AT&T Missed Pricing Me

What other company could promise you a price on the medium they control and not deliver? Could Cablevision have a price on a TV screen that they didn't honor? Could NY Magazine have a price on a magazine insert that wasn't true?

Why can an AT&T rep then over the phone, tell me what my price will be and it comes in different?

Attached is my latest AT&T bill (click to enlarge).

For those who guessed that they wouldn't honor the online price of $40, for those who thought Noreen would be wrong, for those who guessed $45... you win. Read the previous posts here and here.

Time to switch to Verizon?

For completely not delivering on a promise to a customer, AT&T remains a Company Acting Badly.

AT&T Lost My Baggage

Today I received the following from AT&T (click images to view).

After my previous trouble with AT&T (click here), and that it summarized my Monthly Rate as $-19.90, I found this letter totally confusing and called AT&T to explain it to me.

According to the first rep at AT&T in NYC, AT&T is going to bill me twice for the same service. They will be charging me $51 for the All Distance plan and the new $25 in my letter. Can your car go through two toll booths at one time? How can AT&T bill me for two plans on the same line? According to AT&T's rep, it's my fault for requesting the same service online. After I explained that I couldn't do anything online and had to do it through the phone center she put me over to a specialist.

Like an airline sending my baggage to another city, AT&T's rep sent me to a hold pattern and after a few minutes to another rep, Noreen in CT, who let me know that she's not a specialist. According to Noreen, specialists aren't available on Saturday afternoons. Noreen let me know that I'm on the All Distance plan, that I will only be charged once, and that my total bill (excluding Canada) will come to $45 per month.

$45 per month? Didn't I start trying to get the $40 per month they advertise on line?

After a few minutes on hold, Noreen returned to confirm that I will get the $40. Anyone want to bet what I will see on my next AT&T bill? $51? $76? $45? 40? or $31.10 ($51-19.90)?

For having letters that make no sense, for having NYC reps that don't know what they are talking about and for not being able to transfer someone to a 'specialist' on a weekend, AT&T remains a Company Acting Badly.

Checkfree - Not For Me

I like to pay bills online. Saves time, money, paper, the environment. I like to do it through either my bank or direct to the service provider (like Cablevision). I only use Checkfree to pay my water bill since Aquarion won't allow you to pay them directly.

Yesterday I received the following email from Checkfree (click image to enlarge):

Now firstly, Checkfree is a Company Acting Badly for putting together such a poor email:

• U.S. zip codes have 5 digits not 4
  
• The return email address "customercenter.net" doesn't look like Checkfree
• It says it was sent by Silverpop - who's Silverpop?
• The 877 phone number doesn't appear on their website
• It says I may be affected - shouldn't they have logs to know who was on their site?
  
• the overall message just feels like spam

Surprisingly, it's real. I logged into Checkfree and got this message (click image to enlarge):

The real problem with Checkfree is what they are not being transparent and specific about what happened. If I understand it, for roughly a 10 hour period, all traffic to Checkfree.com was re-routed to another fake site. If you entered info at this site, then that fake site has a copy of it. Additionally, that fake site may have installed some malicious software on your Windows PC. How did Checkfree let this re-routing happen? What have they done to make sure it doesn't happen again?

You can read more about Checkfree getting hacked at fatwallet, zdnet, and at signs101 where some folks thought it was spam.

This will guarantee they don't get more of my bill pay items, and if Aquarion ever offers a direct debit option from their site directly, I will sign up.

AT&T Learning From Airlines

Ever fly on a plane and realize that the guy sitting next to you paid a lot less for the exact same seat? Ever wonder if your neighbor is getting the exact same service from AT&T and paying a lot less?

In February 2007 I moved onto an AT&T plan that covered my unlimited local, regional and long distance calling, their "All Distance" plan. It costs $51.00 per month.

AT&T has recently been sending me lots of mail encouraging me to bundle my Internet, cell phone, TV service with them. I've got no interest in that at this time but I did want to see how competitive they were with my home phone plan. I was surprised that Verizon's almost equivalent plan (fewer features that I never use) is cheaper. I was shocked that AT&T has the same plan as mine available for $40 online. 20%+ cheaper? Including taxes, that difference will work out to roughly $150/year I'm paying more than the next guy.

That's right, my neighbor could have been getting the same plan as me for less. Did AT&T reduce my rates when their new pricing hit? No. In all this mail they send me, did they let me know I could save just by asking for the same plan and new price? No. Did AT&T try and milk more money out of me. Yes.

On top of that, when I called AT&T, I was told I would have to re-order the exact same service online in order to get the lower price. Well that's a waste of time. And what happened when I tried to order it online? You guessed it. I have to call AT&T again.

For not letting a customer know that they could save money on the exact same services, for not automatically giving their customers the new price points, and for sending a customer from their phone center to their website only to be told to go back to their phone center, AT&T is a Company Acting Badly.