From November, 2011 to February, 2012, AT&T demanded that Dave pay them for a service they had failed to provide.
They had promised to supply him with Uverse high-speed Internet–at 25 MBPs a second. Instead, he had gotten only 6 MBPs a second. And a big dot in the middle of his computer screen when watching YouTube videos.
Finally, an AT&T rep told him the blunt truth:
His geographical area was not yet supplied with fiber-optic cables that could provide high-speed Internet service.
Dave canceled Uverse–and began getting a series of bills from AT&T.
First one for more than $400.
Then a reduced bill for $260.
Then another for $140.
And still another for $126.95.
After getting a phone call from a collections agency, Dave asked me to intervene with AT&T on his behalf.
So I decided to go directly to the Office of the President.
Long ago I had learned a crucial truth:
The man at the top of an organization cannot fob you off with the excuse: “I can’t do it.” He can do anything he wants to do. And once he decides to do it, everyone below will fall into line.
I already had the phone number: (800) 848-4158.
I had gotten this via a google search under “AT&T Corporate Offices.” This gave me a link to “Corporate Governance”–which provides biographies of the executives who run the company.
And at the head stands Randall L. Stephenson–Chairman of the Board, CEO and President of AT&T Inc.
I didn’t expect to speak with him. One of his chief lieutenants would be enough–such as a woman I’ll call Margie.
First, I introduced myself and said I was authorized to act on Dave’s behalf. Then I handed the phone to Dave (who was sitting next to me) so he could confirm this.
I then briefly outlined the problems Dave had been having.
Margie–using Dave’s phone number–quickly accessed the computerized records documenting all I was telling her.
She said she would need three or four days to fully investigate the matter before getting back to me.
I said that, for me, the crux of the matter was this:
An AT&T rep had told Dave the company could not supply high-speed Internet to his geographical area because it had not yet laid fiber-optic cables there.
This meant:
1.There was a disconnect between what AT&T’s technicians knew they could offer–and what its customer service reps had been told;
2.Or, worse, the company had lied when it promised to provide Dave with a service it couldn’t deliver.
I said that Dave wanted to resolve this quietly and amicably. But, if necessary, he was prepared to do so through the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The PUC regulates phone companies at the State level. The FCC regulates them at the Federal level.
Just as I was about to hang up, I said I couldn’t understand why Dave should have kept getting billed, since he had been assured he wouldn’t be.
Margie said that the company felt he owed $150.00 for “breaking” the two-year contract he had signed.
I immediately noted that AT&T had not lived up to its end of the contract–that is, to provide the promised high-speed Internet service. As a result, they could not demand that Dave pay for something that had not been delivered.
Clearly, this set off alarm-bells for Margie.
When I asked her, “How soon can I expect to hear from you on your company’s investigation into this matter?” she said there was no need to conduct one.
In fact, she added, she was writing out a credit to Dave of $150.00 that very minute.
Previously, she had told me it would take three or four days.
Thus, Dave did not owe the company anything for his disappointing experiment with its Uverse service.
I felt certain that Dave’s experience with a rapacious AT&T was not an isolated case. Just as banks use every excuse to charge their customers for anything they can get away with, so do phone companies.
I knew that AT&T didn’t want the PUC and FCC to start asking: “Is ATt&T generally dunning customers for money they don’t owe?”
I believe the answer would have proven to be: “Yes.”
And I believe that Margie felt the same way.
So, when dealing with a predatory company like AT&T:
1.Keep all company correspondence.
2.Be prepared to clearly outline your problem.
3.Know which State/Federal agencies hold jurisdiction over the company.
4.Phone/write the company’s president. This shows that you’ve done your homework–and deserve to be taken seriously.
5.Remain calm and businesslike in your correspondence and/or conversations with company officials.
6.Don’t fear to say you’ll contact approrpriate government agencies if necessary.
7.If the company doesn’t resolve your problem, complain to those agencies, and/or
8.Consider hiring an attorney and filing a lawsuit.
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“WE DON’T CARE, WE DON’T HAVE TO”
In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2014 at 2:52 pmComedian Lily Tomlin rose to fame on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In as Ernestine, the rude, sarcastic switchboard operator for Ma Bell.
She would tap into customers’ calls, interrupt them, make snide remarks about their personal lives. And her victims included celebrities as much as run-of-the-mill customers.
On one occasion, she called then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, letting him know that “it really takes a Hoover [vacuum cleaner] to dig up the dirt.”
She introduced herself as working for “the phone company, serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth.”
But perhaps the line for which her character is best remembered was: “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”
Watching Ernestine on Laugh-In was a blast for millions of TV viewers during the mid-1960s and early 70s. But confronting such corporate arrogance in real-life is no laughing matter.
Clearly, too many companies take the same attitude as Ernestine: “We don’t care. We don’t have to.”
This is especially true for companies that are supposed to safeguard their customers’ most sensitive information–such as their credit card numbers, addresses, emails and phone numbers.
An October 22 “commentary” published in Forbes magazine raises the highly disturbing question: “Cybersecurity: Does Corporate America Really Care?”
And the answer is apparently: No.
Its author is John Hering, co-founder and executive director of Lookout, which bills itself as “the world leader in mobile security for consumers and enterprises alike.”
Click here: Cybersecurity: Does corporate America really care?
October proved a bad month for credit card-using customers of Kmart, Staples and Dairy Queen–all of which have reported data breaches involving the theft of credit card numbers.
Earlier breaches had hit Target, Home Depot and JPMorgan/Chase.
“One thing is clear,” writes Hering. “CEOs need to put security on their strategic agendas alongside revenue growth and other issues given priority in boardrooms.”
Hering warns that “CEOs don’t seem to be making security a priority.” And he offers several reasons for this:
“There’s a short-term mindset and denial of convenience in board rooms,” writes Hering.
“Top executives don’t realize their systems are vulnerable and don’t understand the risks. Sales figures and new products are top of mind; shoring up IT systems aren’t.”
Anyone who’s ever watched the operation of an airport luggage carousel has seen this principle in action.
If you’ve checked your luggage, then you need to head for the baggage carousel as quickly as you can get out of the airplane.
Because if you don’t get there in time to grab your own bag, there’s a good chance that someone else will.
The reason? There’s no security officer there to make sure that your luggage goes only to you, and not to someone else.
Experienced baggage thieves know this. So they wait at the luggage carousel for a piece of luggage to go around two or three times. If no one collects it, they assume the owner isn’t there yet–and make off with it.
Sure, there might not be anything of value in it–from the thief’s viewpoint, anyway.
No diamonds.
No jewels.
No expensive cameras.
For the thief, it’s a setback–but only a minor one. He simply dumps the luggage and perhaps goes back to the carousel for another shot at finding a bag stuffed with valuables.
But for the traveler-victim, it’s a disaster.
Most–if not all–of his clothes are gone.
Anything personal–such as gifts he was bringing for friends or relatives–is gone.
So are any vitally-needed medications–if he was foolish enough to store these in his suitcase instead of a carry-on bag.
And does the airline care?
Don’t be stupid.
Why should they? They got your money when you bought the plane ticket.
That’s all they wanted from you. And the truth is, that’s all they’ve ever wanted from you–even during the “golden age of air travel” before airplanes became “flying buses.”
The skies of United were never so friendly that airlines felt an obligation to ensure that their passengers’ luggage was actually waiting for its rightful owners.
And the same principle–or lack of principle–applies with such companies as banks, department stores and insurance companies that hold the most private information of their customers.
There are two ways corporations can be forced to start behaving responsibly on this issue.
First, some smart attorneys need to start filing class-action lawsuits against companies that don’t take steps to safeguard their customers’ private information.
Second, there must be Federal legislation to ensure that multi-million-dollar fines are levied against such companies–and especially their CEOs–when such data breaches occur.
Only then will the CEO mindset of “We don’t care, we don’t have to” be replaced with: “We care, because our heads will roll if we don’t.”
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