I had written about my adventures with dish network in the past. I had a lot of frustration with them because whenever I called with a problem, I always had to speak with someone in India.
I was also having some problems with Comcast. Their service was rather lousy and slow at times, and they had mistakenly disconnected us a few times.
I had seen commercials on the television for AT&T U-verse service, and I thought that I would check it out. Everything seemed okay, and it seemed like I could save some money, so I signed up. I have had their service since this past April, and everything had been going well until this past Monday.
I had been telling a neighbor about how good the service was from AT& T. I had been singing their praises high and low, so they decided to give it a try. The installer came out and started to hook them up. He had gotten everything in place, but told my neighbor he had found a problem and somebody else would have to be called out to fix it. A second guy showed up and started working on her system and in the box at the back corner of our properties. The second guy said that he had everything straightened out, and that he didn’t think that he had cut our line in the box. To be sure, he was going to come over and check out our service. Instead of doing that, he jumped in his truck and took off.
We had been out of the house at the time, and when we came back we had no service. I had seen the first guy working at the neighbors house, so I went over and asked her what was going on. She told me about the first guy calling in the second guy, and the second guy said that the service would only be out for about an hour. We were home when the second guy said he was going to check with us and left in his truck instead.
I went back over to the neighbors house and asked her if she knew what was going on. I told her that we still didn’t have any service. She checked, and her phone worked, but her Internet was still down. She called the first guy that was out there and spoke with him, and he said all that he could do was put in another ticket and someone would be back out in a little while to take care of it. This was at one o’clock.
At four o’clock I went back over to the neighbors house and asked her if she had heard anything. She hadn’t heard anything, so I came back home and I called AT&T. I got through to some guy who had a little bit of a middle eastern accent, and told him what was going on. I told him that the second guy said that he did not think that he had cut the wire, but I told him I believed he did. Well, the guy on the phone didn’t listen to me. He ran some tests and told me that the line was dead which I knew, and had me do some stuff to the router. That didn’t help, and he ran some more tests from his end. He was polite enough to tell me that when I did that tinkering with the router that he told me to, I had lost all 75 programs and movies that were stored on the DVR.
Now comes the good part. He said that he would have to send a technician out to fix the system. Only he couldn’t come out that night. He told me that the earliest he could get someone out was in three days. I could not believe what that guy was telling me. I reminded him that it was his company that had created the problem, the technician had lied to my neighbor, and that I didn’t have to wait three days to get the line cut, even though it was not supposed to be cut. I asked him why they gave my neighbor service and cut ours and he couldn’t answer me. I asked him why they could not get someone out that night to fix the problem, and all that he would say was that the earliest they could get someone out was in three days.
I explained to him that I was talking to him on my cell phone. I reminded him that I did not have any telephone, television, or Internet. And since the telephone was down, my security system would not work. I told him that my mother was very old and in poor health, and that I needed a phone to call for help in case something happened to her. I also told him that my alarm system had a feature on it that I could press a button and it would call an ambulance for me, but it wasn’t working because the phone lines were down. He said that he was sorry, but the earliest to get someone else is in three days. I told him that I had seen his company’s people out working late at night, and why couldn’t he send one of them over to fix it. I told him that a cut line does not take that long to splice, and if you sent one of those people over they could have it fixed in five minutes. He said that he was sorry and I had to wait three days. My mother was sitting at the dining room table listening to my conversations with him, and when she heard that I was getting nowhere with him she started hollering and yelling. He said once again that he was sorry there was nothing he could do about it, and what day and time would I like the technician to come out and fix it.
I got so angry and disgusted that I threw my cell phone down on the table. I had never done anything like that before and it kind of startled my mother. She picked up my cell phone and lit into the guy. She gave him what for; she was hollering and yelling, and a few times she said “no you listen!”. This went on for 20 minutes; he was telling her the same thing he told me and would not budge an inch. Finally my mother told him that she wanted to speak with his supervisor. His supervisor got on the phone and they went at it for about another 15 minutes. When my mother saw that she was not getting anywhere with that guy, she said that she wanted to talk to his supervisor. She was getting more of the same from the second supervisor, when she asked him if he was in the United States. He pretended like he didn’t know what she was talking about. She asked him if he was talking to her from the United States. He said no but he had taken training in the United States. She then told him that she want to speak to someone in the United States. He started to argue with her, and she said that she wanted to speak to someone in the United States, and the law said that he had to switch her over when she asked for it.
She got switched over to someone in the United States, after waiting about 10 minutes. She spoke to a guy named William, and had to briefly explain to him what was going on. He was very apologetic, but he said that we would have to wait three days to get someone out here. My mom started yelling again, and chewed him out for another half-hour. She informed him that we had referred a lot of people to his company, and she did not deserve to be treated that way. The guy still tried to give her a hard time but she wouldn’t let him. She told him if he didn’t get someone out here in an hour, she would call a TV station and let them know how well they treat their customers.
He stalled and sputtered for a while, pretending like he was looking something up or doing something on the computer. He said it was just past the end of the shift and all of the technicians had gone home. My mom suggested, very strongly, that he call someone back out and have it fixed. He said he couldn’t do it, but he could have someone out here first thing in the morning. He said that that was the best that he could do. I don’t know what happened with the deal that they couldn’t get someone out for three days. Anyway, my mother said that that was all right, but if the guy wasn’t out here first thing in the morning, at 8 AM like he promised, she would call the television station and go to the newspapers and anybody else that would listen and complain about their service.
Well, the technician showed up the very next morning, an hour late. It took him 2 1/2 hours, but he got everything going. When he came, I told him that the previous technician had cut the wire in the box. He said he had to start at the middle of the system and work back both ways just to make sure. He would not listen to me when I told him that the line was cut in the box. When he got everything going, I asked him what was wrong. He told me that the line was cut in the box. Now I wonder where I heard that before?
The bottom line is that we went through all that headache, all that arguing and bull crap, was out of service for over 24 hours, when all anybody would have to do was come out and make a simple splice. If they had sent someone out that night, and that person listened to me, it all could have been taken care of in less than an hour.
The major part of the problem was the guy over in India. He just would not listen to me, and he stuck to the script that he was reading from. If he had understood English, he could have had it taken care of right away. Instead, we had to argue with them for over 4 1/2 hours, and I had to wait over 24 hours for them to get it fixed all the time worrying about what I would do if my mother needed an ambulance.
That is a hell of a way to treat their customers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the people in India can read, write, and speak English. But they do not understand it!!!
