What a Nightmare

[GoldenRivet]

So... about Tuesday of last week we had a little "hicup" with our DSL service with AT&T.

Fine... no big deal, if i restart the computer and reset the modem and router this thing usually fixes itself.

not this time :nope:

so i call tech support - which im convinces is located somewhere in the vicinity of the greater Islamabad area, after 2:57 on the phone with the tech support assistant we got nowhere.

They then transferred me to a "level two technician" who i enjoyed the company of for another 20 minutes.

In short they could do nothing for me.

The level two tech said they would dispatch a technician to my home, and if i had not heard from AT&T within 24 hours to contact them with a confirmation number.

24 hours passed.

I called with my little confirmation number.

Again - in order to dispatch a technician from the AT&T dispatch center 3 miles from my house... i have to call Pakistan - it MUST make sense to someone.

I was told that they could send someone out the next day, and if i had not heard from them within 24 hours to call with a confirmation number.

okay.... fine.

24 hours pass again.

and once more i call the number and give them my confirmation code.

they inform me that a technician appears to be dispatched and should be arriving at my home within 30 minutes. however - he has other jobs and may run late so make sure im able to be at my home until 5:00pm

I waited - and waited - and nobody came to help me.

... the evening and the morning were the fourth day :stare:

now Friday... i called again with my confirmation number, and i was informed that a dispatch order had been given to a technician but it was for the weekend... not the week, and that it could be any time saturday or sunday.

my next phone call was to the fine folks at the AT&T accounts center where i promptly disconnected my DSL subscription due to poor customer service.

I now have cable internet through suddenlink.

so far everyone i have dealt with has gone out of their way to make sure i have what i want in their service.

Life in the modern world is hell without internet.

especially when you are trying to get your small business off the ground AND do an online class at a local college :nope:

[FIREWALL]

Glad everything worked out in the end. :up:

I've had HiSpeed internet with Comcast since 2004 and nary a problem.:yep:

[GoldenRivet]

if a barn mouse farts in Texas i lose connection with AT&T.

It got to the point where i was going through the tech support at least every 60 days.

[kurtz]

I always find that if you call the cancellation line for any phone/internet service company you always get fast service and someone who speaks english:-?

[Skybird]

I feel with you. customer service with german internet providers isn't great either. the main problemn here is total incompetence, and shifting responsibility from one to the other, endlessly. I have had four companies in a row, and were at war with all of them sooner or later. and when you cancel within time, you get ignored for another coupolke of weeks or motnhs until the time windows are closed and they then log you for another year of membership. Twice I had to engage lawyers to get rid of these companies of which I have no doubt they delayed and acted intentionally, which qualifies their efforts as criminal energy.

The telecommunication business is a pain in the a##. ironically, after having tried four new private telephone-companies, I settled down with Deutsche Telekom again - and the only problem there was got solved within two hours. But for that I pay twice as much as with the cheaper competitors. Well, at some point, "cheaper" turns into "too cheap".

Having to call in pakistan to get a technician from a centre down my road is new to me, though. :lol:

[kurtz]

Actually it's more than likely Mumbai. Also (I assume) German is less widely taught in India than English. In England most phone enquiry Bureau are farmed out to India.

I suppose I could bang on about us sending aid to a nuclear power which takes our jobs and buys up our industry but I can't really summon up the enthusiasm, perhaps someone on the forum will do it for me...

[StdDev]

I'll have you know that I've never had a problem with ATT service..
It is always reliable and can be counted on to pe r f%#= +|
₣√5.*er (-\₣√5.*ek (-\ ......

NO CARRIER


:p

[Tchocky]

Nothing makes you a better customer than being on the other end of the line.

[Jimbuna]

I always find that if you call the cancellation line for any phone/internet service company you always get fast service and someone who speaks english:-?

Agreed....plus the fact there is so much competition you sometimes get a 'sweetener' thrown in for the inconveniance. :yep:

Pleased your sorted...you made the right decision in the end :up:

[SteamWake]

I had poor results with DSL too.

Typically their first response is "Must be something wrong with your home wiring, for 40.00 bucks we will come out, crawl over your house and check the wiring. It will be anouther 150.00 to correct the problem".

This after the system was working fine (more or less) for several months. A little more pushing and probing proved that there was an 'area' outage and had nothing to do with the wiring in my home. But hey there still willing to come out and check it for 40 bucks.

I now am subscribed with Comcast (damn them) and they have some issues too. But at least there 'up' most of the time. Also there is no comparison in the bandwith regardless of what the DSL folks try to tell you.

[Schroeder]

Reminds me of how I struggled for six month to get DSL.:roll:
After ordering it from the company nothing happened for two month.
I always got great answers at the service line and the promise that someone will take care of it and never ever anything happened. They were only quick in charging me shipping fees for the router which I never received.
After calling the company for about ten times throughout the next 4 MONTH without ANY results I send them a 2 pages e-mail as a complaint and cancellation . The answer was (I actually didn't even expect one and was prepared to send it over again in paper as certified mail) that they were really sorry to hear of my cancellation and whether I would like to tell them why I had decided to switch to a different company. Since the e-mail came as a reply to my own, my entire two pages complaint which explained everything in detail was attached to it....:damn:
I actually started to feel slightly pi**ed.:hmm:

After changing to a different company I had DSL within two weeks.:damn: (although those guys forgot to send me a splitter...):dead:

[Raptor1]

I have always been connected to Cable since I moved from my old 56k because the DSL infrastructure didn't exist in the city I live in back then, or something like that, anyway, I haven't had any problem with it yet

Anyway, glad you're connection is okay now

[GoldenRivet]

well one thing i like is that this company has a major base of operations for the entire East Texas area right in my home town, blocks from my home apparently.

If i need use of the 24 hour tech support, i dial a number with a local area code, and speak to a cute sounding young lady with a "local dialect" and minimal automation (for English press two etc)

it looks like this will be more reliable service.... lets hope! i got tired of playing with my cell phone to check and respond to e mail. (thats handy when your on the road, but it gets old after a week)

[goldorak]

I feel with you. customer service with german internet providers isn't great either. the main problemn here is total incompetence, and shifting responsibility from one to the other, endlessly. I have had four companies in a row, and were at war with all of them sooner or later. and when you cancel within time, you get ignored for another coupolke of weeks or motnhs until the time windows are closed and they then log you for another year of membership. Twice I had to engage lawyers to get rid of these companies of which I have no doubt they delayed and acted intentionally, which qualifies their efforts as criminal energy.

The telecommunication business is a pain in the a##. ironically, after having tried four new private telephone-companies, I settled down with Deutsche Telekom again - and the only problem there was got solved within two hours. But for that I pay twice as much as with the cheaper competitors. Well, at some point, "cheaper" turns into "too cheap".

Having to call in pakistan to get a technician from a centre down my road is new to me, though. :lol:

I feel for you, the situation is more or less the same in italy. :damn: :damn:
Luckily now I have a naked adsl with an isp that has invested in next generation dslams (and they have their own network) and so quality is very very high.
But before, I was with small isps that were reselling Telecom Italia's bandwidth and problems were one day yes, one day no. :damn:

[SteamWake]

speak to a cute sounding young lady with a "local dialect"

You know what they say about "Women with 'cute' sounding voices" :rotfl:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh312/UlteriorModem/fathat16.jpg

[Task Force]

I have Cable internet, we got it throught a company named Cox communications, Veary good quality (fast), and is never down. Tech support is great, and there bundle deal is also (Tv, Telephone, Internet).:D

Glad you got rid of that old Internet. I know what it is like to be passed on from person to person (happend acouple of years ago with my old compaq computer). They transfer you from country to country (people who can barley speek english).:yep:

[Skybird]

Reminds me of how I struggled for six month to get DSL.:roll:
After ordering it from the company nothing happened for two month.
I always got great answers at the service line and the promise that someone will take care of it and never ever anything happened. They were only quick in charging me shipping fees for the router which I never received.
After calling the company for about ten times throughout the next 4 MONTH without ANY results I send them a 2 pages e-mail as a complaint and cancellation . The answer was (I actually didn't even expect one and was prepared to send it over again in paper as certified mail) that they were really sorry to hear of my cancellation and whether I would like to tell them why I had decided to switch to a different company. Since the e-mail came as a reply to my own, my entire two pages complaint which explained everything in detail was attached to it....:damn:
I actually started to feel slightly pi**ed.:hmm:

After changing to a different company I had DSL within two weeks.:damn: (although those guys forgot to send me a splitter...):dead:
Oh yeah, i have a deja vu while listening to you, my brother-in-pain. My black-listed experiences were Arcor, Talkline, Freenet and 1+1. What was yours?

[Biggles]

Your story sounds like something that Joseph Heller might've made up during one of his more creative days:D ;) :dead:

[Schroeder]

Oh yeah, i have a deja vu while listening to you, my brother-in-pain. My black-listed experiences were Arcor, Talkline, Freenet and 1+1. What was yours?
The first company was Tele2 the second Freenet.
So far we've had no problems with Freenet (except for the missing splitter which I had to organize myself...) but the Tele2 experience was quite frustrating. Hell, all I wanted was DSL and those [Insert what ever you want here] weren't able to deliver it within SIX MONTHS.:damn:

[McBeck]

I think we all have our share of problems with those companies!

I moved in with my girlfriend and wanted to move the DSL line with me - no problem.

As allways you have to stay home an entire day for them to drop by during the day.
They came and attached the small DSL port to the wall. So far so good, and here stops the fun!
Before I move on I should tell you that the line used is owned by TDC and the internet company was Cybercity. Thus is was TDC who set up the box.

OK...no connection. Called TDC, they would not transfer my call because Cybercity was my carrier....OK called Cybercity, got right through to a skilled tech. He could not see where the problem was at their end, so they called TDC to log the problem. TDC called me, the next day they would come by.
Again....a whole day at home, not able to work....he came by looked at the router and stated the problem must be and the Cybercity central....phew! :doh:

Called Cybercity again...they had a guy go out to the central and the hardware - no problem. I then spent 1 hour with the Cybercity tech trying to narrow down the problem since TDC was of no help. Connecting the router in various way and with filters etc we came to the conclusion that the box the TDC guys set up was faulty.

Then I was fed up. Cybercity agreed that this was too stupid and told me that eventhough they had to PAY TDC to come out during an evening (so I could get some work done during the day), they would not bill me :)

Next night the TDC guy came by. Openend the box and stated "Those wires are connected wrong" :damn: THERE ARE ONLY 3 WIRES!!!

[Thomen]

Oh yeah, i have a deja vu while listening to you, my brother-in-pain. My black-listed experiences were Arcor, Talkline, Freenet and 1+1. What was yours?
The first company was Tele2 the second Freenet.
So far we've had no problems with Freenet (except for the missing splitter which I had to organize myself...) but the Tele2 experience was quite frustrating. Hell, all I wanted was DSL and those [Insert what ever you want here] weren't able to deliver it within SIX MONTHS.:damn:

I waited 2 years for my DSL.. but that was way back when it was not widely spread and before they laid fiber optics everywhere. I got, however a dual channel ISDN line for free while I was waiting.

[OneToughHerring]

Better make sure your new and old net providers aren't just 'in cahoots' and scheming to bounce you around for some market action.

[Raptor1]

Better make sure your new and old net providers aren't just 'in cahoots' and scheming to bounce you around for some market action.

Never heard of that happening

[Skybird]

So far we've had no problems with Freenet
Wait until you want to cancel accoprding to the time conditions...

(except for the missing splitter which I had to organize myself...)
Same here, no splitter, and a defect modem which was part of the package and price but they did not replace. Only Arcor was worse than Freenet. The hotlines of both were tools of torture, and a magnificent display of friendliness and total incompetence.

With Deutsche Telekom, on the first day I had no signal. I had a human operator within 20 seconds, who tested the wire during the first call, then admitted that it was a fault on Telekom's side, and that it would be solved by the technical department this day, and that they would call me when they are done. the call came two hours later, and the line was free. THAT's what is called good and efficient customer service. not a paper war that lasts for months, includes cheats and tricks, and ends with the lawyer.

[OneToughHerring]

Better make sure your new and old net providers aren't just 'in cahoots' and scheming to bounce you around for some market action.
Never heard of that happening

When it's more profitable to mess with the customer instead of providing good service the latter always takes a back seat.