Playing Monopoly
Remember when you were a kid and playing Monopoly was a fun way to pass the time? I recently had the opportunity to play monopoly and it wasn’t fun at all. That’s because I wasn’t playing the Parker Brothers version. I was playing the AT&T brand of monopoly.
In case you haven’t noticed, Ma Bell has come back to life. Like the creepy creatures from B-grade horror movies, AT&T has risen from the ashes. And just like the reincarnated zombies from those movies, the reanimated AT&T is a little off kilter.
Let me explain. When I was publisher of Quality Digest, I had a business phone line with DSL installed in my home. When I did this, I disconnected my home DSL service because I didn’t need two DSL lines. Now that I have officially left Quality Digest’s employment, it’s time for me to sever the ties (and the free DSL).
About the time I decided to do all of this, SBC, formerly just one of the so-called Baby Bells, which used to be known as Southwestern Bell, acquired the old AT&T and took the AT&T name. It also recently announced its acquisition of Southern Bell, which will make it the largest telecommunications firm in the world. By the way, in addition to owning most of the old AT&T system, the new AT&T will also own all of Cingular when it completes its acquisition of Southern Bell.
When I decided to disconnect my home phone line and reinstall DSL on my home line, I logged on to AT&T’s Web site to sign up for its $12.99 per month DSL special. I began the process by typing in my home phone number. I was surprised by the result: “We’re sorry but AT&T high-speed Internet service is not available in your area.” Now, this was surprising because I was sitting in my home office using my home business DSL line.
This is just some confusion due to the merger of SBC and AT&T, I thought. I’ll just give them a call. When, after navigating through seemingly endless levels of voice mail hell, I actually managed to talk to a woman who thanked me for calling SBC (I guess she hadn’t heard about the merger). I explained my situation to her. She told me that the Web site was correct and that DSL service was not available in my area.
“But I have DSL in my home now on my business line, and I had at home on my regular home line prior to that. I use it every day; how can it not be available?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s not available in your area,” she explained.
“Uh, I just told you that I already have in my home. It has to be available.”
“No, it isn’t available.”
“Can you tell me why?” I asked.
“No. I am just showing no availability in your area. I will transfer you to the DSL department; maybe they can find the cause of the problem.”
Then she cut me off. Argh. Back through the 17 levels of voice mail hell again. And again I get the same answer, “DSL service is not available in your area.”
I whine. I plead. I protest. I am put on hold for five minutes.
“I found out why you can’t have DSL service in your home, sir,” the AT&T representative explains. “We are required to provide DSL lines to our competitors, and we have run out of lines to give out in your area.”
“But, if I am cancelling service on one line, that will free up a line to add to my home line, right?”
“No. If you cancel your DSL service through your business line, we will not able to give you DSL service again.”
“OK. Can you tell who your competitors are so I can contact them?”
“No.”
Argh! I give up.
The AT&T monopoly may be back, but 2006 is a much different world than when Ma Bell was broken up the first time. This is a very different competitive environment with much different customer expectations. There are also a lot more options today. For example, I can find out who those AT&T competitors are with a simple Google search.
I can now get phone service from my cable provider and from Internet service providers, such as EarthLink. I can also get Internet service from a radio signal beamed to my home. I can talk to business associates in places such as Australia and China using voice over Internet technology, such as Skype for free. In other words, AT&T is acting like a monopoly but it really isn’t. Its customers now have the power to pull the plug on this reanimated beast. Sheer size won’t help it maintain customers. It must provide quality products and services. Sure $12.99 a month for DSL is one heck of deal (if you can get it), but acquiring and keeping customers requires excellent customer service, high-quality products and services, and innovative, customer-focused employees. Based on what I’ve seen of the new AT&T, they’ve got a long way to go.
What are your thoughts on monopolies and the new business model of today?
posted by Scott Paton @ 10:05 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I haven't met a single person who's had anything but a terrible experience trying to get set up for a phone line or DSL through SBC in the last three years. And yet they keep growing and making billions. Quality may be free, but it's clearly not necessary when you're the only game in town.
Dear Scott M. Paton,
First of all, I enjoy reading Qualitydigest a lot and your column in particular.
It was fun and recognizable to read your article 'Playing Monopoly'.
I also had my problems with SBC/AT&T and based on these problems I sent them a mail on March 23rd this mail I copied below.
After this mail I was contacted and told that I would be compensated in the next billing period. The lady was very kind, and took her time to apologise, I got the feeling I was dealing with an other organisation that is probably hired by AT&T to call all pissed off customers. If this is the case, I think it is a typical example of an organization that thinks that you can offer quality by patching errors, not by changing the organization based on the information that these kind of errors give you.
I received the second bill and found out that the rates were compensated. But that they did not compensate me for all the down time of the service (or they tried to do so, but that it did not carry over in the total amount, which could be a much bigger problem).
I sent them a second mail today, which I copied below the first mail.
The frustrating thing in all this, is that you feel so powerless. They are big, and they just don't care. I hope you take the time to read this all, and that it would give you a bit more fire power to kill this creepy creature.
Keep writing these funny articles!
Thanks,
Marcel van der Vliet
23 March 2006
Dear SBC,
First off all my wife signed up for a new deal for the Internet and the phone service. It was told to us the DSL service would come at around 17$. You billed us for around 49$. And that is not taking into account that the line did not function properly for a long time, and according to us still does not function properly. We would have expected a discount for the time the line was disconnected.
But let me tell you what happened to us (and what will be ignored by SBC anyway). We called 1 week before we moved to a new address to notify you of our new address.
We were told that we paid too much (we've been paying 75 dollars for a local land line and DSL for a long time now, I agree that that is a bit steep). So my wife spend a whole hour talking to one of your representatives to sign up for new promotions. By the way the line (your line) was very bad and the representative was hard to communicate with, but after going through the 'sorry, what did you say' for some time, we were happy to get a better deal.
We moved and after 2 days the line was still dead. We called SBC and we were told that it was our problem. That they could see that the line going up to our house was Ok, so that the problem should be inside our house. The first possible time that a repair person could come by would be 10 days out, and would cost us probably 120$.
So we let a technician check our house lines the next day, and the lines were ok. We connected a phone to the box outside the house and the line was dead. So by lying to us that you could see that the line was fine, we already wasted time and money.
We called again (By the way, these automated phone menu's are pretty horrible). We immediately told that it was not our problem, and now we were told that a repair person would come by the next day between the convenient (NOT) time interval of 8AM and 8PM. But we were happy that we would not be out of service for the next 10 days.
Next day the repair person comes by and told us that the line was not connected at the beginning of the street, confirming that SBC can not see if a line is ok going to a house. He fixed the problem and we had a dial tone. I asked him about our DSL service, and he said if we had a dial tone he would not expect any problems...
Connecting our computers we discovered that the DSL connection was intermittent and was, if it could connect, very slow, ranging from about 20Kb to 80Kb per second. Furthermore as soon as we picked up the phone our Internet connection was gone.
Called again, going through the horrible menu (If you are transferred to the DSL product menu you have to give your number again after already giving it in the first menu. Can't you make these systems a bit smarter, if you say 'O' instead of zero, it won't recognize it). Got a friendly knowledgeable girl on the line who confirmed (after disconnecting everything and connecting it again) that our line was bad.
They would work on it the following days.
I guess 2 days later someone called to make an appointment for a repair, and again between the convenient time of 8AM and 8PM tomorrow. Stayed home the whole next day and no one showed up. We weren't notified of any delay (most decent companies call when they will not show up on an appointment).
Next day he came by when I was not home, and I received a message that it was ok. But after testing the speed, we saw that it improved, to about 300Kb per second which is 3 to 4 times slower than on our previous address. So we called again going through your horrible menu again.
We were told that it was not a problem of SBC and that it was our problem (When did we hear that before?). The line checked out fine on your side. If we wanted someone to check if the line was fine it would cost us money in the case they would find out that the problem was at our side (After overpaying you guys for more than 2 years, you still think the best way to deliver service is to let the customer pay even more). So we looked into the contract for the DSL line, and found that the minimum speed you quarentee is 340Kb, so probably if you would measure it at our home it would be at that speed and we had to pay the bill.
So we cancelled the appointment.
We called the cable company, they were fast and professional. Connected the cable told us that the speed would be around 3Mb per second, and that's what we got. 10 times faster than the SBC DSL connection for half the price. Cool!
A couple of days later we got an interview about the SBC service, so I told them I was not happy. Someone from SBC called to follow up, but I was not home. He would call again next day. And to our surprise (Not really after all our experience with SBC, we now know that an SBC promise is not worth much) we never heard from him again.
So I wasn't surprised that when I received your bill that the bill was wrong, and that you didn't listen that whole hour on the phone with my wife.
So now I am really getting tired of all the bad service of SBC. With the actions of AT&T turning it back to a big old monopoly it will only get worse. So we will fade out your land line number on our business material and will cancel the whole SBC service pretty soon.
So why did I take the time to write this? Knowing that you won't listen anyway? It gives me something to talk about with my friends and business contacts, and if they want to see details, I'll send them this story.
So please reconsider the last bill because it is wrong.
Thanks
Marcel van der Vliet
Content of mail sent 21 April 2006
Dear Judy Sue,
I just received the second bill, it took me some time to understand it (normally I would not take the time to do this, but after all the bad experience I have with SBC/AT&T, I was curious to see if you would give me any discount for all the downtime)
I have the following points that I would like to share with you:
1) At first sight it seems that I got correctly compensated compared with the high rates in the previous bill.
2) I did not get an discount for the time that my telephone line was simply not connected, because you failed to do so. I've been charged the full rate for the full period.
3) That it seems that you wanted to give me discount for the time that my DSL line was not connected. For a period of 8 days (03/20/06 - 03/27/06). This is done by putting the quantity for this period to 0. I would expect that the total amount would reflect that the quantity was 0, but to my surprise it didn't. So I have to conclude that you did not give me any discount for the time that the DSL was not connected.
In case that the quantity should have been 0 and that it was it an attempt to give me discount, then there is a much bigger problem. In my case it only accounts for 'overcharging' due to an 'error' in a computer program of $5.23.
As someone with programming experience, I think it is a bug (error) in your billing program, and that you are probably overcharging millions of customers with these kind of amounts. As you probably realize this can account for millions that you 'accidental' over bill to customers.
Please tell me what is going on, and I would ask you again to consider a discount considering the fact that you simply did not provide the services that you charge for, for a period of time.
Furthermore, I am not using the DSL line because I have a cable line with 10x the speed, and I checked with people living in close to us, and they have the same low speed as we have, so I doubt it is my modem as you suggested. So I would like to know how to cancel all SBC/AT&T services. When is the first date that we can break the contract, and how should we do it?
Thank you,
Marcel van der Vliet
I wish I could say I can relate, but I must belong to another SBC (I haven't needed to contact the new AT&T for any reason - yet). To be honest, I never expected much in the way of quality because I had such terrible experience with SBC when I lived in Texas. I was dismayed when they bought out Pacific Bell, but they seemed to keep the level of customer service that I had come to expect from PacBel.
When I finally decided to get DSL, I couldn't have had a more friendly experience. Every rep/technical support person I had to talk with while installing my own equipment was friendly and helpful. Problems were fixed immediately. When my 1-year special rate contract was about to expire, the SBC rep I contacted readily agreed to extend my contract with the new lower promotional rate. I've never had more than 1-2 minutes of down time at any given time.
I do worry that the new AT&T will have many of the old AT&T service related problems. I left their cellular plan years ago because of the horrible service experiences I had. I also wonder why the government has allowed this rejoining of all the Baby Bells when it worked so hard to break up the original AT&T in the first place. I think most of us would agree that bigger, more often than not, does not mean better, especially when it comes to the quality of customer service.
Scott,
I read your column about your experience with ATT and felt like I was reading about my experience with ATT. A year and a half ago I called ATT about a billing error. The representative said it would be taken care of. Well the error kept showing up. Over the next several months I tried unsuccessfully to get ahold of anyone at ATT that could tell me why the bill was screwed up. Numerous requests to speak with a supervisor were denied and when they agreed to let me speak to a supervisor, nobody would call me back. I therefore switched my phone service over to SBC.
Well, now I started receiving two bills each month. The new one from SBC and the old uncorrected bill complete with late fees and a collections notice from ATT. Mind you this had been going on for almost 8 months. We couldn't get rid of ATT for anything. It was like an agressive tumor that keeps coming back!
Finally a representative from SBC recommended we file a complaint with the FCC and eventually things were resolved. The next month my wife and I read that SBC and ATT had merged - Oh the horror!!!!!
May 2006: I called AT&T to install a landline in my new apartment so that I could access the internet. I didn't really need a landline for anything besides the internet because I almost exclusively use my cellphone to make calls. While the Tech had me on the phone he brought up the possiblity of switcing my internet server from AOL to SBC/DSL. I told him that I wasn't really having any problems with my AOL; but when he suggested that I could save $10.00/month, and have faster service, I thought it sounded pretty good. . . I asked him if I really needed the landline if I was going to have the DSL, and he said that there was no way to seperate the two (I honestly don't believe that). If I wanted the DSL, I'd also have to have the landline; and to get the cheaper price ($15.00/month) I'd have to agree to a one (1) year contract. To sweeten the deal the Tech told me that the equipement I'd need to hook up to the DSL would be "free" after rebate, and an agreement to a one year contract.
Everything sounded O.K. If I kept my dial-up, I'd need the landline, anyway. I'd be saving $10.00/month; and the equipment was free.
Well, it wasn't great. They charged me $30.00 more for the equipment than the rebate covered; and the rebate, wasn't really a rebate, it was a gift card. Further, they overcharged me for the DSL which made it more than what I had been paying AOL. The only true thing was the DSL was slightly faster than dial-up.
When I called AT&T to complain that I was mislead by the Tech, I was given the run around. I was told that the Tech couldn't have offered me the deal I was discribing because that deal wasn't being offered by AT&T.
I called the Better Business Bureau, and asked them to assist me with the problem. When the BBB contacted AT&T/SBC, they were able to get them to honor the original agreement. I was told that I would not be required to pay the additional $50.00 on my bill; and I thought the problem was solved.
Then they turned my phone and DSL off for failure to pay the $50.00. I absolutely needed my internet connection to conduct business so I paid the $50.00 to get my phone turned back on; fully expecting to see that amount removed from a future bill. It never was. But my monthly DSL charge was reduced to reflect the original offer of $15/month.
When life got in the way, and I never pursued the $50.00 I was overcharged.
Five (5) months later, a job change caused a drop in pay, and a need to move to a more modest apartment. Not only did AT&T charged me another new hook up fee (for the same telephone number), but they jacked up the price of my DSL to $35.00/month! Needless to say, I was not pleased. I was told that my DSL would be $15.00/month for a year. I've contacted the BBB, again, and await their reply.
The gist of my story is this: I think that AT&T/SBC is finding all kinds of ways to rip us off.
(1) I don't think we need to pay for landlines to hook up to DSL-- the line is the line, whether you're plugging in a phone or a computer-- the line will know and accept the input it's receiving.
(2) No tech makes a special trip out to our homes to installation of a new line. Someone simply assigns you an account number, flips a switch or clicks a computer input tab and you're in business. What's with the HUGE installation fees? And what's with the double installation fees for transfered accounts number made in less than a year?
(3) What's with the varible internet rates? The service and the energy it takes to deliver it costs the same at $15.00, $29.99, or $35.00; and it sounds like some of you are paying even more than that. What should it really cost?
(4) What's the mark up on those cheap modems they insist we need to receive their DSL? Mine was $120.00(with postage/handling). Remember when cable T.V. first arrived on the scene? We were told that we couldn't receive cable without out a "box," but not long after that we were getting our cable without one. I bet we don't really need the DSL "box," either.
I'm sick of the big business rip offs.
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