Musk's Starlink Continues To Struggle With Very Basic Customer Service

from the this-is-not-what-innovation-looks-like dept

We've noted a few times that Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband service is going to have a hard time meeting expectations. One, while the service is often sold as a near-magical cure for the estimated 20-42 million Americans without broadband access, it only has the capacity to serve somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 users. Due to additional supply chain issues, only about 150,000 users have received access so far. And those who've paid the company $100 to wait in line say the company is incapable of giving them any kind of timeline of when they can expect service.

Last fall, reports emerged showing how many of these users had been waiting months for any update whatsoever on the progress of their orders, and that Starlink customer service was utterly nonexistent. Nearly four months later and another report indicates that things haven't seemingly improved much. Customers who've been waiting a year for service say they've seen complete and total radio silence from the company:

"Insider spoke to more than ten people who have waited nearly 12 months for Starlink's internet service. However, they have received no updates from Elon Musk's company on when Starlink will be available in their area and if the kit is on its way."

Much like Musk's Tesla solar division, and Tesla itself on occasion, installations, repairs, and fundamental customer service are often no shows. You're apparently supposed to pretend this isn't happening for innovation's sake, but there's little use for innovation for products that don't work, or simply never arrive. In Starlink's case, users who've ordered see absolutely no contact for Starlink for a year, then when they ask for refunds that doesn't go much better:

"Jason Kirkpatrick, who is based in Michigan, told Insider that he paid $100 to secure Starlink in March but decided to request a refund in December because of the lack of contact from SpaceX. Kirkpatrick said that when he logs onto his Starlink account, it says his deposit was refunded. However, he said he never got the money back, adding that he can't get through to SpaceX to alert them of the issue."

As with many issues at Musk's companies, these problems could be mitigated if it had an actual PR department willing to discuss what's going on with the press and public. But motivated by Musk's animosity to the press, the general response to inquiries is usually snark by Musk or dead silence by the company, which doesn't add much to the overall ambiance of dysfunction. Again, you'll notice a bit of a pattern if you've read about the experiences of Tesla solar customers, where the company's response has generally been either apathy or silence.

As for Starlink, I imagine more disappointment lays over the horizon. Starlink's inability to offer service to more than 500-800k subscribers depends greatly on the success of the Space X's Raptor engine, a development process that's not going well. If Starlink can't boost its capacity dramatically it can't gain the kind of critical mass necessary to make a profit, something that even the reality-challenged Musk has been forced to acknowledge. This is before you even get to the whole light pollution scientists say is being caused by Starlink deployments.

The problems are one of several reasons why folks complained when the Trump FCC threw nearly one billion in subsidies at Starlink, despite both Musk's professed disdain for subsidization, and the fact the service -- even if everything goes perfectly well, will barely put a dent in the U.S. broadband problem. Again, 20-42 million Americans lack access to broadband, and another 83 million live under a monopoly (usually Comcast). Fixing that problem is going to take a lot more than just a capacity-constrained, delay-plagued solution from a company that's heralded for innovation but seemingly can't answer the phone.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, customer support, elon musk, expectations, satellite broadband, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

Rockstar's GTA Retro Games Was Completely Broken And Support Was Ghosting Everyone

from the more-like-grand-theft-notto-amirite? dept

You may recall that a couple of months ago we discussed Rockstar and Take2, the game studio and publisher behind the Grand Theft Auto series, taking down a fan-made GTA4 mod that aimed to put all of the cities from previous games in one massive map. While this was a labor of love by dedicated fans of the GTA series, it escaped nobody's attention that this action was taken on a mod started in 2014 just as Rockstar was about to release GTA Trilogy, consisting of remastered versions of GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas. The very cities the mod looked to input into GTA4. In other words, the fan project was only shut down when the game companies decided to try to make money off this retro love themselves.

So how's it going? Well, not too fucking great on the PC side considering that the PC version was pulled down basically everywhere.

Something has gone very, very wrong since yesterday’s launch of GTA Trilogy on PC. As of last night, all mention of a PC version has been removed from Rockstar’s own site, and the Rockstar Games Launcher app has gone completely offline. Anyone who bought the remastered collection before it vanished is currently unable to play.

It has been at least 18 hours since the sudden disappearance of the PC’s GTA Trilogy, and Kotaku can confirm that the Launcher is not working. Which means all Rockstar PC games, including Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA Online, are currently impossible to play.

You read that right. The PC Rockstar Launcher, responsible for letting gamers play the games they bought, was borked. On Twitter, Rockstar's support had only been so transparent as to say that the launcher is down due to "maintenance". Unscheduled or unannounced maintenance, as it turns out. And maintenance that lasted several days. Now, you could get the launcher to work in offline mode... for those who know how to do that. But paying customers were left to figure it out for themselves because Rockstar's support only sent two tweets out during that downtime with barely any details.

As of Monday, Rockstar finally got its launcher working again and the GTA Trilogy back to being available for purchase and play. But as to what caused all of this, Rockstar is as opaque as ever. Whether something related to the GTA Trilogy title is somehow related to all of this isn't entirely known...

...but it is the case that people recently bought those titles and couldn't play them. Bad communication from the company to the public is compounding, at least in this writer's head, with the effort it put into shutting down a fan-made work and labor of love that would have given GTA fans some retro thrills.

And to make matters a bit stranger, Rockstar had previously delisted its PC version from all 3rd party marketplaces.

For whatever reasons, Rockstar chose to remove all versions of GTAs III, Vice City, and San Andreas from alternative PC stores—including Steam—ahead of this launch, meaning its bespoke software is now the only way to buy and play the games. Or indeed, the only way to not play it.

And so Rockstar customers were left to the tender mercies of a company that doesn't seem to feel like telling them what's going on. All while trying to prevent fan-made game mods from being a thing. Not a great look.

Filed Under: availability, broken, customer support, gta, gta trilogy, video games
Companies: rockstar games

Hacker Tricked Robinhood Support Into Revealing Data Of 5 Million Users

from the whoops-a-daisy dept

When it comes to privacy and security, the weakest link continues to be of the human variety.

Trading app Robinhood last week announced in a blog post that somebody used social engineering to trick company support into handing over user login data. On November 3, said "hacker" convinced company support they were cleared to access “certain customer support systems.” From there they nabbed the email addresses of five million users, and the full names of a different group of two million users:

"At this time, we understand that the unauthorized party obtained a list of email addresses for approximately five million people, and full names for a different group of approximately two million people. We also believe that for a more limited number of people—approximately 310 in total—additional personal information, including name, date of birth, and zip code, was exposed, with a subset of approximately 10 customers having more extensive account details revealed. We are in the process of making appropriate disclosures to affected people."

Another subset of users had far more sensitive data exposed to the intruder. 310 users had their full names, dates of birth and ZIP codes exposed to the intruder, and 10 customers had "more extensive account details revealed" -- though the company doesn't specify which details they were. The company insists that no social security numbers were revealed and that nobody suffered any financial losses related to the attack:

"Based on our investigation, the attack has been contained and we believe that no Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, or debit card numbers were exposed and that there has been no financial loss to any customers as a result of the incident."

By "no financial loss" Robinhood means none of their users had money stolen directly via Robinhood. That doesn't mean those users won't suffer financial losses elsewhere, after being bombarded with phishing emails over the next few months using the email addresses, or compromised via the release of other personal data used elsewhere.

As with most revelations of this type, the scope of the breach is probably significantly bigger than what's currently understood. Also like most such breaches, nobody will remember it happened three months from now, and Robinhood won't be held meaningfully accountable for its exploitable customer service. In a country where most companies have lax security and privacy standards, there's no meaningful privacy law for the internet era, and FTC privacy enforcers that are routinely understaffed, under-funded, and simply outgunned, there's simply not very much incentive to make security and privacy a real priority.

Filed Under: breach, customer support, emails, hacker
Companies: robinhood

Arlo Makes Live Customer Service A Luxury Option

from the basic-competency-is-extra dept

The never-ending quest for improved quarterly returns means that things that technically shouldn't be luxury options, inevitably wind up being precisely that. We've shown how a baseline expectation of privacy is increasingly treated as a luxury option by hardware makers and telecoms alike. The same thing also sometimes happens to customer service; at least when companies think they can get away with it.

"Smart home" and home security hardware vendor Arlo, for example, has announced a number of new, not particularly impressive subscription tiers for its internet-connected video cameras. The changes effectively involve forcing users to pay more money every month if they ever want to talk to a live customer service representative. From Stacey Higginbotham:

"This week, Arlo launched what I generously think of as its pay-for-customer-service enticement for its smart home camera products. As of Oct. 4, customers without a subscription who’ve had their devices for more than 90 days no longer get phone support. And after one year, they lose access to live chat support."

If you don't pay Arlo more money for actual customer service, you're relegated to cobbling together support solutions from the company's forums, an automated website chat bot, or elsewhere. Given the cost of Arlo products, the decision to make speaking to an actual human being a $3 to $15 monthly add on is fairly ludicrous:

"Arlo’s customer support framework now requires a $2.99 to $14.99 per month Arlo subscription, a free trial plan, or the device to be within 90 days of purchase for phone support. Then you’re downgraded to chat support for the remainder of the year.

After that, absent a plan, Arlo customers with problems will only have access to a virtual assistant or the public forums. That means no phone support and no chat. This feels pretty punitive for a product that can cost between $130 and $300 depending on the device."

Even U.S. telecom giants, the poster children for atrocious U.S. customer service, haven't meaningfully pursued making live customer support a premium option (though they have tinkered with innately providing worse support to folks with low credit scores). Arlo's choice comes amidst higher shipping costs and supply chain issues during COVID, but the decision to try and recover those higher costs by making basic competency a luxury tier will likely come back to bite it in an IOT space that's only getting more competitive.

Filed Under: customer support, home security, iot, subscription fees
Companies: arlo

ISP Can't Figure Out How To Automate A Password Reset, But Is Happy To E-mail Your Password In Plain Text

from the cryptography-schmiptography dept

As we've noted, AT&T and Verizon are working hard to dump all of the DSL customers they're too cheap to upgrade to fiber, so they can focus on much more profitable (read: capped) wireless broadband service. A company by the name of Frontier Communications is doing the lion's share of the acquisitions, recently acquiring all of AT&T's customers in Connecticut, as well as all of Verizon's fixed-line broadband customers in California, Texas, and Florida. Unfortunately for these acquired users, Frontier is exhibiting the kind of steep, sustained incompetence that should probably be making these customers very nervous.

As we noted back in May, Frontier recently had to stop selling broadband service via the company's website -- because it apparently couldn't figure out how to get the technology to work. If that didn't make new Frontier customers nervous, last week the company made headlines again after it was discovered the company apparently has no idea how to automatically reset user e-mail passwords or what cryptography is. Apparently, the only way for Frontier users to have their e-mail passwords reset is to e-chat with a support rep named Shawn, who is happy to share your password with you in plain text:

"Silverman had forgotten the password to this little-used account but found that the Frontier e-mail website provides no self-service method for resetting the password. The only option was to chat with a Frontier employee. And that employee, Shawn from tech support, had access to Andrew's password in plain text and was ready and willing to share it."

That the company isn't salting and hashing stored passwords is obviously a red flag, but it gets worse:

"I'm not comfortable giving out passwords. Is there a password reset page?" Silverman asked.

"I'm sorry there isn't," Shawn replied. "Are you OK with me posting the password in chat? It is a secure network and I have the password in front of me."

Silverman pointed out how ridiculous this system is but accepted Shawn's offer and received the password. Before ending the chat, Shawn tried to sell Silverman antivirus software, computer tech support, or "identity protection." Silverman declined. The Frontier system then e-mailed Silverman a full transcript of the chat, including the password in plain text. The only information Frontier obscured was his account number."

So to recap: Frontier isn't capable of building a website that can sell broadband service, or one that allows for automatic e-mail password resets. It also apparently stores the password in plain text making it easy for any Frontier employee to see, and is happy to both post said password into an e-chat platform (which at least uses HTTPS) and over unencrypted e-mail. For good measure, the company will then upsell you on security and "identity protection" services and software. Amusingly, Frontier still insists that its systems are secure:

"Frontier insisted that its password practices are secure but was stingy with details...Frontier also said that it only provided Silverman a password after "we verified identity first through security questions." But as Silverman told Ars, "the only security challenges they posed were to provide the account number OR the landline service number in combination with the last 4 of the social security number."

Of course these kinds of security questions aren't remotely secure either. Earlier this month "The Martian" author Andy Weir noted on Facebook that it was incredibly trivial for his Comcast e-mail account to be hacked after the ISP gave up his password after simply being given the last four numbers of his social security number and his street address. Regardless, the Frontier user proceeds to wonder just how secure Frontier's billing systems are. It also obviously raises questions about the quality of the company's quickly-expanding broadband empire.

So yeah, pro tip: if you're one of the six people still using your ISP's e-mail services, it might be time to stop, since security is pretty clearly a distant afterthought. And if you're one of the millions of monopoly victims customers getting gobbled up by Frontier as AT&T and Verizon sever their ties to unwanted DSL customers, you may want to think about either moving, or building your own broadband ISP with at least a rudimentary understanding of cryptography.

Filed Under: broadband, customer support, passwords, plaintext
Companies: frontier, frontier communications

Verizon Support Wants You To Know That Twitter Is A Perfectly Secure Way To Send Them Your Social Security Number

from the you-need-better-support-reps dept

Hoping to have an errant charge resolved, O'Reilly Media author Jonathan Zdziarski recently reached out to Verizon Wireless on Twitter. While Twitter support can help put a friendly face to a massive, often-times unwieldy conglomerate, anyone that has actually interacted with one of these support agents has likely found the quality of these interactions to be decidedly hit or miss. In Zdziarski's case, the Verizon Wireless support agent in question thought it would be perfectly acceptable for him to prove his identity over Twitter, since the platform is such a "secure means of communication":

Seriously. This just happened. pic.twitter.com/odM80wMO4r

— Jonathan Zdziarski (@JZdziarski) July 15, 2015

Except for the fact that's not remotely true. Back in late 2013 in the wake of reports on the NSA's ballooning skulduggery, Twitter claimed they'd start encrypting direct messages, though by 2014 that initiative appears to have been forgotten. As such, what Verizon's calling a "secure means of communication" is about as secure as a safe made out of paper mache and tin foil. When pressed about this lack of secure transit for personal data, Zdziarski was apparently informed that everything was ok, because "most users are ok with it":

Verizon defended asking social security numbers over Twitter "because most customers are OK with it": teaching customers to become victims.

— Jonathan Zdziarski (@JZdziarski) July 16, 2015

Of course "most users" don't know a gigabit from a garrote, so it's not entirely clear that "most people aren't bright enough to know this isn't a good idea" should be used as a security standard moving forward.

Filed Under: customer support, jonathan zdziarski, security
Companies: verizon

Comcast's Former Twitter Chief Says Dismal Support Won't Get Fixed Until Comcast Stops Being A Cheapskate

from the captain-obvious dept

While Comcast gets a lot of well-deserved grief for having the worst customer service in any industry, the company was actually among the first companies to use effectively Twitter as a front-line customer service tool, giving the company a more human face and a more direct line to customer issue resolution. One of the people running Comcast's Twitter presence was Frank Eliason, who not only took on an entire Internet's worth of Comcast-related anger on a daily basis, but from what I saw as a telecom beat blogger during his tenure was well-liked by most of the Comcast customers who dealt with him. Eliason left Comcast back in 2010, and has since marketed himself as an expert at treating customers properly.

It's worth noting that despite Eliason's help, Comcast wasn't able to shore up its abysmal customer service back then because Twitter was essentially a band aid attached to a rotten apple. As a result, Comcast's struggles continue today. In a blog post, Eliason rather politely gives Comcast some fairly simple advice: stop upselling everyone all the damn time, and more importantly, stop being cheap:

"Customer service is often the most expensive line on any company’s balance sheet, especially for a company like Comcast which has more than 300 million interactions each year. To help mitigate this we have watched company after company shift service to the cheapest source possible. Call centers tried to shift to become sales centers. This is why any time a customer calls, they’re pitched everything under the sun instead of actually helping you with the reason why you called in the first place. We have been in a age of outsourcing, and finding the cheapest means possible to provide customer service. Comcast has become the poster child for this shift in company thinking."

While Eliason's well intentioned, he likely knows Comcast will never make the kind of financial investment required to improve its customer service, since it lacks the competitive incentive to make these improvements. With no competitive pressure, and DSL providers actually backing away from DSL users they don't want to upgrade (giving cable a larger and tougher monopoly than ever before), there's really no financial penalty for skimping on customer service. The result is what we've all grown accustomed to: a decade of stories about low-quality subcontracted Comcast technicians that fall asleep on the job, blow up homes, occasionally murder people and get arrested for torturing and spray painting kittens (seriously).

With the company trying to get regulatory approval for its Time Warner Cable deal, Comcast has been making an awful lot of promises about finally fixing its unprecedentedly-awful support. Comcast has even gone so far as to hire a new VP of "Customer Experience" and design a new app that tries to tell you when your barely-trained technician is scheduled to arrive. But these are all still inexpensive band aids for a problem that runs to the root: Comcast's not spending the serious money necessary to improve horrible customer service because it doesn't have to. We've spent a decade gutting regional regulatory authority because of an often blind aversion to any regulations whatsoever, yet we've done little to nothing to seriously improve broadband competition woes.

As a result, Comcast's customer satisfaction rankings are actually getting worse, and not even the best advice will be changing that anytime soon.

Filed Under: cost center, customer support, frank eliason
Companies: comcast

American Airlines Fires Designer Who Reached Out To Disgruntled Customer

from the not-quite-connecting-with-fans dept

A few years back, I remember seeing a fascinating study that showed that how a company responds to a problem or a mistake is more important to customer loyalty than not making any mistakes at all. That is, customers felt more loyal to companies that screwed up, but handled it well, than companies that never screw up at all. If you think about this, it makes a fair amount of sense. At some point or another everyone screws up. Everyone makes a mistake. Customers recognize this. But if a company never makes a mistake, then customers may still wonder how they'll be treated when that future mistake comes. However, if the mistake has been made, and the response was good, the customer is confident that future mistakes will be handled well also.

Of course, the converse situation is true as well. If a company screws up and then screws up the response as well, it causes tremendous harm to a brand -- often in ways that cannot easily be redeemed (if at all). Brendan writes points us to a story of American Airlines seeming to go out of its way to respond poorly to a situation -- after someone from the company had first responded well. It started with a blog post written by Dustin Curtis, complaining about the poor user interface design of American Airlines website (including a suggested redesign). He didn't expect much of a response, but actually received a nice and detailed email from a user design person at American Airlines explaining why it was often tricky to good design at large companies, due to all of the different interests, but says that some good stuff is coming, even if it may take some time.

Now, that's a good response. It's human. It explains the situation without PR/marketing speak that a recipient would know was bogus. It is the type of response that makes someone feel good about American Airlines (mostly). So, how did AA respond?

It fired the guy.

Apparently, higher level folks at American Airlines didn't like the fact that an employee was actually being open and honest with a customer, took the text from Dustin's post (he hadn't named the designer), searched through the email system, identified the guy... and fired him... and threatened to sue the guy if he spoke to Dustin again. As Dustin notes:

When I first learned about this, I was horrified. Mr. X is actually a good UX designer, and his email had me thinking there was hope for American Airlines. The guy clearly cared about his work and about the user experience at the company as a whole. But AA fired Mr. X because he cared. They fired him because he cared enough to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and help clear the company’s name in the best way he could.

The guy's original response was an example of an excellent interaction with a disgruntled customer. It was honest. It responded to his concerns. It was real. It was human. It made Dustin actually reconsider his view of the company. Then, in firing the guy, American Airlines didn't just wipe out that goodwill, it pushed negative feelings well beyond where things had been before. It made it clear that American Airlines does not value honesty. It showed that American Airlines did not value actually engaging with disgruntled customers. It showed that American Airlines did not value trying to make disgruntled customers happy. And, as such, it's also probably giving a lot of people very good reasons not to be customers of American Airlines at all.

Filed Under: customer support, loyalty, ui design
Companies: american airlines

Has Anyone At AT&T Ever Called AT&T Tech Support?

from the welcome-to-the-soviet-ministries dept

While the FCC and certain broadband companies like to insist that there's real competition in the broadband market, right here in the heart of Silicon Valley, there's little evidence that this is true. If there were real competition, they might take customer service seriously. In the past few days I've had two separate issues with AT&T that suggests that the company treats customer service as not just an after thought, but something to effectively be shunned. Given my long history in killing off broadband providers who give me service, perhaps it's only fair that they do their best not to serve me, but these two experiences seemed worth shining some light on.

First, a quick history. That link above goes through all the broadband providers I went through (and killed off) in the 2001 time frame. After that, I ended up with Comcast cable modem service until 2004. In October of 2004, Comcast turned the cable modem service to my house off every day at 10am for no clear reason. Every day I would call, and the response would be: "Oh, this is scheduled maintenance. Service will be back by 4pm." I would ask if I should expect the service to go down the next day as well, and be told that they had no idea. Apparently, the "schedule" for scheduled maintenance was a tightly held secret -- but it went on, every single day, for at least the month of October. I moved in November of that year, and swore off Comcast after that experience. My only other option was AT&T. I ordered AT&T DSL and was promised it would be installed within a week. A week came and went, and I called AT&T. They told me the order had been canceled because (despite what the first person told me) DSL wasn't actually available at my location (right in the middle of Silicon Valley). Why they didn't call to let me know of the cancellation was not explained.

I asked why the first person had told me service was available, and the woman told me to hold one while she checked her other computer. That computer told her that DSL was available at my location, despite what the first computer said. Apparently, AT&T does not have a single map of DSL availability, preferring to load a series of different local availability maps on every computer.

A year ago I moved again, and DSL has been working more or less okay at the new location. However, last Thursday it died in the afternoon and was down until around midnight. When it came back it was super slow -- maxing out around 64 kbps. I waited until Friday afternoon and decided I should call to ask what's up. That's when I discovered that AT&T makes it damn near impossible to find a phone number. The AT&T website has no phone numbers listed at all. When I clicked on the "contact" link, I was given a one-line form to discuss what my problem was. When I hit submit, I received a blank page. No matter how many times I tried, I always got the blank page. Eventually, and I don't remember how, I got to an error page that listed a bunch of phone numbers. I called the one listed with "Residential: 1-877-737-2478" since this is a residential account.

Thus began a rather insane process. After waiting on hold, the call proceeded as follows:

• Automated system demands I enter in my account number and asks me to describe my problem. It doesn't recognize "slow internet" service, so I just say "can I speak to an operator?" It asks me more questions instead. Eventually (after a long hold) it sends me to a live human being.
• AT&T Rep asks me for my account number (despite having punched it in already). She tells me she cannot find my account. Then she asks where I'm located (which, I would think would be obvious from the area code of the account number). She tells me she needs to put me on hold.
• Rather than putting me on hold, she actually transfers me. I get an automated system that demands I enter in my account number and asks me to describe my problem. It doesn't recognize "slow internet" service, so I just say "can I speak to an operator?" It asks me more questions instead. Eventually (after a long hold) it sends me to a live human being.
• The woman asks me (again!) for my account number. Then she asks why I've called her. She works in sales. Tells me she needs to transfer me, but tells me in the future to call 888.321.2375 for tech support. She transfers me.
• I get an automated system that demands I enter in my account number and asks me to describe my problem. It doesn't recognize "slow internet" service, so I just say "can I speak to an operator?" It asks me more questions instead. Eventually (after a long hold) it sends me to a live human being.
• The next woman asks me (again!) for my account number. She tells me she cannot find my account. Then she asks where I'm located (which, I would think would be obvious from the area code of the account number). I say California, and she says she doesn't serve California, only a region of 9 southern states (hasn't it been more than a year since AT&T & BellSouth merged?). She transfers me -- after personally promising me the next person I speak to will be the correct person. She also tells me that, contrary to the earlier person (and the AT&T website) the real number to call is: 800.310.2355.
• I get an automated system that demands I enter in my account number and asks me to describe my problem. It doesn't recognize "slow internet" service, so I just say "can I speak to an operator?" It asks me more questions instead. Eventually (after a long hold) it sends me to a live human being.
• By the way, at this point, I've had the "hold voice" repeatedly pitch me on upgrading my service, mentioning that if I do, I can get access to "AT&T's award-winning customer service." I am getting curious as to exactly what "award" this is.
• Before the next woman can say much beyond hello, I explain the saga, and mention that she is the 4th person I'm speaking to and ask her please, if she is the right person to help me fix my slow DSL in California. She says she will try, and (again!) asks for my account number. She does some searches and then admits: she really wants to help, but she's in billing, not tech support. She promises to transfer me (and kindly gives me a small credit on my account). She also tells me that the proper phone number to call in the future is none of the above, but 877.722.3755.
• Unlike the last few people, she actually says on the line and answers the same exact questions in the automated system for me. This is something of a consolation, though I've gotten good at entering the info.
• Finally, tech support! I give the guy my account info (again!) and he logs into my modem and he diagnoses: your connection is slow. I could have told him that. Wait, actually, I did tell him that. He doesn't know what to do, but says that tech support will call me back later. I thought he was tech support, but whatever.
• An hour later, I get an automated call from AT&T tech support, telling me to call them back at (yes, a different number): 888.312.2450.
• I call back, and amazingly am put in contact with a competent tech, who doesn't treat me like an idiot, who even gets me logged into the DSL modem myself, explains the different system readings, and notes that my modem seems to have capped itself at 64kbps. He says it could be a few different things, but the most likely is a broken phone cable from the jack to the modem. I switch the cables, and voila, it's working again.

Total elapsed time since the first phone call, about 3 hours, but only about 1.5 hours total on the phone. It was definitely a bit of a hassle, but eventually I found someone smart and competent, and I figured that maybe I just had a bad experience with AT&T. Little did I know. By Monday evening, my Friday experience would seem fast and simple.

I have some travel coming up, and was realizing that I may not be in EVDO coverage for some of it. So I thought it might be good to make use of the AT&T WiFi that's included as a part of my account. It's supposed to work at McDonalds, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and some other places as well. While I had signed up and used the WiFi service a few years ago, it's probably been at least two years since I last tried. On Monday, I figured I'd hit up a McDonalds at lunch and test it out, to work out any "kinks" if there were any. I honestly figured it would be fine.

I got my chicken sandwich (sans mayo) and sat down to login. Yippee. I even was sitting next to an outlet, but quickly discovered that the outlet had been turned off (boo). Okay, so I get the (extremely slow) proxy server that asks me to login. I type in my login info, and it gives me a message: "We're Sorry - Your Login Has Been Rejected." Then it tells me to call: 888.888.7520 "for further assistance." So here's how that call went:

• Dial the number from my mobile phone. It rings for a while and then says "I see you're calling from..." and repeats back a phone number I don't recognize, starting with a 512 area code (which is Austin, Texas). I'm in California on a California mobile phone, so I have no idea where that comes from. I say no.
• It asks for my account number. I'm not at home, so I don't have my bill to read off the account number. I don't have internet access so I can't log in to get my account number. The system tells me my only options are to say my account number or to say I'm trying to sign up for service. I say "neither" a few times, and the system gets impatient with me, and then demands I answer from a specific list of problems what my issue is. All of the issues have to do with home DSL, not WiFi hotspots -- which seems odd, given that this is supposedly the WiFi hotspot support number.
• Finally, it transfers me to a human who again asks my account info. I give it to her. She cannot find my account. She puts me on "hold" which again is actually a transfer. I again go through the dance with the automated call system -- which demands I choose between giving my account number or signing up for service, followed by a list of service options that have nothing to do with WiFi hotspots.
• After a while on hold, I get another person, who also insists my account does not exist. She transfers me to tech support (or so she says).
• I go through the same pointless questions, and speak to another person. I explain the situation, noting that she's the 3rd person I spoke to. She explains that she's not in tech support, but in customer retention.
• I have now come to the conclusion that AT&T's "call transfer" system is actually a big roulette wheel that will dump you on any random person with a phone. I doubt most of them even work for AT&T.
• I am transferred again. The fourth person I speak to, after going back and forth, tells me that she does not handle California customers (this sounds familiar).
• I am transferred again. More messing with the annoying automated system, and I eventually get a guy who tells me that he cannot help me unless I can tell him my account number. He insists that when he looks up my user name, he gets a different account owner and a different address than the one I tell him. That's comforting.
• Rather than transferring me, he says he can only give me the phone number to call for billing, where I should see if they can actually tell me my account info over the phone. Phone number: 800.288.2020. I ask him what number I should call after that to get back to him once I have the account number. He says to just ask to be transferred to DSL tech support.
• I call the billing number, and speak to my 6th person of the day. After a great deal of effort, she finally reveals to me what my account number is (thank you!). She then, as requested, transfers me to DSL tech support.
• My seventh customer support person of the day, after I've been on hold and have entered the proper account number, asks me for my account number anyway -- and then explains to me that DSL tech support has nothing to do with WiFi hotspots, but he will transfer me.
• My eighth customer support person tells me that the WiFi access on my account was canceled twice. Once last September and once in January. Why twice when I don't think I ever canceled it even once? He has no clue.
• Well, can I sign up to have the service included on my account? No. That's not his department. He needs to transfer me to customer support instead of tech support.
• Transferred again. On hold again. Enter my info again. Now speaking to my 9th AT&T rep. After explaining the situation, I am told that it is impossible for them to add WiFi hotspots to my account over the phone. Instead, I need to (get this) sign up via the web at home.
• I hang up, and notice another open WiFi network -- so I login, and go to the website he pointed me to: FreedomLink.com to sign up. Once there, I am directed to a page where I am told: "AT&T Wi-Fi Basic service is FREE and already included if you subscribe to AT&T High Speed Internet.... No ordering required! Simply use your AT&T high-speed Internet membership ID and password at any AT&T Wi-Fi Basic hot spot."
• That seems to conflict with what the last few folks told me, so I pick up the phone again and call. After the same old process of entering info and being put on hold, I explain my situation to the 10th representative I am speaking to. She says she will get everything solved and puts me on hold. Every five or 10 minutes she comes back and says she's "getting the info I need" and will be back soon.
• I begin to notice the batteries on both my laptop and my cell phone are on their last legs.
• After nearly half an hour on hold, the woman comes back and tells me that she has found the phone number I really need to call. It's 877.722.3755 (the second time I've heard this number!) but that when I reach it, I need to ask for "Tier 2 support." She promises that she will take care of this part for me and will get me to the right person.
• I mention to her that my batteries are almost dead anyway, and she says "Isn't that always how it is?" to which I respond: "No. Normally, it does not take 2.5 hours and 10 people to get me the info to log into my account."
• Eventually, she gets me on the line with another woman, and tells her I need Tier 2 support and then hangs up. This new representative (the 11th I'm speaking to) asks me to repeat the whole situation to see if I really need Tier 2 support. I tell her my batteries are dying, and I really need Tier 2 support, and I need it as fast as possible.
• She puts me on hold for 25 minutes -- where the hold message is pure silence, punctuated ever 10 seconds by the most annoying voice in the world commanding: "PLEASE WAIT."
• She finally comes back, says: "I have connected you to tier 2 support" and hangs up. Except she hasn't connected me to Tier 2 support. She has transferred the call, so I'm in another hold queue.
• Ten more minutes go by and someone finally picks up. As he finishes saying hello, the battery in my mobile phone dies and the call is over.
This is now 4:10pm. I had arrived at the restaurant at 1pm.
• I drive home. I pick up my home phone and call one more time. After waiting on hold and inputting my information, I speak to my 13th customer rep of the day. He insists that the information is wrong on my account, and that I have the wrong username, though it's the same username that I had used to log into my AT&T account as I was speaking to him (now that I'm on my home WiFi, which since Friday, has been working fine).
• He says that my username is actually different, but he refuses to tell me what my actual username is. Apparently, that's not allowed. Instead, he has me dig out my last AT&T bill, and buried on page 4 there is a username which is different from my regular username. He insists that this username will allow me to log into the WiFi hotspots
• I'm no longer at McDonalds so I cannot test it, but perhaps I can now log into WiFi. I will have to go back to McDonalds later this week to try.

This is AT&T customer and tech support at work. I am left wondering if anyone who works at AT&T has ever called its "award winning" customer service line to get actual support. If there were actual competition in the broadband market here in the heart of Silicon Valley, I would switch providers. But my choice now is to go back to Comcast, who might kill service every day for a month for unscheduled scheduled maintenance or deal with AT&T's roulette wheel of customer and tech support.

Filed Under: customer support, tech support, telcos, wifi
Companies: at&t