AT & T STINKS!!!!!

Ok, I'm not normally one to publicly complain about companies and all, but this one has me FUMING.

First off, we had been SBC before all the merger stuff. We started out with our phone and our DSL being with SBC. All was happy, we paid our one bill a month for both and no problems and for a good price that was ok in the budget.

So then AT&T buys out SBC. It's been downhill since. My bills have gone up and down some months they charge for the DSL, other months they didn't, to double bill for those months the next month or better yet, they'd double bill 2 months in advance too. Then all of a sudden we started getting a separate statement for long distance. Now mind you we have Mike's cell phone that has national coverage. As we'd dropped all long distance service, other than local long distance with the plan we had for our phone. So after this merger, we start getting a separate bill for around $15 for long distance around the first of the year I think. Which then our main phone bill drops by that amount. So now we have 2 bills to pay each month and make sure we remember to pay. Grumble, Grumble..... Then that long distance bill starts creeping up. it went up to 18, then 21, and we are now up to over $25 a month for long distance that we didn't even ask for and seriously need to call and cancel. We just haven't done so because we are still trying to figure out what we are doing as far as cell phones- I'm really of the mind of just dropping the land line and going with cell phones at this point and just finding a DSL provider for our internet. We pretty much need to have DSL for Mike to be able to work from home and for on calls, which are going to increase here soon with all the staffing cuts that has occurred.

Then there's the whole U-verse thing. We'd looked into it with the possibility of doing a package deal and saving a little bit here and there that way. Well for starters, you can check the addresses all around us, and it's available for those houses. For ours, it is NOT. What the heck? Then with talking to other U-verse customers, it's quite a rip as they start you out on the everything stuff for three months, then should you decide to drop down your service package, the company starts to nickel and dime you with fees for every piece of equipment, each addt'l service you receive and so forth, which wasn't charged when you had the "everything" package. So we've not gone that route for obvious reasons.

Now for the last straw. Last week, on Friday afternoon, while Katie and Alex were down for naps, I got a call from the neighbor behind us. She had been doing something in the yard and disturbed a nest of bees back by thier back fence. She was stung several times and called to warn me not to let the kids go out back, because they were swarming and mad. So I think nothing of it and hang up. Mike comes home a couple of hours later, razzing me because he'd been calling and calling and no one answered the phone. I was like well, I was in the tub with Alex but Katie didn't say anything about anyone calling, which was odd. Normally Katie will at least let me know that someone had called, so I can check the caller ID that came on my Captel phone. So we didn't think anything about it, just chalked it up to my not hearing well.

Saturday morning, we get up and since we are leaving for Disney in two weeks, and next weekend is the 4th of July holiday, we thought we'd give our groomer a call and see if there's any chance of getting Honey in for a bath, nails trimmed and the works before my appts, trip to the family reunion in TN, and Disney. Well, No Dice.... I pick up the phone and no dial tone. I try again, hit some buttons thinking there's something with my captel phone, as it's been funky a couple of times before, but nothing like this. Mike goes in the living room and picks up the cordless- same thing, DEAD. We try the phone in the bedroom, just to see and same thing. Mike then calls on his cell phone and it just rings and rings and rings, but nothing is happening on our end here in the house. He then goes out to the 1960's box on the outside of the house and plugs in a desktop phone and it's dead, so the wire coming into the house from the junction box is DEAD. So that means it's not our problem to figure out, we have to deal with AT&T.

Well, Mike comes and like ok, since the DSL works, we'll file a claim ticket of needing a repair online. This was 09:27 AM Saturday, June 28, 2008 (straight from the work ticket we've submitted) and ever so nicely it sends a confirmation stating that the ticket was pending and that someone would be out by 8pm on Tuesday, July 1st, Four days later, here I am sitting here typing this up, ticked as all get out, because it's 9pm and not one soul has been out here, called us, knocked on our door, and when we checked the claim status online at 4pm it said that there was ongoing testing and that it was pending a technician's arrival. I still don't have any freaking phone!

No mind you this wouldnt be such a big deal if I had a cell phone, but I'm home all day with my fearless almost 3 yr old and almost 8 yr old. I've been able to use sprintiprelay.com to call out via the computer, but that takes a good several minutes to connect up, for the operater to start the system, dial in and so forth. If I had an emergency I'd have been running for a neighbors house! It makes me mad because I've paid my bill and I should have service.

Last night, I talked with the neighbor that had called us about the bees to see if she was ok after her stings and to see if she knew of a groomer that could do Honey, since our normal groomer wasn't available. I asked if they had phone problems and they were like no, and I told her that her phone call the prior Friday was the last phone call we've received. Her hubby yelled from across the yard that there had been an AT&T guy working on the junction box Friday night. He remembered it because right after she had called me, he'd gotten home and went to the hardware store to get the spray to kill the bees and was doing so when the guy walks up. The other neighbor's dog was growling and barking at the service man, and he'd yelled at the dog to knock it off. And that the guy continued on about his business and worked in the box, which since that point, we've been w/o phones and nothing has been done about it.

Ugh, guess we'll have to waste cell phone minutes now to call and chew them out to get out here and do something! Grrrrrr.......