These people are paid by sales commissions --- they ain't going to spend the time and energy on a out-of-town pay-as-you-go customer, especially when there are tons of people waiting to sign 2 year contracts (that paid a lot of commissions).
And who said anything about buying another pay as you go? I was subscribing to a full-fledged two-year-contract service. The pay-as-you-go I had was a phone I bought when I needed a personal cell for occasional use, and did not want to use my employer-provided one.
Besides, had I been pursuing a PAYG phone and the salesman didn't want to spend the time, all he had to say was that they could not do an order like I wanted for a PAYG. But no, they were doing their best to keep the sales counter from rising into the air by having their elbow firmly planted on it and watching Montel.
The t-Mobile salesman accommodated my needs. The Verizon salesman did not.
Is Verizon so busy that they want their employees to turn away customers that have an atypical request because there are "tons of people waiting to sign 2 year contracts?? I can understand if you simply stated that Verizon?s policy is to only setup phones within the area code you are in as I can see some legitimate reasons for that policy, but to defend Verizon for having their employees to first serve customers who are willing to pay more is pretty outrageous.
verizon turns no one away
ever
verizon treat you fairly every time
verizon learned THAT the truth is the best way to keep a client
they simply after tens of millions of contracts almost exactly know what you want
you may get a jerk at times ..sorry
my rep from verizon explained to e how i can go from 3 lines bundled to one line
saving 160 a month
so i pay 185 for my biz line /which includes fast intenet stuff
70 bucks for my cell line also a major down grade
anyone who tells you that verizon ignores or pushes aside some one is a liar
verizon has 4 or 5 things to one day hook you on >> so every ear they get is a future possible payday
fine and dandly
EXCEPT VERIZON ARE THIEVES WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR PHONE BILLS
and the FIOS selling deal is a complete bait and switch trick type deal
you start at 89 a month and $150 before tax is the real price
AT&T made a statement about the CR report. While anecdotal evidence from surveys is far from being proof, if we assume that the surveys were done honestly then we can deduce that, at the very least, AT&T’s image sucks big hairy monkey balls.
Quote:
UPDATE: Reached for comment, AT&T had this to say about Consumer Reports’ findings, which, the company stressed, were based on anecdotal feedback from a self-selected group of subscribers: “We appreciate and value all customer feedback. We learn from it and it helps us serve our customers better. Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent."
They do have a point about churn rates, but I’d label it as proof that customers are more willing to put up with your network, not that they are satisfied with your network and I’m certain that the iPhone is a very heavy counterbalance when it comes to considering jumping to another carrier.
PS: There needs to be some perspective here. Note that none of the carriers really scored well on the CR test. 75/100 with the lowest ranking carrier being only being 9 points lower yet the highest is still 25 points away from being at the top. Best doesn’t necessarily mean good.
EXCEPT VERIZON ARE THIEVES WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR PHONE BILLS
9
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
Mom lives in one of these retirement communities with independent living, but a community newsletter and cable TV station. This billing was a topic on both. If you called Verizon and SPECIFICALLY contested it, they'd remove it from the bill, no questions asked. Very interesting, that...
It is this sort of thing, along with indifferent sales people, and an effort to surcharge me $50 (that is not a typo) to move my phone directory from one company phone to another, turns me right off of Verizon.
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
Mom lives in one of these retirement communities with independent living, but a community newsletter and cable TV station. This billing was a topic on both. If you called Verizon and SPECIFICALLY contested it, they'd remove it from the bill, no questions asked. Very interesting, that...
It is this sort of thing, along with indifferent sales people, and an effort to surcharge me $50 (that is not a typo) to move my phone directory from one company phone to another, turns me right off of Verizon.
There isn't much building density in downtown Charlotte. The density exists along a strip that's only two blocks wide and those maps and buildings are outside the strip.
I get the same exact results at 5am when I go to the gym in the same spot. Occasional 3G, occasional No Service, lots of EDGE.
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
Oh, you listen to not the worst music ever. Even if someone calls you an a... --- what was that? well, you know what I mean --- you should always know you're a quite polished one.
oh, you listen to not the worst music ever. Even if someone calls you an a... --- what was that? Well, you know what i mean --- you should always know you're a quite polished one.
Yes, you have to understand the limitations of the surveys. And there are plenty of surveys like JD Power which have random samples and still rank Verizon the top and AT&T ranking near the bottom.
ChangeWave surveys saying that iphone has a 99% satisfaction rating --- but their survey is only on ChangeWave member --- uber-geeks.
Consumer Reports readers are a completely different animal --- they value best bang for the buck. These are the average Joes trying to find the best dishwashers. You have to remember that --- as a AppleInsider forum member --- you ain't the average Joe. You are part of the uber-geeks. You disagreeing with the average Joe (who is the basic Consumer Report subscriber) --- doesn't mean that their survey is flawed. The average Joe is going to look for value, quad-bundling, coverage issues...
Well when I said I never knew anyone who got CR I was being serious - I wasn't talking just about myself and my engineering co-workers. My parents (a teacher and a police officer), my friends (HR, Accounting, Sales, Business professionals), and my family (2 military members and 1 in college) give a pretty diverse set of people to poll from and they come from itty bitty towns to sprawling metro-plexes and yet none of them, as far as I know, have ever cared one bit about CR. Actually, I e-mailed a number of them to make sure I wasn't just totally off base and I didn't get 1 positive response other than my mom saying she used to look at it in the 80's and early 90's.
Basically, I don't think CR actually reaches the average Joe anymore. Now it's just about finding the penny pinchers and the people who like to say CR ranked them highest.
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
I had the same issue with AT&T when I moved and got a landline so I could get DSL.
I had to call AT&T and specifically instruct them to block all "third party services billing" on my account. And then call the two "services" that I had been billed for, and request refunds (which took 3 months to show on my AT&T bill).
I haven't had any issues again yet, but I do feel like the landline companies make it easy for scammers to try and make a quick dollar.
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
I put those pictures in because I find it ironic that AT&T can't deliver 3G to customers within blocks of two of their buildings. Not being able to deliver 3G in a low density urban environment is far below my expectations and I seriously doubt I'm alone on that.
I didn't say it was that one spot. And as I mentioned I don't even get EDGE in several buildings around that same spot, I get No Service on a regular basis. In all honesty I think you're just being somewhat contrary, and I don't really know why. If 3G isn't really functional in urban areas the maps should reflect that. They don't.
And yes, I will definitely complain about AT&T coverage. Their maps are grossly misleading in many areas of Charlotte.
I'd like to know why 3G comes and goes at 5am inside my gym. It's there sometimes, so the signal can definitely penetrate the building. Many times as soon as I start consuming data it drops to EDGE and sometimes on to No Service. By my reasoning at 5am in a place the signal CAN penetrate but isn't always available there is a clear lack of capacity. In my opinion the service is not what it should be. Clearly I'm not alone.
I have had some terrible experiences with just about all Wireless Carriers in the US.
When I was with Verizon, I lowered my plan to $20 per month expecting to save some money on their cancellation fees as I purchase an iPhone and a plan with AT&T before my Verizon account expired. They had recommended this move to save me some money, and I thought that was great. Little did I know, all of those account changes resulted in 2 or 3 more months of bills than I expected. I ended up having to pay the cancellation fee of $175, even though I had been told by multiple Verizon employees these changes would not affect my plan, and it would expire on the original date. I was so happy to be free from Verizon, and figured, AT&T could never be worse than what I had to deal with as a Verizon customer. Boy was I wrong.
I had been a happy AT&T customer for a year and a half, fully enjoying my experience with a new iPhone 2G. I had waited well past the iPhone 3G launch date to get the next latest and greatest iPhone 3GS. AT&T and Apple both offered pre-orders for the phone. I couldn't wait, so I placed the order. Little did I know, I was not logged in with my AT&T account while placing this order, so I accidentally ordered a new line of service. This was not what I wanted, so I called AT&T and asked them to cancel this pre-order so I could place another on my current line/account. I was told that I could not cancel this order, and I would just have to simply refuse shipment on the device, and I would be refunded. So I went ahead and placed another order, this time, logged in with my AT&T account. A few days before the expected shipment date, I called AT&T and asked the procedure for refusing shipment and/or returning unwanted packages. My concern was that if I was not home to refuse shipment, what could I do to avoid being stuck with this phone. A very nice gentleman assured me that I could just take the return label included with the package and place it outside the same box it arrived in, and drop it off a the Post Office. I told him I wouldn't activate this phone, and I asked him to assure me that I would never be charged for this new unwanted phone and account, and at the very worst, never be charged to cancel that line. He told me he would "notate" my account as to not charge me a single bill for this unwanted phone. The phone came, along with the one I did want, but I was not there to refuse shipment on the package. I followed the instructions I was given, and took the return label placed it on the package and dropped it off at the Post Office. Meanwhile, I was charged the $299 for the unwanted phone, and another $299 for the phone I did want. I was told that within 30 days of AT&T receiving the package I was returning, I would be credited that $299 minus a restocking fee. I didn't care about that $20 for restocking, but I did care about the remaining $279 and the fact that I didn't want to be charged at all for the new line and account I mistakenly created.
About 20-30 days later I called AT&T to find out why I had not been credited that $279. They told me they had not received the package. I explained the instruction I had been given to place the return label on the package and drop it off at the Post Office. She told me that AT&T never includes return labels with their shipments, and she had no idea what label I placed on the package. I then had her assure me that I would not be charged anything further for this phone/line/account even if they end up never receiving the return package. She did. I was a bit relieved, but still irritated by the fact that I just lost out on $279 all because they couldn't cancel an order I never wanted in the first place. A few days later, a $300 bill arrived from AT&T and I figured it was my normal bill, slightly inflated for the new phone activation I had gone through with the 3GS that I ordered "correctly". The next day, another $250 bill arrived. Two weeks later another $199 bill arrived. I was being billed for that phone/line/account I had ordered by mistake, so I called to complain and referred to the notation the gentleman placed on my account - to not charge me. The Customer Service Rep told me that there wasn't a notation on the account, and I would have to pay the cancellation fee to rid myself of the account, and that I was stuck paying the $500 in bills that had already arrived. I fought and fought, and contemplated hiring a lawyer to fight all of this - all AT&T had to do was honor my original request to cancel an order I had placed in error. Now I know why they wouldn't cancel that order. They knew I would screw up with the refusing shipment/faux return label they include with their shipments, and I would end up owing them another $1000. I ended up paying all of those charges and am very sad to say that the iPhone 3GS ended up costing me close to $2000. The Post Office still to this day has no record of any package being dropped off there with a label with my name on it (still fighting them), and AT&T through various letters, emails, and calls, would never refund me that money.
Needless to say, AT&T genuinely is the absolute worst in Customer Service/Satisfaction, and after my current contract is up I will never, NEVER use their service again for anything...
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
You might find this interesting: The EXACT spot I detailed in those photos is the spot where AT&T is deploying its free Wifi Hotzone as reported today. How about that??
Yes, you have to understand the limitations of the surveys. And there are plenty of surveys like JD Power which have random samples and still rank Verizon the top and AT&T ranking near the bottom.
ChangeWave surveys saying that iphone has a 99% satisfaction rating --- but their survey is only on ChangeWave member --- uber-geeks.
Consumer Reports readers are a completely different animal --- they value best bang for the buck. These are the average Joes trying to find the best dishwashers. You have to remember that --- as a AppleInsider forum member --- you ain't the average Joe. You are part of the uber-geeks. You disagreeing with the average Joe (who is the basic Consumer Report subscriber) --- doesn't mean that their survey is flawed. The average Joe is going to look for value, quad-bundling, coverage issues...
POINT WELL TAKEN!!
Their survey is most likely on the money as far as being NON SPONSORED, RANDOM,
and PROPORTIONATE. They are polling average people, that answer the questions based on their personal experience. Remember their name is CONSUMER reports and is based on the CONSUMERS experience.
Comments
These people are paid by sales commissions --- they ain't going to spend the time and energy on a out-of-town pay-as-you-go customer, especially when there are tons of people waiting to sign 2 year contracts (that paid a lot of commissions).
And who said anything about buying another pay as you go? I was subscribing to a full-fledged two-year-contract service. The pay-as-you-go I had was a phone I bought when I needed a personal cell for occasional use, and did not want to use my employer-provided one.
Besides, had I been pursuing a PAYG phone and the salesman didn't want to spend the time, all he had to say was that they could not do an order like I wanted for a PAYG. But no, they were doing their best to keep the sales counter from rising into the air by having their elbow firmly planted on it and watching Montel.
The t-Mobile salesman accommodated my needs. The Verizon salesman did not.
Is Verizon so busy that they want their employees to turn away customers that have an atypical request because there are "tons of people waiting to sign 2 year contracts?? I can understand if you simply stated that Verizon?s policy is to only setup phones within the area code you are in as I can see some legitimate reasons for that policy, but to defend Verizon for having their employees to first serve customers who are willing to pay more is pretty outrageous.
verizon turns no one away
ever
verizon treat you fairly every time
verizon learned THAT the truth is the best way to keep a client
they simply after tens of millions of contracts almost exactly know what you want
you may get a jerk at times ..sorry
my rep from verizon explained to e how i can go from 3 lines bundled to one line
saving 160 a month
so i pay 185 for my biz line /which includes fast intenet stuff
70 bucks for my cell line also a major down grade
anyone who tells you that verizon ignores or pushes aside some one is a liar
verizon has 4 or 5 things to one day hook you on >> so every ear they get is a future possible payday
fine and dandly
EXCEPT VERIZON ARE THIEVES WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR PHONE BILLS
and the FIOS selling deal is a complete bait and switch trick type deal
you start at 89 a month and $150 before tax is the real price
yet their ads clearly state 89 a month
time warner rocks
9
UPDATE: Reached for comment, AT&T had this to say about Consumer Reports’ findings, which, the company stressed, were based on anecdotal feedback from a self-selected group of subscribers: “We appreciate and value all customer feedback. We learn from it and it helps us serve our customers better. Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent."
They do have a point about churn rates, but I’d label it as proof that customers are more willing to put up with your network, not that they are satisfied with your network and I’m certain that the iPhone is a very heavy counterbalance when it comes to considering jumping to another carrier.
PS: There needs to be some perspective here. Note that none of the carriers really scored well on the CR test. 75/100 with the lowest ranking carrier being only being 9 points lower yet the highest is still 25 points away from being at the top. Best doesn’t necessarily mean good.
verizon turns no one away
fine and dandly
EXCEPT VERIZON ARE THIEVES WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR PHONE BILLS
9
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
Mom lives in one of these retirement communities with independent living, but a community newsletter and cable TV station. This billing was a topic on both. If you called Verizon and SPECIFICALLY contested it, they'd remove it from the bill, no questions asked. Very interesting, that...
It is this sort of thing, along with indifferent sales people, and an effort to surcharge me $50 (that is not a typo) to move my phone directory from one company phone to another, turns me right off of Verizon.
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes.
That is one thing I do like about AT&T, I have a consistent bill each month.
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
Mom lives in one of these retirement communities with independent living, but a community newsletter and cable TV station. This billing was a topic on both. If you called Verizon and SPECIFICALLY contested it, they'd remove it from the bill, no questions asked. Very interesting, that...
It is this sort of thing, along with indifferent sales people, and an effort to surcharge me $50 (that is not a typo) to move my phone directory from one company phone to another, turns me right off of Verizon.
i hope your mom is doing ok now
sadly her story happens to all of us .
i hope your mom is doing ok now
sadly her story happens to all of us .
Thank you! Mom is fine! She hits the big 89 in a few days, and shows virtually no sign of slowing down. She's amazing!
There isn't much building density in downtown Charlotte. The density exists along a strip that's only two blocks wide and those maps and buildings are outside the strip.
I get the same exact results at 5am when I go to the gym in the same spot. Occasional 3G, occasional No Service, lots of EDGE.
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
i have no idea either who i am
Oh, you listen to not the worst music ever. Even if someone calls you an a... --- what was that? well, you know what I mean --- you should always know you're a quite polished one.
oh, you listen to not the worst music ever. Even if someone calls you an a... --- what was that? Well, you know what i mean --- you should always know you're a quite polished one.
.....
Thank you! Mom is fine! She hits the big 89 in a few days, and shows virtually no sign of slowing down. She's amazing!
tell mama grizzly that she rocks !!
Yes, you have to understand the limitations of the surveys. And there are plenty of surveys like JD Power which have random samples and still rank Verizon the top and AT&T ranking near the bottom.
ChangeWave surveys saying that iphone has a 99% satisfaction rating --- but their survey is only on ChangeWave member --- uber-geeks.
Consumer Reports readers are a completely different animal --- they value best bang for the buck. These are the average Joes trying to find the best dishwashers. You have to remember that --- as a AppleInsider forum member --- you ain't the average Joe. You are part of the uber-geeks. You disagreeing with the average Joe (who is the basic Consumer Report subscriber) --- doesn't mean that their survey is flawed. The average Joe is going to look for value, quad-bundling, coverage issues...
Well when I said I never knew anyone who got CR I was being serious - I wasn't talking just about myself and my engineering co-workers. My parents (a teacher and a police officer), my friends (HR, Accounting, Sales, Business professionals), and my family (2 military members and 1 in college) give a pretty diverse set of people to poll from and they come from itty bitty towns to sprawling metro-plexes and yet none of them, as far as I know, have ever cared one bit about CR. Actually, I e-mailed a number of them to make sure I wasn't just totally off base and I didn't get 1 positive response other than my mom saying she used to look at it in the 80's and early 90's.
Basically, I don't think CR actually reaches the average Joe anymore. Now it's just about finding the penny pinchers and the people who like to say CR ranked them highest.
My mother has Verizon landline service. No bill is ever the same, and lately they started with two lines of billing with odd letter/number codes. One item was about $4.50 the other about 5-something. Turns out this is some sort of third-party billing "arrangement" they entered into, and it does not provide any further service for the customer beyond the "servicing" they get by being charged for it.
I had the same issue with AT&T when I moved and got a landline so I could get DSL.
I had to call AT&T and specifically instruct them to block all "third party services billing" on my account. And then call the two "services" that I had been billed for, and request refunds (which took 3 months to show on my AT&T bill).
I haven't had any issues again yet, but I do feel like the landline companies make it easy for scammers to try and make a quick dollar.
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
I put those pictures in because I find it ironic that AT&T can't deliver 3G to customers within blocks of two of their buildings. Not being able to deliver 3G in a low density urban environment is far below my expectations and I seriously doubt I'm alone on that.
I didn't say it was that one spot. And as I mentioned I don't even get EDGE in several buildings around that same spot, I get No Service on a regular basis. In all honesty I think you're just being somewhat contrary, and I don't really know why. If 3G isn't really functional in urban areas the maps should reflect that. They don't.
And yes, I will definitely complain about AT&T coverage. Their maps are grossly misleading in many areas of Charlotte.
I'd like to know why 3G comes and goes at 5am inside my gym. It's there sometimes, so the signal can definitely penetrate the building. Many times as soon as I start consuming data it drops to EDGE and sometimes on to No Service. By my reasoning at 5am in a place the signal CAN penetrate but isn't always available there is a clear lack of capacity. In my opinion the service is not what it should be. Clearly I'm not alone.
When I was with Verizon, I lowered my plan to $20 per month expecting to save some money on their cancellation fees as I purchase an iPhone and a plan with AT&T before my Verizon account expired. They had recommended this move to save me some money, and I thought that was great. Little did I know, all of those account changes resulted in 2 or 3 more months of bills than I expected. I ended up having to pay the cancellation fee of $175, even though I had been told by multiple Verizon employees these changes would not affect my plan, and it would expire on the original date. I was so happy to be free from Verizon, and figured, AT&T could never be worse than what I had to deal with as a Verizon customer. Boy was I wrong.
I had been a happy AT&T customer for a year and a half, fully enjoying my experience with a new iPhone 2G. I had waited well past the iPhone 3G launch date to get the next latest and greatest iPhone 3GS. AT&T and Apple both offered pre-orders for the phone. I couldn't wait, so I placed the order. Little did I know, I was not logged in with my AT&T account while placing this order, so I accidentally ordered a new line of service. This was not what I wanted, so I called AT&T and asked them to cancel this pre-order so I could place another on my current line/account. I was told that I could not cancel this order, and I would just have to simply refuse shipment on the device, and I would be refunded. So I went ahead and placed another order, this time, logged in with my AT&T account. A few days before the expected shipment date, I called AT&T and asked the procedure for refusing shipment and/or returning unwanted packages. My concern was that if I was not home to refuse shipment, what could I do to avoid being stuck with this phone. A very nice gentleman assured me that I could just take the return label included with the package and place it outside the same box it arrived in, and drop it off a the Post Office. I told him I wouldn't activate this phone, and I asked him to assure me that I would never be charged for this new unwanted phone and account, and at the very worst, never be charged to cancel that line. He told me he would "notate" my account as to not charge me a single bill for this unwanted phone. The phone came, along with the one I did want, but I was not there to refuse shipment on the package. I followed the instructions I was given, and took the return label placed it on the package and dropped it off at the Post Office. Meanwhile, I was charged the $299 for the unwanted phone, and another $299 for the phone I did want. I was told that within 30 days of AT&T receiving the package I was returning, I would be credited that $299 minus a restocking fee. I didn't care about that $20 for restocking, but I did care about the remaining $279 and the fact that I didn't want to be charged at all for the new line and account I mistakenly created.
About 20-30 days later I called AT&T to find out why I had not been credited that $279. They told me they had not received the package. I explained the instruction I had been given to place the return label on the package and drop it off at the Post Office. She told me that AT&T never includes return labels with their shipments, and she had no idea what label I placed on the package. I then had her assure me that I would not be charged anything further for this phone/line/account even if they end up never receiving the return package. She did. I was a bit relieved, but still irritated by the fact that I just lost out on $279 all because they couldn't cancel an order I never wanted in the first place. A few days later, a $300 bill arrived from AT&T and I figured it was my normal bill, slightly inflated for the new phone activation I had gone through with the 3GS that I ordered "correctly". The next day, another $250 bill arrived. Two weeks later another $199 bill arrived. I was being billed for that phone/line/account I had ordered by mistake, so I called to complain and referred to the notation the gentleman placed on my account - to not charge me. The Customer Service Rep told me that there wasn't a notation on the account, and I would have to pay the cancellation fee to rid myself of the account, and that I was stuck paying the $500 in bills that had already arrived. I fought and fought, and contemplated hiring a lawyer to fight all of this - all AT&T had to do was honor my original request to cancel an order I had placed in error. Now I know why they wouldn't cancel that order. They knew I would screw up with the refusing shipment/faux return label they include with their shipments, and I would end up owing them another $1000. I ended up paying all of those charges and am very sad to say that the iPhone 3GS ended up costing me close to $2000. The Post Office still to this day has no record of any package being dropped off there with a label with my name on it (still fighting them), and AT&T through various letters, emails, and calls, would never refund me that money.
Needless to say, AT&T genuinely is the absolute worst in Customer Service/Satisfaction, and after my current contract is up I will never, NEVER use their service again for anything...
The spot pinpointed in your pics is very near several large-ish buildings that I would not be at all surprised if they degrade the signal at that particular location. From my perusal of google maps, that spot is on the very edge (no pun intended) of the major down structures. The fact that you've found a spot where service is degraded and occasionally drops out doesn't say anything about the rest of downtown. Unfortunately, given the limited information and the fact that for the most part your service is only reduced to EDGE in this one spot, your experience would have to be classified as being "anecdotal" and not a satisfactory basis for saying AT&T's quality of service is poor. I really don't understand why you're complaining.
You might find this interesting: The EXACT spot I detailed in those photos is the spot where AT&T is deploying its free Wifi Hotzone as reported today. How about that??
http://murphymac.com/att-takes-care-of-charlotte-again/
Yes, you have to understand the limitations of the surveys. And there are plenty of surveys like JD Power which have random samples and still rank Verizon the top and AT&T ranking near the bottom.
ChangeWave surveys saying that iphone has a 99% satisfaction rating --- but their survey is only on ChangeWave member --- uber-geeks.
Consumer Reports readers are a completely different animal --- they value best bang for the buck. These are the average Joes trying to find the best dishwashers. You have to remember that --- as a AppleInsider forum member --- you ain't the average Joe. You are part of the uber-geeks. You disagreeing with the average Joe (who is the basic Consumer Report subscriber) --- doesn't mean that their survey is flawed. The average Joe is going to look for value, quad-bundling, coverage issues...
POINT WELL TAKEN!!
Their survey is most likely on the money as far as being NON SPONSORED, RANDOM,
and PROPORTIONATE. They are polling average people, that answer the questions based on their personal experience. Remember their name is CONSUMER reports and is based on the CONSUMERS experience.