T-13, 1.33: Thirteen Things to Hate About ATT/Cingular

Oh, my, this one is easy! Perhaps too easy…

1. Para el español, prensa dos… Big company working in concert with the government and Mexico (along with Fifi Bush, President Felipe Calderon’s lapdog) to facilitate the invasion of the U.S. by illegal aliens.

2. NO applicable options, on ANY of the contact numbers, ANYWHERE in the voicemail hell constructed by ATT/Cingular. Not. One.

3. Escalation? “I’m sorry, without XYZ information we cannot do that.” (“But I don’t have XYZ, you twit!” *sheesh*)

4. Institutionalized stupidity. “We can only do things our way–the wrong (i.e., completely unhelpful) way. And no, the left hand does NOT know what the right hand is doing and has NO way of getting that information.”

5. Sending SPAM to people who are NOT customers! (Yes, I verified that the emails my wife is getting actually DID come from ATT/Cingular–no “phishing” involved). Heck, I have no problem with ATT/Cingular sending SPAM to people who are clueless enough to do business with them. That’s their lookout. But emails to people who are NOT customers, do NOT have accounts, from ATT/Cingular (not just some doof trying to sell ATT/Cingular accounts on commission or whatever) are unacceptable.

6. BTW, No one in America’s Third World County CAN use ATT/Cingular. No coverage. (So much for its much-vaunted coverage.) OK, maybe there is an enclave parked juuuust so near the one and only secret, hidden tower that has some obscure connection with ATT/Cingular, but if so, those folks are keeping awfully quiet about it…

7. Lies. “I’ll stay on the line and connect you to… ” Lie.

8. No way to bill ATT/Cingular for MY time trying to deal with them.

9. “Escalate? We don’t do no steenkeeng ‘escalate’! WTF is that, anyway?” (Not a direct quote; inferred from actual behavior, though.)

10. Worthless phone contact numbers. Let that sink in a while. AT&T. Cingular. The contact numbers listed on the website(s) are useless. Worse than useless. Complete timesinks. Black holes. A big suck on a sour lemon. A zero with the rim kicked off. Connection to Usefull Information rating: bupkis.

11. Catch this: ATT/Cingular. Wireless phone company. Last guy I talked to about the SPAM, I could barely hear him (and I wasn’t the only one: my Wonder Woman was on the phone, too, to “good cop/bad cop” the guy–as we had the person previous to him just in order to get to this guy–and SHE couldn’t hear him, either). Of course he needed voice lessons, but it would have helped if he hadn’t been on an oldstyle landline handset. Heck, I had my phone AND my headset turned up to MAX and had to keep reminding him to SPEAK INTO THE MIC (on the handset). *sheesh* As poor a telephone presence as he had (supposedly a “supervisor,” naturally) you’d think he’d at least have a phone that made up for some of his deficiencies in speaking/communication ability.

12. Nobody knows anything, In fact, they all know nothing. (Which is as it probably ought to be, of course… *sigh*)

13. ATT. Cingular. Of course: what’s NOT to hate about that combo?

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Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub.