FAIL: Is Dick Cheney running AT&T now?

I try not to use this blog as a means of venting my frustrations, and I’ll apologize in advance because this post is way off topic, but I just need to get this out right now and vent a bit.

This past Friday my contract at Verizon Wireless expired and I was excited because I was all ready to order my iphone at AT&T. Now, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the prospect of dealing with AT&T, but my brother and good friend both have the iphone and they have had no issues with service or reliability. Free from my contract I forged ahead and ordered a refurbished iphone on AT&T’s website on Saturday once I verified on Verizon’s website that my contract had indeed lapsed. Originally I was going to wait until all our contracts at Verizon had expired, however, my new grand plan was to get my iphone now and convert the account into a family share plan and get my wife an iphone in about a month.

So, I placed my order and got a confirmation that my order has been received. Figuring since I ordered on a Saturday I would wait until Tuesday to check the order status online because they surely wouldn’t do any fulfillment on a weekend. Now that Tuesday is here I plugged the order number into their inquiry screen on the website and got the response that they can’t find any information on my order and to call them. The first thought that came to mind was ‘what the hell’.

Reluctantly, I call and the first person I speak with is of no help, but says they will connect me with their online order department. This always amazes me that in 2009 companies with billions of dollars in IT spending can’t figure out a way to streamline their information systems so as to provide information to all of their associates so they can actually service customers. A silly concept I’m sure, consideration for legacy systems aside.

The second person I speak with tells me that my order has been cancelled because either 1.) they were unable to verify some information about my order, or 2.) because I have exceeded the order limit for online purchases. Well, since this is the only order I have placed with AT&T, I could eliminate option number two. Being the inquisitive mind that I am, I proceeded to ask what information could they not verify about my order. The super genius’ response was to recite the script to me again. Obviously critical thinking skills are not a necessary trait to become an employee at AT&T, just the ability to say their sorry, agree with you that it makes no sense and recite a script.

Now this little charade went round and around for a few minutes and I twice asked to speak to a supervisor, or someone with some ability to tell me what information they couldn’t verify that resulted in my order being cancelled. It wasn’t until my third, albeit obscenity laced, request that he finally managed to patch me through to a supervisor. Conveniently, the supervisor proceeded to put me on hold for ten minutes only to come back and read me the same damn script.

Obviously they had an issue with my order, as that is all I have been able to surmise from the mind numbing experience I had with three representatives of AT&T’s customer service and online order department. What is still escaping me is the why and what. When I was in the mortgage business and I could not do something for a potential customer there was always a reason, a reason that I communicated directly to them so they would understand the why and the what. Now this information wasn’t always easy to have to communicate, nor was it generally received well by them (especially when it came to why I had to turn them down for a loan). However, I did my job and told them why so they could take corrective measures or explain the situation in hopes that an underwriter would reconsider their position with new information.

Instead I am left to wonder why AT&T couldn’t or wouldn’t complete my order and why a telephone company didn’t have the wherewithal to pick up a damn phone and call me to clarify any discrepancy. As my grandfather would have said in this situation “it’s the phone age, not the stone age”.

I know there should be no issues with my credit, as I know my credit scores and watch my reports like a hawk. There were only two things that I can think of that could possibly have caused any problems with my order. The first is that our Verizon account is actually in my wife’s name because we get a discount through the hospital she works at on our calling plan. The second is that I put LifeLock on our credit reports since the break-in we had last summer in order to monitor any and all activity with respect to extending credit.

Regardless, in either case a simple call to me to check on the issues that they were having would have been easy to resolve. If it was the fact that our Verizon account is in my wife’s name, then I could have easily just put the AT&T order into her name. If they had a problem accessing my credit report, then I could have informed LifeLock that I made the request. This wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve had to call to answer a few personal questions in order for them to verify that it was indeed me that authorized the credit check. I actually prefer to have this measure of protection, since I don’t apply for credit often and would rather go through this to get a new line established than fight to get a fraudulent one removed.

However, since AT&T has decided to be obtuse about the reasons as to why my order has been cancelled, I have come up with the following four hypotheses as to why this has happened:

1. They are losing their shirt on the iphone: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but AT&T doesn’t heavily advertise the iphone and it isn’t displayed prominently on their website. Maybe Jobs did such a good job protecting Apple’s franchise that AT&T is losing money on the device and isn’t trying its best to capture potential customers.
2. They don’t want to sell me a refurbished iphone: Fine, then don’t flipping offer them for sale on your website. It’s just that simple. If I can save $100 in this economy, then I’m going to do that. Besides, it was an easier sell to my wife in making the switch to say I’m going to get us both refurbished iphones for the price of one new one, which also softened the blow from me walking away from my new every two discount at Verizon.
3. Their internal IT systems suck: How can you not tell a potential customer why they can’t be a customer. Don’t tell me legacy systems, it is reprehensible that you cannot explain to someone that wants to give you a lot of money each month why you won’t be taking it from them. Just because AT&T became Cingular only to become AT&T again that with each acquisition the infrastructure changed so radically that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
4. They don’t want my business: If not wanting nearly $200 per month in service fees for two iphones and the other two phones on our account that I plan to port over when the Verizon contracts expire next month, then they should close up shop and go the way of Chrysler and GM as irrelevant relics of how not to run a business.

Yes, I’m a bit bitter and my only course of action (other than to broadcast my extreme displeasure via my blog and Twitter) is to visit an AT&T store, where I most likely will not be able to purchase a refurbished iphone. Still the kicker in all of this is that about five minutes after hanging up on the purported supervisor I was speaking with, I got an email from AT&T Order Status Update. Here is the email, cut and pasted directly from the super geniuses at AT&T:

Thank you for choosing AT&T.

Unfortunately, either we have not heard from you in several days, or you have chosen to cancel your order. In either case, this e-mail confirms your order cancellation.

If you believe you received this message in error, please resubmit your order on att.com/wireless, or visit a local AT&T retail store. Go to att.com/storelocator to find a store near you.

Thank you.

AT&T

Now, isn’t that grand? They haven’t heard from me in days OR I have chosen to cancel my order. First of all I was the one just on the phone trying to figure out where my damn phone was, so you clearly HAVE heard from me. Second, you were the ones that canceled my order. Revisionist history at it’s finest ladies and gentlemen.

So, what are my options now?

Resubmitting my order online seems like a horrible idea, as I have no faith that the powers that be will be able to tell me why they have yet again cancelled my order. Dick Cheney isn’t running AT&T since he left office by chance is he? I feel as if the information about my order is at an undisclosed location, probably with those torture memos.

I have considered, briefly, visiting an AT&T store, but I can already count on the fact that I mostly likely won’t be able to get a refurbished phone, which would just serve to further infuriate me.

So, right now I’m sitting at the crossroads of anger and desire. I want an iphone bad because I am a gadget freak and, for me, it is the ultimate gadget that has eluded me because I’m cheap and refused to buy out my contract with Verizon. However, with an already horrible experience under the belt just trying to become a customer I have serious reservations about doing anything more to actually become one.

Rant over, thanks for listening.