Never again with AT&T

I dropped AT&T and gave up my iphone in December when we encountered a security issue which I felt could've been handled better by AT&T, instead of giving us the run around, wasting time, and not letting us off the hook with the early termination fees. 

Back in November, my husband lost his service for a day.  He didn't realize he didn't have service until mid day when he was trying to reach me and couldn't do anything with his iphone.  He had me call AT&T to see what's going on but didn't get through because I didn't have the last 4 digits of his social security number, even though I was a registered authorized user.  When he got home, he spoke to AT&T and was told that he was given a "faulty sim".  They advised him to go to an AT&T store to pick up a new one. So he did, and they reactivated his new sim.  image from http://gadgetsteria.com/

When we received our bill in December, the normal charges were off by at least $25 so we phoned them and asked about the fees incurred, including an upgrade fee.  The rep told me that the upgrade fee was for the iphone 4 we bought. Neither of us have an iphone 4.  After telling the rep a few times that we didn't buy an iphone 4, a new thought came to mind that maybe Myk was trying to surprise me for Christmas. Maybe I wasn't supposed to know but I stuck my nose too deep and blew the surprise. Unforunately, he didn't buy the phone.  Apparently, some dude who was added as an authorized user, 5 minutes before he bought the phone, under our account did.  This dude has been an authorized user for a month and we had no idea!! 

Anyway, the rep told us that they couldn't disclose where & when this guy bought the phone from without a file report and a case number.  So we went and got one.  After an hour and a half in the precint with a baby in tow, we finally got our claim number.  Called AT&T, spoke to a new rep and was told that I didn't need to get one to get the information I needed.  We basically wasted time for the file report that we didn't need.  According to the AT&T rep, someone pretended to be my husband and added Gerard Smith (whose name was changed because I forgot his real name) to be an authorized user so he can pick up the iphone 4 at the 5th avenue Apple Store.  They didn't use my husband's credit cards to pay for the phone.  They just used our account to buy the iphone 4 at a cheaper price.  AT&T credited the fees charged on our account and offered us a security password that will override the current online password. Supposedly no one else can access the account without this security password.  If they had this kind of added security all along, why wasn't it offered in the first place? Should our privacy needed to be breached before the customers are notified of a more secure passcode protection?  Really, AT&T?

When we opted to cancel the service & asked for early termination fee waiver .. they wouldn't do it... even when the unfortunate circumstance isn't our fault nor was it in our control.  Believe me, i tried fighting it off.   Spoke to different people. None of them would do it. They said that they fixed the problems by crediting the fees incurred, putting our contract back to its regular term, and giving us a more secure security passcode, thus preventing similar incident from happening. But it could've have been prevented if they had offered the security passcode in the first place.  Had I known that my account is more protected with a few clicks, I would be the first to sign up.  Instead, they waited until for an ugly incident to occur to let us know that such added security exists.  Maybe the $170 early termination fee was too much to pay for a billion dollar company.

Anyway, it's in the past. It happened.  I learned from it. I'm just happy to be rid fo AT&T and the ridiculous amount of money we were spending for its services.