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The Confounded Cable Caper's Opening Salvo

In the summer of 2001, I had three telephone lines in my house, plus one fax machine and one computer. The fax machine was a primitive early model without bells or whistles that we'd received as a gift and was almost never used. It usedto be used on occasion when someone wanted to send us a letter in a hurry instead of sending it by snail mail , but that was before we acquired our first computer and e-mail. Still, one of the phone lines was permanently hooked up to the inactive fax machine and another was used for our computer dial up connection to an Internet server. (The third was our home telephone number).

As we began to spend more and more time surfing the Internet, we became more and more aware of how long it took to bring up certain sites or to download any information. But the price was right - we were paying only $9.95 a month for unlimited use, so we really couldn't complain. But then our server announced a price increase - to more than DOUBLE the $9.95. At the same time, AT&T was doing heavy promotion of their cable Internet access service, AT&T Broadband. On all the time. No dial up. Fast downloads. Almost instant access to web sites. And an introductory rate of only $19.95 a month for three months! It would go up to $46 a month after the first three months, but we did some calculating and concluded that if we dropped the phone line that was being used for the dial up service, which of course would no longer be needed with a cable connection, and dropped the phone line that was hooked up to the fax that was almost never used, we could have the cable hook up for about the same price that we'd be paying if we kept the two extra phone lines and stayed with our dial up server at the increased price. So we decided to go for the AT&T offer. What happened next is best described by the following:

July 25, 2001
Daniel E. Somers
President and CEO
AT&T Broadband & Internet Services
32 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY 10013

Dear Mr. Somers:

Can you imagine this scenario?

Tiffany's calls to tell you that the bracelet that you ordered for your wife has arrived on this day as promised. You've arranged time in your schedule for this moment. You stop in to pick it up. There it is, under the glass case. It looks beautiful. But the clerk tells you sorry. I don't have a key handy to open the case. You express amazement. He expresses sorrow. You then talk to another clerk. Then to the assistant manager. Then to the manager. None of them has a key, but they all assure you that if you come back in about five weeks, they will have a key and you can get the bracelet then.

What would you do? Tell them to stuff it? Never deal with Tiffany's again? File a lawsuit? Lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau? All four?

Well that's about the experience I am undergoing at the moment with AT&T Broadband, and if there was some way I could do all of the four things above, I would do them - if you'll pardon the expression - in a New York minute.

I ordered Broadband. It was scheduled for installation July 21. I was told there would be a two hour window for arrival. Since no one called on that day to tell me which two hours, I called one of your many toll free numbers and was told between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. At 4 p.m. your installer called and asked if I wanted to proceed with the installation. I told him of course. Was he kidding?

The installer arrived shortly thereafter but soon informed me that his "hammer drill" was broken and he couldn't drill the necessary hole to bring your cable into my house. He asked ME if I had a hammer drill. I have lots of goodies in my home, but not a single hammer drill among them.

He said I would have to be rescheduled. Not that he would go back to home base and get a working drill. I would have to be rescheduled. I expressed dismay. He said he would have his dispatcher call me. The dispatcher called a few minutes later while I was on a three way emergency call and said that I could be rescheduled for August 28!! I made the mistake of saying that I couldn't talk to him at that moment but that August 28 was totally unacceptable and I would call back to work out another, much earlier date. Like the next day. Or the day after. Like with any normal company that wanted my business and had just let me down badly.

Since in my haste I forgot to ask for his number, I had to use the star 69 service to find it, but the number that that provided connected me to interminable voice mail hell and no sign of anything resembling a dispatcher.

Then began one of the most frustrating experiences to which a consumer could be subjected. I called one toll free number after another, trying to find a number for a local dispatcher. No one knew of such a number. The best that anyone at any of the toll free numbers could offer - I can't recall if it was someone in Ohio, Georgia or Arizona - was that someone, presumably from one of these distant points, would call me back within 72 hours. What that would accomplish wasn't clear. And I am waiting for that call as I type this letter, four days later.

On Monday morning, July 23, I drove to the local AT&T Cable building at 9651 Gross Point Road in Skokie, Illinois, which I believe was once your cable installation headquarters. I was advised that cable installation had moved to a facility in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and the Skokie facility now only houses studios and a bill payment office for cable customers. However, a receptionist at this facility gave me a telephone number - 847-813-5904 which purported to be the Broadband installation office. The number was busy all day - and I do mean ALL day. In frustration, I consulted the telephone book and found a number listed for AT&T Cable in a suburb near my home with an 813-5900 number, which, even though it was not a Mount Prospect address, I assumed to be the main switchboard for Broadband Services. 813-5904 certainly appeared to be an extension of 813-5900 and I figured I could sneak in through the front door.

I called 813-5900 and was put on hold by a voice mail robot which I stuck on a speaker phone while I tried to do some work, and waited something like 45 minutes while an unattractive voice kept informing me that everyone was too busy taking care of other customers to talk to me. At least it didn't try to tell me that my call was important to you, because if I'm important., Lord help customers and potential customers that you don't consider to be important.

When a humanoid finally came on the line, there ensued many minutes of conversation before it dawned on her that I was a Broadband customer and she dealt with something else. Not only that, but she was in Waukegan, Illinois, which is a toll call from my house, despite the fact that the number is listed in the telephone directory at an address in Highland Park, Illinois, a local call. This young lady tried to help by suggesting that I call one of the many 800 or 888 numbers that I was already familiar with. I told her it was a waste of time but she assured me that SHE could reach someone and that SHE would call me back shortly. That's another call I sit waiting for.

You do a hell of a job promoting Broadband, but if everything doesn't go off without a hitch from order placement to successful installation, you expose your potential customers to the epitome of user unfriendliness. I call it telephone hell.

The people at the other end of your toll free numbers seem to be frozen in a sea of helplessness. They all express sorrow. They all express sympathy. But they're all paralyzed. None of them know how to get in touch with anyone locally who I could talk to about the problem. They simply don't have that information. They have monitor screens that tell them my whole woeful story, but they can't tell me what I can do about it other than wait until August 28 and hope that someone with a working drill shows up.

I understand that AT&T Broadband is popular and that many people are signing up for the service and that there is a wait for installation. But I cannot understand or excuse the way I am being treated. You goofed. In a normal business situation, you should be falling all over yourselves to repair this goof. If that means putting one man on overtime for one day so that your installation schedule isn't thrown out of whack, that's what you should do. Instead, because of YOUR goof, I am being told to go to the end of the line and wait my turn. Again!

All I can say is that it's a hell of a way to do business and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Unhappily Yours,

Jeff Smith

There was no immediate response to this letter, but as I later discovered, that was only because I had sent it to the New York address that I had found on the Internet. Mr. Somers and his cohorts were actually in Denver and it was to his Denver post office box address that I sent the next letter, which tells the next chapter in the story...

August 14, 2001

Daniel E Somers
President and CEO
AT&T Broadband and Internet Services
P.O. Box 5630
Denver. CO 80217-5630

Dear Mr. Somers,

I know you haven't been wondering what's been happening since I last wrote but I'm going to tell you anyway, so that when the legend is being told to your grandchildren, you can be the one to do it and give it that old AT&T rah rah spirit - or is that spin? I do get the words mixed up sometimes.

Anyway, when we last left the saga of Jeff and the bad guys of AT&T Broadband, a non working drill had postponed my joining your always on, super fast Internet service until August 28. That was the last thing that one of your henchman told me on our original installation date of July 21 and another of your merry band also told me that I would receive a call within 72 hours to discuss the problem.

Well sir, there was no call of any kind in 72 hours, or 96 hours or 120 hours or.... well I'm sure you get the drift. Maybe it was just a whim. Maybe a premonition. But after a few days of non communication, a little voice told me that maybe I should call one of your 800 numbers to see if there was anyone out there. I sometimes get the impression that AT&T Broadband has 18 humanoid employees and 362,000 pre-recorded 'phone messages.

But I digress. I called one of the numbers and spoke to one of the eighteen and discovered - surprise, surprise, that I wasn't scheduled for installation on August 28 or any other date. Imagine what would have happened if I'd actually waited until the 28th and then waited and waited on that day for someone to show up? No, better not. It's too horrible to contemplate. Anyway, the humanoid told me that there was an opening on August 10 and would I accept that. Was she kidding? Is the pope a catholic?

In the intervening period I received a telephonic acknowledgment of my original communication to you from one "Kate" in my general area, who actually has a telephone number at which SHE, personally, can be reached if she happens to be at her desk. And if not, no phone hell here. Just a polite message from Kate saying she's on the phone or away from her desk. And sometimes, she actually answers. Live from AT&T Broadband!!

Kate apologized for all of the inconvenience - a mild word but I'll go along with it - and offered three months of free service. And when your installer showed up way outside of the "window" on August 10, Kate added a fourth free month. Such overwhelming riches. Would that the story could end here with me finding this pot of gold and everyone living happily ever after. But no. This is the saga of Jeff and the AT&T Broadband Bad Guys, the story you'll be telling your grandchildren.

The scene shifts. It is now August 12. The standard installation was completed on the 10th. It wasn't hooked up to a computer on that date but your installer checked the connection and all was AOK. On the 12th, my guru is in my home completing the set up. A puzzled look crosses his furrowed brow. Something is wrong. He is a guru first class but not infallible. Maybe he made a mistake. He goes through everything again. He tries different things. After 4 hours, we call one of the 800 numbers and get a recorded message that there is trouble in three states, including Illinois. So maybe that's the problem??

Just to be sure, we hang on and finally get to talk to one of your eighteen humanoids. I sure hope you're paying these people a handsome buck for the hours they have to work to support those 362,000 pre-recorded messages. We explain our problem to this humanoid, who tells us that the reason we can't connect is that we aren't in (or is it on) the system. How could this be? But indeed, it do be.

Your system shows a serial number for our modem, that just the other day I discovered, matches the serial number on the box in which our modem came. A shame really, but the serial number on the modem itself just didn't match the one on the box. Totally different. Could have been in a foreign language for all the good it did getting it hooked into your system. And I feel empathy for whoever got the box with OUR modem's serial number and the modem with the serial number on OUR box!!! It's like the O.B. nurse handing a new mother a baby with the right tag but the wrong genealogy. Anyway, we were told it would be fixed. It might take a day or two. Maybe three or four. We wait as I write, still not connected to the always on, faster than a speeding bullet AT&T Broadband Internet connection.

I can't imagine that the story ends here, but I also can't imagine what happens next. Maybe that will be grist for the next chapter in this saga. All I can say for now is that Mack Sennett would have been proud of the men, women and recorded messages of today's AT&T Broadband and Internet Services.

Unhappily Yours,

Jeff Smith

There was a period of calm after this letter was mailed when everything seemed normal, but in truth, this was when it all began to go downhill on a slippery slope that seemed to have no bottom....

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