[X]
Write ReviewJump to 
32
Helpful
Votes
Votes
AT&T Cable Services Informative - My sad AT&T U-verse long & winding story - AT&T U-Verse
MENTOR, OHIO -- If a sales rep comes to your door, pretend you are not home. Here goes my long and winding story:
The first install tech wanted to drill holes all over my 10 year old pre-wired for cable home and run wires under carpets and along floorboards and over doors etc. He left his cell phone behind after I told him please cancel order and I waited 3 hours for him to return for it. Then a week later he called to say he had left his drill in my basement!
Oh yeh and he told me he cancelled the order but I had to spend hours on the phone after receiving bills for the service never installed and a promise that I would get a $100 VISA card for my problems. Haven't seen the VISA card yet and will probably have to spend 20-30 minutes on the phone tracking it down.
After that a box arrives telling me to return the equipment that the tech took with him so another hour on the phone.
So anyway another sales rep calls and I tell him my sad story but hubbie wants NFL network which our local cable company doesn't carry so out of love I say let's try again with a good install tech because I stopped some techs in the neighborhood who told me the whole house didn't have to be rewired and existing cable lines could be used. So sales rep arranges to meet me at dinner time but unbeknownst to him another rep in the neighborhood just happens to knock on my door at dinner time and steal the first rep's sale because I thought the wandering sales rep was the one coming at dinner time. So anyway, the first rep calls me to say the second rep stole his sale and I'd have to cancel that order etc. Well his boss I guess says "no" so I get a call to just leave things as they are.
Glutton that I am I still go ahead with an install date for this second attempt but upon calling for something I can't even remember now I am assigned a new account number and a new install date.
The night before old install date computer calls my house and tells me techs are coming on old install date. I ignore computer and go shopping because no one ever showed.
Second install tech comes and tells me the first tech put inside wiring on the outside of my house. Second tech gets things up and running.
Second tech tells me to call the 800 number to get my promised free movies. Three hours later (enough for antenna phone battery to die) and tethered to a wired phone I finally get to a really good tech who calls me over the next 5 hours to update me on progress and starts my movies -- no problemo and I love him. There are horror stories of 2 weeks to get the movies!
Uh oh - sound on t.v. has terrible buzz so get on phone for another marathon and work with remote etc. until we decide another tech will come to the house and put an RF adapter on my old t.v. Looks all funky Medusa-like beside the t.v. ith wires coming out of it but sound improves.
So far cable service freezes daily for a couple minutes at a time (guess we're lucky it straightens itself out). Scanning channels to see what is on is tedious and slow. Another wandering sales rep told us there was a library of 12,000 movies to choose from on demand. That was some kind of a sales pitch! You get a few of the movies that are on the pay cable movie channels and not even all of them!
Internet service is slower and more aggravating than dial up. Even tho the computer icon says we have full signal, pages load when they feel like it. The wait is 2-15 minutes to load a page when the "internet gremlin" strikes which today has been all day. It took me hours to get here to write this sad story!
So here I sit broken hearted -- hundreds of dollars going to be charged -- and never started!
P.S. After U-verse Tech Support told me to disable my firewall and my virus program (which of course I didn't do), I accidentally discovered that (a) the wire wasn't plugged securely into the back of the router and (b) after unplugging the router to untangle the 30 different wires
which were pulling the router wire out, the router must have reset itself because the internet is now working perfectly! Heal thyself!
The first install tech wanted to drill holes all over my 10 year old pre-wired for cable home and run wires under carpets and along floorboards and over doors etc. He left his cell phone behind after I told him please cancel order and I waited 3 hours for him to return for it. Then a week later he called to say he had left his drill in my basement!
Oh yeh and he told me he cancelled the order but I had to spend hours on the phone after receiving bills for the service never installed and a promise that I would get a $100 VISA card for my problems. Haven't seen the VISA card yet and will probably have to spend 20-30 minutes on the phone tracking it down.
After that a box arrives telling me to return the equipment that the tech took with him so another hour on the phone.
So anyway another sales rep calls and I tell him my sad story but hubbie wants NFL network which our local cable company doesn't carry so out of love I say let's try again with a good install tech because I stopped some techs in the neighborhood who told me the whole house didn't have to be rewired and existing cable lines could be used. So sales rep arranges to meet me at dinner time but unbeknownst to him another rep in the neighborhood just happens to knock on my door at dinner time and steal the first rep's sale because I thought the wandering sales rep was the one coming at dinner time. So anyway, the first rep calls me to say the second rep stole his sale and I'd have to cancel that order etc. Well his boss I guess says "no" so I get a call to just leave things as they are.
Glutton that I am I still go ahead with an install date for this second attempt but upon calling for something I can't even remember now I am assigned a new account number and a new install date.
The night before old install date computer calls my house and tells me techs are coming on old install date. I ignore computer and go shopping because no one ever showed.
Second install tech comes and tells me the first tech put inside wiring on the outside of my house. Second tech gets things up and running.
Second tech tells me to call the 800 number to get my promised free movies. Three hours later (enough for antenna phone battery to die) and tethered to a wired phone I finally get to a really good tech who calls me over the next 5 hours to update me on progress and starts my movies -- no problemo and I love him. There are horror stories of 2 weeks to get the movies!
Uh oh - sound on t.v. has terrible buzz so get on phone for another marathon and work with remote etc. until we decide another tech will come to the house and put an RF adapter on my old t.v. Looks all funky Medusa-like beside the t.v. ith wires coming out of it but sound improves.
So far cable service freezes daily for a couple minutes at a time (guess we're lucky it straightens itself out). Scanning channels to see what is on is tedious and slow. Another wandering sales rep told us there was a library of 12,000 movies to choose from on demand. That was some kind of a sales pitch! You get a few of the movies that are on the pay cable movie channels and not even all of them!
Internet service is slower and more aggravating than dial up. Even tho the computer icon says we have full signal, pages load when they feel like it. The wait is 2-15 minutes to load a page when the "internet gremlin" strikes which today has been all day. It took me hours to get here to write this sad story!
So here I sit broken hearted -- hundreds of dollars going to be charged -- and never started!
P.S. After U-verse Tech Support told me to disable my firewall and my virus program (which of course I didn't do), I accidentally discovered that (a) the wire wasn't plugged securely into the back of the router and (b) after unplugging the router to untangle the 30 different wires
which were pulling the router wire out, the router must have reset itself because the internet is now working perfectly! Heal thyself!
Comments:
Posted by Lidman on 2007-09-30:
John Hancock, whose signature dominates the Declaration of Independence said...
"I urge you, by all that is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that ye pray but that ye act!"
"But the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action."
Daniel 11:32
"I urge you, by all that is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that ye pray but that ye act!"
"But the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action."
Daniel 11:32
Posted by nstigator39 on 2007-09-30:
I had a similar experience with AT&T u-verse installation in LIvonia. They were the new providers in town after having now choice for twenty years. I jumped on the bandwagon and signed up for the whole shot, the u-verse 400, all those movie ans sports channels.
Well there was one cancellation, when there had to be a cable run to my house. The technichian came on Monday and started tearing our old cables from my current provider and putting in new cables and said he would be using a few of the cable that was already there. I have a finished basement so he was taking out ceiling panels all over the basement. They had not laid the cable yet which caused the first cancellation, so he had to call in and two guys came out and laid the cable while the original tech was still setting things up inside, then they conferred, then he works some more, after about nine hours I see him standing around and ask him, is there a problem, he said no, just waiting for a call from my boss. So as we were sitting down to dinner, he comes in and says, you can't get our service here, now I live about a thousand feet from one of their panels. So I say, ok, then put things back as you found them, he said, I don't know the system of your other provider, you will have to call them. He left, wires dangling down all over the basement, panels out of place and all, so I tried to call someone and talk to them about this, after getting switched to about the fifth person, I got yelled out until I asked the lady to stop yelling and listen to herself and see if she was not ashamed. Anyway all she said was, its up to you to get your old provider out to re-install your service. I said ok and what about all the panels that are out, she said thats not our problem. So I filed a complaint with the public service commission, they contacted AT&T who said they had been trying to contact me, they never once had tried to contact me. I finally got to talk to ther person who was handling my case at AT&T and told her, I want to make this civil and professional, so lets keep it at a civil level, she says, it really doesn't matter to me, I can handle it either way, I am prepared for either event. Needless to say, I got nothing out of the conversation.
I would urge anyone who is thinking of switching to At&T u-verse to think hard and long about it, it can become a nightmare, it did for me.
Well there was one cancellation, when there had to be a cable run to my house. The technichian came on Monday and started tearing our old cables from my current provider and putting in new cables and said he would be using a few of the cable that was already there. I have a finished basement so he was taking out ceiling panels all over the basement. They had not laid the cable yet which caused the first cancellation, so he had to call in and two guys came out and laid the cable while the original tech was still setting things up inside, then they conferred, then he works some more, after about nine hours I see him standing around and ask him, is there a problem, he said no, just waiting for a call from my boss. So as we were sitting down to dinner, he comes in and says, you can't get our service here, now I live about a thousand feet from one of their panels. So I say, ok, then put things back as you found them, he said, I don't know the system of your other provider, you will have to call them. He left, wires dangling down all over the basement, panels out of place and all, so I tried to call someone and talk to them about this, after getting switched to about the fifth person, I got yelled out until I asked the lady to stop yelling and listen to herself and see if she was not ashamed. Anyway all she said was, its up to you to get your old provider out to re-install your service. I said ok and what about all the panels that are out, she said thats not our problem. So I filed a complaint with the public service commission, they contacted AT&T who said they had been trying to contact me, they never once had tried to contact me. I finally got to talk to ther person who was handling my case at AT&T and told her, I want to make this civil and professional, so lets keep it at a civil level, she says, it really doesn't matter to me, I can handle it either way, I am prepared for either event. Needless to say, I got nothing out of the conversation.
I would urge anyone who is thinking of switching to At&T u-verse to think hard and long about it, it can become a nightmare, it did for me.
Posted by Recommendation... on 2012-02-11:
Support Plus is the best way to solve any issues you may be having! Also, if you had requested Connectech (At and t geek squad) to install, you wouldn't have had any of these issues to begin with! It's a one tine $50 at point of sale and you're guaranteed the best Tech to take care of all your high tech installation!!
Note: All comments are reviewed by a moderator before being published. Please be sure to read our guidelines before commenting.
Company Reps: Post your company response!
Recently Discussed:
More Reviews on AT&T Cable Services:
- Customer loyalty? - Internet, Phone
- At&t has no clue - Dsl Internet Service
- Complaint after complaint - AT&T bundled services
- AT&T Uverse...Don't even consider getting this JUNK - TV/internet/Telephone Bundle
- Just trying to move my service. What is the problem? - U-Verse phone, internet and cable bundle