Customer Service

I had something so outrageous happen to me today that I feel the need to share it.

Jeff and I have been considering adding a third cell phone to our family for quite some time.  I like to have a phone with me and a phone to leave at home, in case I go out for a run or for a quick trip to the grocery store and the older kids stay at home.  Up to this point, I’ve been leaving the phone at home, but that’s not a great long-term plan.

So, a couple of days ago, Jeff got online, ordered an additional phone, and set up a third line on our family plan.  This morning, I received at email from AT&T stating that they could not confirm our mailing address and to please call them ASAP to straighten it out.  If they didn’t hear from me in seven days, they would cancel our order.

I called this morning, thinking that all I would have to do is confirm the address that they already have on file for us and that would be that.  After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes, a “customer service” representative answered and asked me for some basic information.  I provided that and told her that I needed to confirm my address.

She proceeded to inform me that our account had originally been set up in Minnesota and that I needed to provide AT&T with a Minnesota mailing address.

I’ll provide a bit of background here.  When we ordered Jeff’s iPhone and my regular phone upon returning from France, AT&T assigned us phone numbers with a Minnesota area code.  We immediately called and told them that this was not acceptable, as we lived in Illinois, not Minnesota.  AT&T told us that there weren’t any numbers left in our town, so Jeff told them to at least find us numbers in our area code, which they did.

Problem solved. The numbers have worked just fine.

I explained this to the rep, and she informed me, “That’s fine.  But I still need a Minnesota address to add this line to your account.”

I said, “We have never lived in Minnesota; we have only ever lived in Illinois.”

She said, “Well, that doesn’t change the fact that I need a Minnesota mailing address or I cannot add this line to your account.”

I said, “How do you suggest that I provide a Minnesota address when I DON’T LIVE IN MINNESOTA?!”

She said, “Most people just use Google.”

Stunned silence from me.

I said, “I’m supposed to look up a Minnesota address on Google.”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “You are telling me that I am supposed to get on Google and then provide you with a FAKE ADDRESS from Minnesota?!?!”

She said, “Yes.”

At this point, I demanded to speak to her manager.  I could almost hear her shrugging over the phone line as she said, “OK.”  Then, she put me on hold. 

I hung up and then pulled out an old AT&T bill that had a different phone number on it for customer service.  Since Jeff works for Caterpillar and AT&T has a special rate for CAT employees, I was dealing with “Premier” at AT&T.  I called regular old AT&T, stayed on the line until I got a real person, told my story, and asked what was going on because I was pretty sure it was ILLEGAL to submit a false address in order to get a service.

To make the rest of this story short, I was on the phone for another 45 minutes, most of the time on hold, while they “straightened this out.”  After about 35 minutes, I was transferred back the Premier people, where this time I spoke to a different person.  She also put me on hold, and my connection degenerated into static.  (I suspect that they transferred me to an overseas customer service place, as the woman to whom I spoke had a definite accent.)

I hung up again, having lost an hour of my life that I can never get back.

This is the same company who, when the bill we set up to pay didn’t go through, informed me that the “confirmation of payment” email that I received wasn’t really a “confirmation of payment,” despite its title.

I don’t know if the first rep was playing a misguided joke or taking out a previous bad call on me or just having a really bad day, but I have never been so flabbergasted by “customer service” in my life.

Jeff got online when he got home and double checked everything, since I hadn’t technically been able to finish the call from earlier.  Apparently, the phone will be shipped soon, and, I’m assuming, it will have a number attached to it.

Holy smokes.

In other news…the kids and I took a field trip yesterday morning to a hockey game.  It was the Peoria Rivermen Inaugural Field Trip Faceoff, a game specially geared toward students.  We got free tickets from a homeschooling acquaintance and sat next to a high school group from Canton, Illinois.  During breaks in the game, the kids had a special game program that had math problems (adding up players’ goals and assists), geography (where the Canadian guys on the roster are from), and social studies (interesting facts about Canada).  As always, it was entertaining, although Peoria lost to the San Antonio Rampage 3-1.

Tomorrow, we have our next-to-last fall co-op meeting, and then we’ll be coasting into Thanksgiving, which we will be spending at home this year.

Whew.