Huddle 'round the campfire folks, and I'll tell you a scary story. It all started when I made the apparently unforgivable error of trying to change wireless carriers. I've spent the last year and a half on T-Mobile, and I wanted something different. My area has no hope of 3G in this lifetime, but between increased coverage area and faster EDGE speeds, AT&T still seemed like the best choice. Unfortunately, this journey was fraught with peril.
My first stop was LetsTalk.com. I had had a generally positive experience with this company when I placed my order for T-Mobile service. Come to find out, though, apparently in the interim it has either been bought out by a group of escaped zoo monkeys, their managers have taken the "Sadism As A Business Practice" classes that are becoming all the rage, or they really, really hate repeat customers.
Here's my first problem: AT&T doesn't officially cover my ZIP code. And by that I mean that if you have a good phone, AT&T does cover this ZIP code, and it just bought the company that provides even better service to this area, but it still won't let you buy service here without jumping through hoops. I, of course, know what I'm doing, and so provided a supported ZIP code when placing my order. Not enough, apparently, because it got put on hold, and I was told to contact LetsTalk customer service, which I wasn't looking forward to at all. OK. I'm an adult, and I have long since stopped expecting
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Kate Gerwig, Editorial Director
customer service to always be good. I do, however, still expect it to
exist. My first four calls to LetsTalk CS were met with the "Kevorkian Hold," where I was
simply left there listening to some music source so drowned in static that it might as well have
been NASA deep space telemetry, until I gave in and hung up the phone. Call it a grand total of
around three hours of my life I'm never going to get back.
After my first four attempts at contacting this company per its instructions failed, LetsTalk shot me another email saying that my order had been canceled because I hadn't contacted it. It also had the temerity to include in the cancellation email a big old advertisement for, of all things, a hotel reservation service, prompting worries that I'm going to have to show up in person in order to get served.
A few days later, I actually managed to get a human on the phone, whose response is that orders can't be reinstated, ever. Such is forbidden, apparently. As for the issue that had put me in limbo in the first place, it wasn't their problem, and I should call AT&T. Problem is, it is their problem, since I had done this exact same thing when I ordered from T-Mobile.
Another call to LetsTalk. This time, I'm told that if I give a billing address some 30 miles away in an AT&T supported ZIP code, then I should be able to get service. Only problem is, I'm no longer allowed to buy the same package that I had previously configured. The company no longer allow users to order the plan that I had selected. And even going with a more expensive plan, its web site also expects me to pay an additional $200 for what was free in my original order, on top of the $10 a month premium it decided I should pay for its having bad customer service.
So, a couple of weeks and six phone calls later, I'm still right back where I started. It's not just LetsTalk, of course, though its a big target of blame. The carriers and their resellers are guilty of playing shell games on pricing, deals, and services to try and bilk customers into buying more than they need. At one retailer, you can order the cheapest shared plan, but you can't get more than three lines. At another, you can't order the smartphone without a data plan. At yet another, you have to pay a large premium for what everyone else gives away. Almost every available offer has a catch, and on the rare instance when you get exactly what you want, don't be surprised if they cancel your order, 'cause we just can't have that.
I am willing to make a deal. I'm prepared to exchange money for goods and services. But I am not cattle. What I am not prepared to do is to blithely accept whatever terms the carriers, or their proxies, want to lay out for milking me.
This was first published in October 2007