Small victories

It really is the little victories in life that carry you through. Yesterday I had two small victories, in addition to the big victory of my asthma drug cocktail kicking in so my painful coughing stopped.

Victory #1: I successfully trimmed my cat's nails with no bodily harm to my person and a minimal amount of yowling and squirming. The last time I tried this I only got her two front paws done and had lovely scratches on my arm that are just now fading. The key? The element of surprise. I snagged Capri with a towel, wrapped her up, sat on the edge of the tub trapping her body between my knees, and had one front paw done and was half way through the second before she realized what had hit her. Seriously. All. Four. Paws. Trimmed. Even her dewclaws. A victory indeed.

Victory #2: I finally managed to get my cell phone number switched to a local Philly number. I hadn't changed it from my previous city of residence due to all the identity theft issues. But that's (hopefully) over now, so I'm free to finally separate myself and stop paying taxes to that previous city so I can keep the number. Yes, they really were charging me both a city and state sales tax as well as a business license surcharge, for a total of over $7 a month. Ridiculous!! Once again I had a very pleasant interaction with the customer service at Verizon, making the whole process smooth and easy. Somehow I also feel a bit more "settled" in Philly by having all local numbers.

What small victories will I have today, I wonder.

Courtesy

Some companies still practice courtesy when it comes to their customers. Amazingly, Verizon is one of them.

They sent a tech person out to fix my phone line this morning. I knew this was happening, and had confirmed last night that I didn't actually have to be home. I assumed that I'd find out if they were successful or not when I got home tonight and checked for a dial tone. Mind you, this was already better than AT&T who usually made me call multiple times to report the problem and wait at least a week before they'd actually even consider sending someone out. So my expectations were rather low. Still, I reported the problem on Friday, and Verizon send someone at the first available time. No multiple complaints. No arguing about who's responsibility the problem is (AT&T always always said it was my responsibility until proved otherwise...even though usually it was their problem). One call to report the problem to Verizon, one test on the line, and they dispatched a tech person to fix it. Cool. Courtesy from a corporation. What a concept.

But it gets even better.

The tech person called my cell phone when he was done to let me know it was repaired. This was after he knocked on my door to try and tell me in person. There was a broken wire that was interrupting my voice transmission but it didn't affect the DSL transmission. Hence the DSL service but no dial tone (still having issues wrapping my brain around that). But he said that all should be well now, and to check when I get home just to make sure.

They CALLED to let me know the repair was complete.

Wow. Speechless.

File under "huh?!"

As you all know from previous posts on the topic, I have a history of problems with my phone line when it rains. In the past, this has meant static on my line. So much static that I end up with no service. The static interrupted not only my land line voice signal, but my DSL signal. Things culminated with the determination that a section of outside cable was in fact bad, and it was replaced the end of November. I haven't had static on my line during inclement weather since.

This time is different. It's pouring rain out. It's been raining all day. Raining so hard that after a quick trip outside the dog was wet enough to look like she had enjoyed a bath.

First, the good news, I don't have static on my line.

Now, the bad news. I have NO dial tone at all. No static. Nothing. Just silence. It's creepy.

BUT, I still have a DSL signal. Mind you, the DSL travels on the same lines as my voice signal, making use of the high frequency portions of the phone line (voice only uses low frequency). Logically one would think that if I have no dial tone, meaning something in the line has been interrupted, I would have no internet signal, since it's all the same phone line. Right? I mean, really, when I had static on my phone line interrupting my voice signal, it interrupted my DSL signal. Therefore it follows that no dial tone would mean no DSL signal, again since it's all the same line.

Um, maybe not. Apparently that logical assumption is wrong.

No dial tone, but I still have a DSL signal. Huh?! I'm filing this one away under illogical and possibly absurd things in my life.

But I think I'll stop short of complaining and just accept the absurdity of it.

Completion of the phone and internet saga

I am writing this blog post from home! Yes, you read that right, from HOME. Using my nice wireless(!) home internet connection from Verizon. The setup and activation was painless, smooth, easy. A sharp contrast to the 12 hours I spent on the phone with AT&T trying to get my DSL set up and activated with them.

So it's done. Finally finally done.

Although, according to my AT&T account (checked online), they might actually owe me money. I wonder how long it will take me to get that...of course, I'm sure that will change and I'll end up owing them some service charge or another.

No matter. I still feel so beyond triumphant to be free and clear of AT&T. And positively gleeful to have home internet access again!!

AAUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!

It doesn't end.
It.
just.
doesn't.
end.

I have now talked to four, count them, FOUR, different people at AT&T about canceling my DSL so I can make the switch to Verizon. I have now heard FOUR different versions of what is happening.

The short story, as of last night at 6pm, my DSL still wasn't fully canceled, only "suspended."

To recap: I called the end of November to cancel my DSL. This is what I was told: the order will be processed FULLY on Dec. 7th (last billing day). And they confirmed, when I asked three different times, that it would be canceled. There would no longer be DSL on my phone line at all. No signal at all. Period. Great, as that's what I want. They give me my confirmation number and the call ends.

So on Monday (12/10) or Tuesday (12/11), I check my account online to verify that everything is fine. AT&T Worldnet Internet Services no longer exists. In fact, if you look at my online account, it looks as if I've never had DSL service at all.

And then it goes horribly wrong. Yesterday I got a letter from Verizon telling me they still couldn't process my order. Confused, I call to find out what's up. Funny thing, on their end, from the technical side, AT&T actually hasn't shut off my DSL. The signal is still there on the line. Mind you, I don't have home internet access, haven't for a full week now, so I really don't understand what's going on. All my information says it's off. So I set it up for Verizon to call me back today (Friday, 12/14) and I call AT&T again to find out what's up.

I call AT&T, go through the menus to talk to a person in whatever department handles cancellations, but before I can even GET to a person, I get disconnected. Great.

I call AT&T back, go through the menus AGAIN, and this time actually get to a person. In billing. I explain the situation (at this point I'm still polite), and they tell me that according to their information, my account is suspended and it's up to the tech support people to actually fully cancel the signal. They've done their part in billing.

They transfer me to tech support.

The person I talk to in tech support has NO RECORD of an order to cancel my DSL in their system. On their end they don't see any evidence of my DSL being suspended, or any request to cancel my service. None. Nada. No evidence at all. WTF?!?! So I give them my confirmation number so they can find the order, which they do, and then they tell me that it's really the responsibility of the billing department. There's nothing for them to do in tech support. Uh huh. They offer to transfer me back to billing, so I can try again to find out what's going on.

During the transfer back to billing, I get disconnected. No sh*t.

So I call AT&T back yet again, go through the f*cking menus yet again, and get to a person. At this point I'm no longer polite, in fact, I'm downright rude. I demand to speak directly to a supervisor. I'm told a supervisor is not available, but they can help me. I tell them that no, I don't think you can, I want to speak to a manager. I explain my situation. This guy now tells me something different. Something I haven't heard before from any of the three people I've already talked to about this. Apparently my account was only suspended on Dec. 7th at 7:00AM EST (that date and time is very very important), and it takes 3 to 5 business days for it to be fully canceled. I tell him that this is the first time I've heard that. What I was told before is very very different. And that he needs to fix it now, because it's been over three business days. And in fact, Friday morning (12/14) at 7:01AM, is 5 business days. And if tech support has no f*cking record of any order at all, how exactly is this going to happen?! He has no answer or explanation for that one. Big surprise. He asks me to be polite, I tell him to go to hell, I've been polite, and yet this is the FOURTH phone call I've had to make to get the simple act of canceling my DSL completed and I've now been told four different stories, three of them from the same g-ddamn department, his department, billing. So I'm not going to be polite anymore and I really don't care (not to mention yesterday's post about my patience going missing).

I then confirm THREE TIMES that as of 7:01AM EST on 12/14 (today) my DSL should be fully canceled. He's obviously losing patience with me, and I tell him that I just want to be completely clear because obviously things have not been made clear in the other THREE phone calls I've made about this. I also want it on record, more than once, what I'm being told, so that if it doesn't happen I have ammunition to sue them. I demand to speak to a manager again, and am told that there isn't one available, but he can put in a request for one to call me back in 24 to 48 hours. I tell him to not waste his f*cking time, and hang up.

I'm convinced at this point that I should have just paid AT&T the over $200 early termination fee. Because it's taken no less than THREE phone calls on average to get anything done with them during the past year. For them to FIX things. No less than three phone calls for each separate issue. I shouldn't have to call more than once. I can confidently say at this point I will do anything in my power to avoid ever being an AT&T customer again. In any state. Ever. They are absolutely positively the WORST company I have ever dealt with. Frankly, I'd sooner go without a phone than sign up for service with them again.

And you know, I bet that if I had just not paid my DSL service bill my service would have been canceled immediately. No 3 to 5 business day bullsh*t I'd bet.

Sparse posting for the next week

So, if you didn't notice, I didn't post over the weekend. And you'll probably see sparse posting from me for the next week.

See, the switch from AT&T to Verizon is underway. But the service change means I'm without home internet access for a bit. I had to turn my access off through AT&T before the switch to Verizon could happen. That happened this past Friday, Dec. 7th (end of the AT&T billing cycle for simplicity's sake). No internet access at home over the weekend. Good thing I didn't need to find an address or phone number!

But my phone service should be switched to Verizon today, and my order for DSL will be processed once that is complete. It will then take anywhere from 5 to 10 business days before my new hardware shows up and my internet access activated. They're saying probably closer to 5 days, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

In the meantime...anyone have a current copy of the yellow pages in paper?? I'm not sure where mine is...or if I ever even had one for Philly...

Phone resolution

Who knew a simple dial tone without static could make me so happy. And that it would take so long for me to get it in this day and age. It's not like phone service is new or anything.

The cable technician came to inspect my lines today. And determined that I indeed had a bad stretch of cable. So for about an hour I had nothing (no dial tone, just silence...it was kind of spooky, actually) while he took out the old cable and put up new. And I've had a stable non-static filled line ever since. He even called to let me know that the maintenance was complete and that should fix the problem, confirming again that it was a cable problem.

So this confirms it. I wasn't crazy. I didn't deserve the insults, being talked down to, or the full year I've been fighting with AT&T to actually make someone come look at my exterior lines. And now that I've made them pay for the repairs, I'm leaving them and switching my service providers, effective Friday. Because they don't deserve any more of my money or time. They've taken enough of both thankyouverymuch.

Confusion...but I'm not crazy!

So, um, the technician that I scheduled for Monday morning showed up on Saturday mid-day. Yup. Apparently he got the order early so he showed up. Great. Finally my lines are going to be looked at. And they're early. Even better. Maybe sobbing on the phone got to them and they're actually trying to apologize by doing right for once as opposed to just saying sorry a zillion times for their screw up. [I know...wishful thinking...but stranger things have happened!]

First the bad news. He looked at my line coming to the house, and my connection isn't great, and the line needs to be replaced. He tried switching me temporarily to different connectors, but that didn't help matters any. There's something wrong between the tower and the connection at my house. Presumably the copper wire is exposed somewhere along there, which is why I have problems during inclement weather. But there's nothing the technician can do. He's referred the problem to the team that does maintenance on the lines, and they'll probably have to replace them. But in the meantime, I have to live with the static on my line and the intermittent DSL signal that results from the static. Fabulous.

The good news in all of this? I'm not crazy! On several occasions they tried to tell me that it was a problem with the lines in my walls, which is why I had such a hard time convincing them to send someone out to look at the lines coming into the house. The technician confirmed that no, that's not the problem, it really is a problem OUTSIDE, which is why it only happens during inclement weather conditions like rain. And why the static clears up after a few days...the lines finally dry out. So I was right. After all the phone calls, the insults, the problems, the technician confirmed that I was right all along. It's their problem, not mine. The exterior lines are their responsibility. And they will be fixed, hopefully soon now that the issue has been identified.

So I consider this a victory. Even though I have to live with the issue a bit longer, still, it's now clearly their problem. And I'm not crazy. W00T!

And my line is surprisingly stable today. We're having a winter storm and everything is freezing (snow, freezing rain, slick sidewalks, the works). The line must be frozen...I wonder if the ice helps conduct the signal...or maybe it's just not wet anymore because the moisture froze up...frankly, I don't care. All I know is that it's stable for the first time in a week!!

Knew it wasn't that simple

My phone woes are not over. I knew it was too simple. But instead of triple checking everything I decided to just believe that things MIGHT actually be changing and going the way they were supposed to for once.

I was wrong. So very very wrong. AGAIN.

Tuesday I arrived home to see the service people tried to come by but couldn't get to the box so they needed to access the premises. This does not surprise me. The alley is quite overgrown and blocked off at one end, so it's not inconceivable that they need to go through my house to get to the phone box where the line comes into the house. Now, my service at this point is still with AT&T, and they were the ones that sent out the tech. The notice in my door was from Verizon, and it told me I needed to call and schedule an appointment. So I do this: first, I call AT&T, and they tell me to call the service people directly since they left the card. So I call Verizon. And I'm told that yes, I called the right place. AT&T contracts with Verizon for the physical maintenance. And yes, they can set up the appointment. So we do. For Friday afternoon between 1pm and 5pm.

I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Anyway, after making that appointment, I call Verizon to have my service switched over after being insulted for the umpteenth thousandth time by the AT&T phone and DSL technicians. They tell me that the order is all set up, and like I said in my previous post, I'm actually going to get some nice discounts and it will actually cost me quite a bit less per month for the same set of products I'm getting now. Well, they call back two days later and tell me that there's a small problem. In order for them to switch the DSL, I need to call and put in an order to cancel my DSL with AT&T first. Once they see that the order for cancellation is in, they can place the order for internet service through them. OK. Granted, this creates some minor panic as it means I won't have home internet access for a good 8 to 10 business days between canceling my service with AT&T and when the service with Verizon actually gets activated. But I can deal. Really. [takes several deep breaths] So I call and cancel my DSL with AT&T on Thursday. Effective Dec. 7th, which is the end of my billing cycle and due to various reasons, pretty much the earliest date possible for them to flip the f*cking switch to turn it off (I don't understand why it takes a minimum of 5 business days, but whatever). The only good thing is that it will be the end of the billing cycle so there won't be any credits/partial bills etc. for them to screw up.

Now, the service tech coming out has nothing to do with my service switch. Nothing. It does, however, create some confusion when I call to confirm the appointment, but it gets cleared up. I confirm that my service will be switched now that I've canceled my DSL with AT&T, AND that a tech is coming out to the house on Friday afternoon to fix the physical problem with the line. I'm told everything is fine. Remember, this is Thursday. And everything is all set. No problem, I am assured multiple times. Everything is clear.

Again, WRONG. So very very wrong.

It's now Friday. I took the afternoon off work and waited all afternoon for the technician. No one showed up. So I called the nice little number they gave me to inquire if the tech didn't show by a specific time. I'm told that the appointment had actually been canceled. WTF?? No one told me. Seriously. NO ONE TOLD ME. Apparently, I called the wrong place and should never had been able to make the appointment in the first place. Federal guidelines and all. But that still doesn't explain why no one f*cking told me this or let me know the appointment was canceled. It took an hour on the phone to get this answer. ONE HOUR. And my phone line is still full of static. Which means my DSL signal is intermittent. And there's nothing the Verizon people can do.

I literally started to cry. I sat there on the phone with the person and sobbed. I'm the CONSUMER. It's not my JOB to know these things. I'm NOT the company. They are. How am I supposed to know the Federal guidelines regarding who I have to make an appointment through for service on my physical line? I just call the help line and go through the f*cking menus to talk to a person. Ultimately, after my sobbing for a good 10 minutes, they tell me I can either cancel my order to switch service to them, or wait until the service switches and then call and make a NEW appointment directly with them, or try calling AT&T again to make a new appointment through them. I manage to get out between sobs to NOT cancel my order to switch my service. But it's now been clarified that they can't even switch the service until the DSL is OFF completely. Which is different than what the other TWO people told me. Fine. Whatever. So my service won't be switched from AT&T to Verizon until December 7th.

Back to the problem that started it all. The physical line. I call AT&T. The first time I called, they told me to call the service people at Verizon directly to make the appointment. I've now learned that was wrong. So I call back to schedule a service appointment, but since it's after 5pm on a Friday, they can't send anyone out today. Despite the fact that I already had an appointment, which, ironically, is showing up in their system even though I didn't make it through them. [Are you confused? Yes? Well, so am I] We're now trying this again, and I have a NEW service appointment on Monday morning between 8am and noon. This means I have to live with the static on my line and the DSL problems all weekend. Yes, I'm quite cranky about this. OK, VERY cranky.

But cross your fingers that the service technician shows up on Monday morning. One way or another, this will all be over soon. But if this keeps up, and I get frustrated enough, I just might cancel my home phone line altogether and go with cable internet access and wireless (i.e. mobile/cell) only for my phone...

Success! I'm free of AT&T!

I have left AT&T. When I called to complain (yet again) about my intermittent DSL service (which continued all evening because it was still raining), the screwed up order, and other such delights, I learned a valuable piece of information. I was no longer under any contract with them for phone or DSL. I asked and had the person repeat themselves 3 times just to be sure. Apparently the previous customer service individual I spoke to was wrong (this is NOT surprising). No contract meant I could leave them at any time without penalty. Apparently the gods were smiling on me.

So I left. Effective Wednesday afternoon I am a Verizon customer. My home phone number will NOT change. And I'm actually going to save quite a bit of money since I can now bundle my phone, internet (DSL), TV and wireless into one bill. One bill to pay for all those services. Simplification at it's finest not to mention using less paper! And voice mail is included. No more paying for voice mail (AT&T...get a clue and enter the 21st century: stop charging for voice mail!). Just the phone service alone is cheaper than what I could get as the most basic service through AT&T. Their high speed internet is cheaper by over $10 too. What's more, bundling gives me some nice discounts on services I already had (TV and wireless). I've been a happy Verizon wireless customer for about 5 years and I have no complaints about my DirecTV service during the past year (except when the weather wrecks havoc with my reception during my favorite shows, but that's not their fault). So far this looks promising. At the very least, I won't have to be insulted by AT&T's customer "service" reps when I call to report a problem anymore. That alone is worth switching companies for.

So good-bye to AT&T. No more frustrating so-called customer service for me!

What next? (a rant)

My home phone and DSL service is through AT&T. Because I was an AT&T customer in my PCOR due to their merger with SBC, and because I was technically still under a DSL contract when I moved here, I had to continue to use AT&T or face an over $200 early termination fee. Fine, whatever, I'll continue with AT&T here in Philly. I wasn't too concerned, as my service with them in various previous cities had been pretty good. I hadn't had a whole lot of problems, other than the usual complaints about things like international long distance costing too much (what else is new). But the switch over was not smooth. I should have seen this as a warning about what kind of service I was in store for from AT&T out here. The two regional service areas told me different things, my service got screwed up, and it took multiple phone calls over the course of several days just to get my service set up correctly, i.e. the way it was written on my contract and in all my account information. For some reason, there was a disconnect between what I was paying for versus what I was getting. And ironically it was the regional service provider back in my PCOR that was able to fix the problem, or at least communicate with the AT&T people out here to get it fixed.

Alas, that was not the last of my problems with them out here. I have had various problems with AT&T over the past year. Static on my line. Intermittent connections. DSL issues. You can read about them here and here. Why haven't I switched, you ask? Well, that damn contract thing again. With DSL you sign up for a service contract, usually for a minimum of one year. Mine somehow morphed from a one year to a two year contract when I moved out here. So until August 2008 I am still under contract for DSL service. But my problems haven't been limited to just my DSL. I've also had issues with the general phone line. I've made countless calls to report problems with my service. And for awhile I thought things had been resolved and the problems fixed.

I was wrong. So very very wrong. And I have two issues with them now, one an old problem, and one where they screwed things up with my service plan yet again.

It's raining today. For months I had issues with massive amounts of static on my line every time it rained. Literally every single time it rained. And they tried to tell me it was a problem with the wiring in my walls. Yeah, sure, um, NOT. And every time I had to call twice: once to report the problem of the static on my general phone line, and then call back again to report the fact that the static caused my DSL signal to become intermittent (i.e. no internet connection). After a multitude of angry phone calls from me, they finally sent a technician out to the house to look at the connection between the house and the incoming lines sometime this past summer, almost a year after I first reported the problem. And the problem appeared to have been fixed by the technician. We had rain storms for days. One that even exposed that slow leak. But I had no problems with my phone service or my DSL.

Again, and I admit it, I was WRONG. It hasn't actually been fixed, I was apparently just lucky for a few months. I had to call this morning and report static on my line yet again. The static was so bad I could barely hear the prompts from the automated system on the other end. I called before I left for work, around 7am. No, I have no idea when the problem started, as I was asleep until 5:30ish. But it's raining, so presumably it started sometime after the rain started in the middle of the night. And of course my DSL signal is intermittent so I have no internet access AGAIN. They're sending another technician to see what's going on at the connection between the house and incoming lines. Sometime today or tomorrow before 7pm. Fabulous.

But this is not my only problem. I called on Nov. 14th to change my basic phone service (not my DSL, just the phone, which has no contract) to a simpler plan. I had done my research, I knew exactly what I wanted, but for some reason the system wouldn't let me do it myself online. So I called. And spent a good half hour on the phone repeating myself and refusing other offers. Only to be told at the end that their computers were down for maintenance/upgrade and once they got it in the system it would take 7 to 10 days to process the switch. Great. So I proceeded to track my order online. My order was put into the system on Nov. 19th. It was processed on Nov. 21st. My order was for a basic phone line package with two features: CallerID and call forwarding. And I was keeping my voice mail (which they charge for...who charges for voice mail in this day and age?? but that's another rant). I made it abundantly clear to the technician that I did NOT want call waiting. I loathe call waiting. Hate it with a passion. She asked me three times and all three times I said no. And when she read my order back to me, she read it to me correctly: NO call waiting, just CallerID and call forwarding, with basic phone service.

But guess what? AT&T screwed up my order. Yup. They f*cked up my service yet again. Somewhere between that phone conversation and the entering of the order into the computer, or between the order in the computer and completion of the order, CallerID got replaced by call waiting. So I haven't had CallerID since before Thanksgiving. And what's worse, they charged me to make the service plan changes. Yup. I paid them to screw up my phone service. I am so beyond pissed right now. This evening I have to make yet another phone call to have them fix it (i.e. get rid of call waiting and turn CallerID back on) and have them refund me the service charge for the change. Because I'm not paying for their mistake. And I will be a pain in their rear until they refund me my money and fix the problem. Or until they release me from my contract so I can go someplace else with my business. Because this is unbelievable. How is it possible for them to screw up the same problems over and over and never fix them?? What the f*ck am I paying them so much money for each month?? I just can't stand it.

How one company can be so beyond incompetent as to do EVERYTHING wrong with a customer all at once I have no idea. And then try and blame it on the customer. How they survive and keep such a lion's share of the market is beyond me.