minutes. Seriously, hire some more operators or something.

He asks me for my information, including my phone number…

Irritation #6: Why did the automated prompt ask me for my phone number if the operator’s just going to ask for it again? I understand you have to ask for my name, address, and PIN in order to verify my identity, but the phone number should be ready information.

…and why I’m calling today.

Irritation #7: Further proof that the automated answer machine is useless. It went so deep that I eventually got to “To permanently cancel your entire AT&T account, press 4”. I’m surprised it didn’t go another level down, allowing me to select from several reasons why I want to cancel my service. My point is that the automated system doesn’t hold on to the data that I’ve entered so it can present it to whoever picks up the line.

I tell him I’m I want to cancel my account, and he offers to put my line in a free “suspension” for two months so I can be sure I’m ready to cancel. Fine, that’s his job, but I decline.

Well damn, that fired him up. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t want a land line. What if the power went out and my cell phone was dead and I needed to call someone right now? I swear he talked for like fifteen minutes about how he could set up a line for less than twenty dollars a month just so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my only link to the outside world.

Irritation #8: What part of no do you fail to understand?

I’ve got a car charger. I’ve got neighbors and friends. If I have to go somewhere, I’ve got a car, a bike, and hell, I’ve got legs. Someone within walking distance should have a working land line or a charged cell phone.

Besides, last time we had a disastrous event (the tornado of March 1st of this year), my phone line was lying on the ground, the same as three quarters of the phone lines in the city. The cell lines were clogged, but I had cell service long before I was able to get to a working land line. Don’t tell me that a land line is any more reliable than a cell phone.

About five minutes into the “conversation”, I stopped talking and refused to say anything but “yeah” until he was done. Finally, he was convinced that I didn’t want an account anymore and put in the order, but he had one last thing to say:

Him: “So, if I could hook you up with a basic line for $36/month, would that change your mind?”

Me: “No.”

Him: “Well, that’s as low as I can make it. I’ll go ahead and put in the order. It should take effect before midnight tonight.”

Irritation #9: Since when is $36 less than $20? You lied to me earlier so you could try to bleed some more money from me. What would you have said after I received my first bill and realized that it was $16 over the maximum price you promised?

The order is put in, and he asks me if he had fulfilled his role as a customer service operator. I answered with a somewhat sarcastic “yeah, sure.” He had, in fact, canceled my account, it just took an act of congress to get it done.

“OK. You’ll receive another call in a few minutes. Please rank me as Outstanding on the customer service survey.”

Irritation #10: Wait, did this jerkoff just tell me to rank him Outstanding? I’m not sure if he said anything else after that. I was laughing way to hard to hear him. I didn’t get the call either, because they called my landline and I was at the office. Too bad I didn’t get his operator number. I would have called back to take that survey.