U-Verse: crappy products, even worse customer service

[Spurfect]

So about three weeks or so ago, some U-Verse salespeople came to our house pitching a really good deal to us. We told them that we had had U-Verse before (when it first came out) and the service was so bad we canceled it. Well apparently they had worked the kinks out and everything was better now.

so we go ahead and order it. we cancel our Dish Network because they were to come the next day (Thursday). Next day rolls around, and they don't show up. We call and they tell us that someone had called in and canceled it. What??? No, none of us did that. So they say, we will go on Tuesday. It sucks because we have no cable now and have to wait a few days for them to come back.

Tuesday rolls around, they don't come. My brother called in and once again they said the order had been canceled. We were kind of pissed by then and the lady reassured us that they WOULD come on Friday. she gave my brother all kinds of confirmations, etc. Later my sister (Luvbones) calls to find out what the is going on. They tell her that somehow, our very first account with them was still in their system, so whenever someone would try to come out here, they would see the account status as "Canceled" because they were looking at our account from when we first had it years ago. She tells my sister she is going to create a whole new account for us to prevent something else going on. ok

Friday comes around, they do not come. Luvbones calls again, and at the time I am home on my lunch hour so I hear the conversation as well. My sister was so mad she was pretty much going off on them and how ridiculous this has all been. The lady is apologetic as usual, and they offer us all kinds of specials and discounts. She tells her the reason they did not come out again is because, AGAIN, our old account interfered with it, and once again she says they will create a whole new account for us. WE HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE! My sister ends up calling later and talking to someone higher on the food chain. This "manager" tells my sister what a disgrace the services has been and assures her that they WILL go Saturday morning, between 8-10 a.m. and that she had put us at top priority, and had talked to the dispatch people herself. by then my sister was like "ok I don't even believe you anymore but we'll see."

Saturday (this morning) is here, and guess what? THEY DIDN'T COME. They called to say there was a problem in the date in the system on when we are suppose to have it. I have words with them this time and tell them to just cancel the entire thing because they were obviously incompetent.

LuvBones calls them back and talks to someone even higher and now they told her they will DEFINITELY come tomorrow morning. What is the point?

Meanwhile, my sister who lives next door and who had ordered U-Verse at the same time that we did, and who has had the service this whole time.. just canceled hers today because it sucked so bad. That being, the cable and internet going out ALL THE TIME. I think I have seen the AT&T vans outside of her house more than her own car they are there so much.


IS AT&T REALLY THIS HORRIBLE OR ARE WE THE ONLY ONES HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THEM?????????????

[ashbeeigh]

IS AT&T REALLY THIS HORRIBLE OR ARE WE THE ONLY ONES HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THEM?????????????

Make sure they note the mess in Boss when they get this whole thing taken care of. Just ask them to make a note in it (It's the God of all AT&T programs). It has everything AT&T bill related on it, from wireless to dsl to cable and of course your home phone. Perhaps things weren't noted right in there when y'all canceled the account the first time. I'd even call customer service (whatever number they give you) and ask them to make a note of it, names, times, and the specific incident. I'm not sure what other programs the U-Verse teams use, but someone should be able to add it on to that account.

[Spurfect]

Make sure they note the mess in Boss when they get this whole thing taken care of. Just ask them to make a note in it (It's the God of all AT&T programs). It has everything AT&T bill related on it, from wireless to dsl to cable and of course your home phone. Perhaps things weren't noted right in there when y'all canceled the account the first time. I'd even call customer service (whatever number they give you) and ask them to make a note of it, names, times, and the specific incident. I'm not sure what other programs the U-Verse teams use, but someone should be able to add it on to that account.

oh trust me we made sure everything was noted and they told us as well they would do ent all the info on our account because we were so mad. I guess they either can't type things in, or other CSR's can't read... they are just plain stupid.

[exstatic]

I don't use AT&T products or services, but if I had ordered U-Verse, I would have cancelled when it went out locally for an entire Sunday recently, canceling football watching for all of their customers.

People bag on TWC, but I've had them in my house for almost 8 years, and I've had one outage, and 2 service calls, one of which was my fault for using quick on/off coax cable connectors (they degrade the signal).

[Spurfect]

I don't use AT&T products or services, but if I had ordered U-Verse, I would have cancelled when it went out locally for an entire Sunday recently, canceling football watching for all of their customers.

People bag on TWC, but I've had them in my house for almost 8 years, and I've had one outage, and 2 service calls, one of which was my fault for using quick on/off coax cable connectors (they degrade the signal).

holy I didn't even know about that happening. that is crazy!

Yeah they just suck all around. we don't even have it yet and they are messing up big time. My sister is just going to tell them tomorrow morning - IF THEY SHOW UP - that we changed our minds and don't want it anymore.

I am looking into TWC and I agree with you about them. I had them for years when I lived in Houston and never had a problem with them. do you have DVR? that's the one thing I didn't have back then and that we had with Dish. do you know if we could get more than one DVR box?

[ashbeeigh]

oh trust me we made sure everything was noted and they told us as well they would do ent all the info on our account because we were so mad. I guess they either can't type things in, or other CSR's can't read... they are just plain stupid.

Name drop the Boss if they show up and they'll know you mean business. I hope things work out.

[exstatic]

holy I didn't even know about that happening. that is crazy!

Yeah they just suck all around. we don't even have it yet and they are messing up big time. My sister is just going to tell them tomorrow morning - IF THEY SHOW UP - that we changed our minds and don't want it anymore.

I am looking into TWC and I agree with you about them. I had them for years when I lived in Houston and never had a problem with them. do you have DVR? that's the one thing I didn't have back then and that we had with Dish. do you know if we could get more than one DVR box?

I've had their DVRs before and they work fine, but I have a TiVO now, because I can connect to my home network and "throw" my recorded shows to one of my PCs. You can get more than one DVR, but you will have to pay monthly rent on each box. Some friends of mine have three DVRs. I tell them that they have too many shows to follow if they need that many boxes.

[Spurfect]

I've had their DVRs before and they work fine, but I have a TiVO now, because I can connect to my home network and "throw" my recorded shows to one of my PCs. You can get more than one DVR, but you will have to pay monthly rent on each box. Some friends of mine have three DVRs. I tell them that they have too many shows to follow if they need that many boxes.

thanks, that's the only thing I was worried about. We've had two DVR's here for years so we'll still be OK with two of them. Other than that I'm pretty much sold on TWC, because I know they are reliable

(I wouldn't mind three DVR's )

[tlongII]

I've never heard of UVerse. Are they a dish company?

[Spurfect]

I've never heard of UVerse. Are they a dish company?

AT&T, they have the U-Verse service now that is cable and internet. It's not dish.. when they were giving their big sales pitch to us they said they had installed fiber optics all around the area and stuff. not sure how it works exactly... but it sounded good at the time.

[tlongII]

AT&T, they have the U-Verse service now that is cable and internet. It's not dish.. when they were giving their big sales pitch to us they said they had installed fiber optics all around the area and stuff. not sure how it works exactly... but it sounded good at the time.

Oh. The only cable service here is Comcast.

[exstatic]

Yeah, AT&T is behind the curve on bundling services for the Big3: TV/phone/internet. They've tried piggy-backing on Satellite for their TV, but I guess that didn't do it for them. U-Verse is their entry into the TV market as a direct provider. It's not really cable in the traditional sense, but it is TV that comes in via wire. It's also extremely new and green. I don't think they left it in test market phase long enough.

[angel_luv]

My landlady just signed up for cable and internet with them last month.

So far everything is working out well.

We had two separate installations because my land lady decided to add cable to some additional rooms.

Both times the service people both in the office and who did the installation work were punctual, pleasant and helpful/

Here is hoping that trend continues.

Sorry for your bad experience Spurfect. No wonder you are frustrated!

[LuvBones]

Screw at&t u-verse! They are a bunch of incompetent pieces of crap! I must have talked to at least 10 different people and everytime I tried to get a hold of the previous "manager" they'd tell me "uhh we don't know anyone by that name" I must have given them 5 different names and suddenly those people didn't exist. their service. I was on the phone for hours (mostly waiting) only to be ignored. No one gives a crap if we get service or not so IF they actually do come and wake me up tomorrow at 8 am I'm going to tell them to get the off our property. I can't even believe we gave them FIVE freakin chances to come install our cable and they came up with every excuse not to come. They're completely UNproffessional, and their whole workforce at the at&t u-verse hotline are complete idiots. I don't know how many times I was transferred to the wrong places. Then they kept bringing up our old account. Freakin erase it already!!! !!! You suck balls AT&T!

[LuvBones]

That's a freakin' summary of what I went through with them on the phone.. It was A LOT more frustrating and a much longer story. so screw you guys again at at&t u-verse! If anyone wants to call their "tech support" line, good freakin' luck! They are ALL a bunch of boneheads!!!! /endrant

[tlongII]

So did they come at 8am this morning?

[leemajors]

i'm surprised tlong didn't offer to come out and lay cable.

[PM5K]

i'm surprised tlong didn't offer to come out and lay cable.

I already did...

[Spurfect]

So did they come at 8am this morning?

they called and said they were on their way, then called again and said the order had been canceled. WHAT A SHOCK!!! Then called back later asking if we still wanted them to come. Wtf?? my sister was going to say NO but we thought we'd just let them do it and it the service sucks we will have them come take it off. well finally the guy came like at 11 a.m., and he barely just left (3:30 pm), and we still don't have cable. He told me that they're still trying to push the order through because "somehow it got canceled". gaahhhh!!!!!!!!! He just went to get something to eat and is going to wait on their call for when they finally push our order through and we can get cable activated.

[johnpaulwall21]

they called and said they were on their way, then called again and said the order had been canceled. WHAT A SHOCK!!! Then called back later asking if we still wanted them to come. Wtf?? my sister was going to say NO but we thought we'd just let them do it and it the service sucks we will have them come take it off. well finally the guy came like at 11 a.m., and he barely just left (3:30 pm), and we still don't have cable. He told me that they're still trying to push the order through because "somehow it got canceled". gaahhhh!!!!!!!!! He just went to get something to eat and is going to wait on their call for when they finally push our order through and we can get cable activated.

wow..... i dont think its worth it.

[Evan]

I like it a lot so far except they don't have UFC PPV.

[tlongII]

i'm surprised tlong didn't offer to come out and lay cable.

That offer is always good.

[S_A_Longhorn]

So, as long as we don't have a previous account, we should be OK, huh?

I cant wait to switch from TWC to U-Verse. TWC may be reliable, but be prepared to pay twice as much and have price increases 2-3 times per year.

Oh, and don't forget that crap about the NFL Network. Nevermind that ESPN Classic and GTV were taken off the Standard package a couple of months ago, yet nothing else was added. Those two channels are still dark today. And still TWC refuses to add the NFL Netowrk to Standard Cable.

At least I have the in' Golf Channel! God knows no one will watch the NFL Network, but EVERYONE and THEIR MOM watch the Golf Channel.

[PakiDan]

I Have U-verse... I Don't Have Any Problems With Them...

[johnsmith]

We told them that we had had U-Verse before (when it first came out) and the service was so bad we canceled it. Well apparently they had worked the kinks out and everything was better now.

Man, sounds like it was a tough sale for that guy.


Spurfect: No thanks, we had U-verse and it the service was terrible so we cancelled it.

Salesman: Oh, well, we fixed those problems.

Spurfect: I'll take two then.