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February 9, 2009

I hate AT&T Wireless ()

by fluffy at 3:35 PM
If I weren't under contract with them for the damn iPhone (and the iPhone is the only reason I switched to them from T-mobile — and the fact I'm under contract is also ridiculous considering I bought the iPhone separately and unsubsidized!) I'd be seriously considering canceling my service and switching back to T-Mobile.

My connectivity and service have been okay, I guess. My reception on T-Mobile was a bit better (and it's not just because of the phone; if I put my old W580i on AT&T my reception is definitely worse than it was on T-Mobile). But that's not the main problem.

I never once got a "promotional email" or "free promotional SMS" from T-Mobile in my 7 years with them. In the 6 months I've been with AT&T I've gotten countless SMS and email spams from them. I have unsubscribed many times. I still receive them. They are disruptive and annoying, and so far the only one I've even vaguely cared about is the information about getting free AT&T WiFi hotspot access through my iPhone; everything else has been crap like "get American Idol ringtones!" and "upgrade your phone!" and other such nonsense.

I guess they aren't content with already getting close to $71/month from me for what little I use the iPhone for (I use maybe 200 minutes and 10MB of data a month, which was costing me about $40/mo on T-Mobile).

I think it's pretty telling that one of AT&T's "features" is now a "flexible ETF program," so now it's a feature that I'd have to "only" pay $145 to get out of this one-sided contract. What crap.

Comments

#11740 02/09/2009 04:51 pm weird ...
I have only ever gotten:

- 1 spam SMS (in german, annoyling in two parts but clearly the same spam message)
- No emails that weren't "your bill is ready" or other "something on your account changed"

That is in seven weeks of being under contract. Yes, I was annoyed by the that text spam .. but it's strangely been the only one.
#11741 02/09/2009 06:07 pm
I didn't get a lot of spam at first but it's been slowly ramping up in its severity.

The spam SMSes are coming from AT&T themselves (with origin numbers like 281-2), not from third parties.
#11742 02/09/2009 06:35 pm
The only reason I went with AT&T (then Cingular) was because GSM had the best US coverage, and Cingular was the bigger GSM provider. That said, they do give me unlimited EDGE for $15/month, so I'll stop somewhat short of accusing them of infantiphagia.

BTW, check my user-agent for extra win.
#11743 02/09/2009 06:53 pm
Haha, you got it working? Awesome.
#12300 ATTHater2 (unregistered) 08/06/2009 04:03 am Flexible ETFs
fluffy:
Haha, you got it working? Awesome.


Well, a few things....I work in sales for AT&T and hate it. Their management, all the way up, are complete, old school idiots.

All carriers have prorated ETFs and have for some time.....greedy AT&T was probably the last one to come onboard.

If you were saving $30 a month with T-mobile....then cancel your contract with AT&T and go back. At $30 a month over a year, that'd be $360 so pay the full ETF of $175 if you have to.

Now, you can block spam and honestly, remember I hate the company through and through, AT&T does not send countless spams and e-mails....a few here and there, yes.

And (another poster said he/she received only one annoying SMS) if one SMS is annoying, you should definitely get the feature blocked in case someone you know sends you one. Because it sounds as if you wil go postal.
#12301 08/06/2009 07:36 am
I am fine with getting SMSes from my friends. That is what they are for. I do not like getting marketing material forced upon me in an "URGENT ATTENTION NEEDED" way (or any way, for that matter).

I haven't gotten one in a while, though. Maybe the last time I opted out it actually took.

But it's all moot because I have a myTouch 3G on order from T-Mobile and I will be switching back to the superior carrier as soon as it arrives sometime next week. The myTouch service does end up costing nearly as much as what I was paying for my iPhone on AT&T (still a lot less than AT&T's iPhone 3G service!) so I won't be recouping the ETF that way, but unlocked EDGE iPhones still get a pretty penny on the used market so that will make up for it.
#12485 ihateatt (unregistered) 10/12/2009 12:38 pm att advertising is dishonest
I used AT&T yellow pages to advertise my business. The rep Scott Smith signed me up, he had me sign a blank page that would be my proof page before I even had the graphic made. So after I submitted my graphic I never received notice of what was the last day to make any changes. So the book came out even though I needed to make a change. On top of him conning me into signing before the graphic was made, he also persuaded me into making my ad larger than the one I wanted, giving me confidence i would be receiving around 10 calls a month with the nicer ad. Over a year I received 4 calls total and completely wasted my time and money. Scott Smith tried to contact me about the new book and I told him that I wasn't interested, but he still wanted to meet with me, but never let me know why. Now that the new book came out I realized why cause my ad was in the new book. They have an AUTOMATIC RENEWAL that no one ever cared to tell me about. DO NOT ADVERTISE WITH AT&T EVER!