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from: Murfreesboro Post

Oh, yeah, let’s make AT&T only answer to the state. That’ll work
By MIKE PIRTLE, Publisher/President

Those of you old enough to remember the popular TV show, “Laugh-in,” probably also remember an ongoing skit by Lilly Tomlinson in which she portrayed a telephone operator.

Whatever the caller’s inquiry, her standard response was “We don’t care. We’re the phone company. We don’t have to.”

Some humor and truths withstand the passage of time.

Last week, after trying for some three weeks, I finally paid my telephone bill.

No thanks to the phone company, AT&T, until the very end of a protracted, absolutely frustrating ordeal.

For quite some time I had been paying my phone bill each month easily and quickly online.

I’d get an email telling me my bill was ready. I’d got to the BellSouth Web site, log in, see my bill and click on which account to pay it from.

Might take a minute.

Yeah, that was BellSouth that I chose as my phone service provider because I knew a couple of people at the top of its state organization that I knew and trusted.

But, as we have learned too well, things change fast in the modern business world.

AT&T bought BellSouth.

That was no big deal for me until the last couple of months.

First, the company suckered me into trying their supposedly “fast” Internet service. I made the sales guy promise me three times his service would be just as fast as Comcast’s decidedly quick but kinda expensive service.

The salesperson vowed such, and in fact, insinuated strongly it would be faster.

Whoa, that was one big old lie, just as my digitally knowledgeable children had told me.

Oh, well, I was a sucker. Let the buyer beware.

But, this bill thing is on AT&T.

The problem was that as I tried to log on, I kept getting stymied at a page wanting me to answer additional security questions. That was fine, except you couldn’t pull down the questions. Without the questions, you could not proceed.

I tried five or six times, maybe more. Same problem every time.

I tried to use the “Contact Us” and other supposed help features, but they were mainly useless if your problem did not exactly match AT&T’s list of probably problems.

Finally I found where I could email my problem and get an answer.

I related I could not get the security questions function to work and, since it asked for the best way to communicate with me, asked if someone would call me at the cell number provided.

I received an email informing me AT&T couldn’t explain why I was having profile issues with the cell number.

It was like asking if they sold sandwiches and told snow was expected Saturday. The question and answer had no relationship.

I found a number to call in the phone book since the Web site includes no phone numbers for the telephone company offering telephone services.

Upon calling, I learned all available customer service representatives were busy after punching about a 100 numbers and responses repeatedly, but was told I could leave a number and would be called back in approximately four minutes.

About four minutes later, my cell phone rang once, I answered. Line went dead.

Well, they did say they would call back, but promised nothing beyond that.

And that’s exactly what I got --- nothing.

Thanks a lot. I spend five minutes pushing buttons to answer the same stupid questions over and over, get promised a call back and receive a hang-up.

Nice service.

So, 10 minutes later I was called back again and got a recording telling me all their assistants were busy. Well, thanks for that call. Nothing like having an automatic system to keep me up to date on the fact I can’t get help.

Amazingly a few minutes later I got another call from a very helpful, understanding lady who helped me where I could pay the bill.

She initially ran into the same security question problem as I did, but was able to fix it.

Obviously, I’m probably going to be shopping for a phone provider soon.

And, I won’t forget that AT&T wants its own set of rules to provide cable programming that would require it to answer only to the state, not local governmental bodies like current cable providers must do.

We all know how well the state does in protecting our interests.

Remember last year when we learned in horror that radioactive waste was being dumped at Middle Point Landfill through a state-approved program?

Remember how we learned the name of the state program was “Bulk
Survey for Release,” a blatant and successful effort to prevent anyone from knowing what was going on?

Remember how we learned the only records of the radioactive dumping program were in some obscure state office in Nashville on a shelf full of all kinds of records and files, many of which contained nothing?

Remember how we later learned the radioactive dumpers had asked state officials to keep the program secret?

Do you think state officials protected citizens interests by making sure they were informed, or did they do almost exactly what the interests they were supposed to be regulating asked?

So, if AT&T wrests authority from local governments so it can provide cable service under state oversight, just how much oversight do you think will happen.

“Sorry. All our service personnel are busy. We’re the phone company. We don’t care.”