Tag Archive: at&t


First World Problems That Are Still Annoying As Fuck

Filed Under: consumer by topenga — Comments Off on First World Problems That Are Still Annoying As Fuck
June 14, 2010

@aelerelean and I were watching Life last night(the “fuck you Oprah” version, Attenborough for lyfe yo!). And I notice at the top of the screen there’s a shadow. It’s not the disc, it’s not the picture, it’s my tv. See, I bought a DLP years ago because LCD’s were expensive as fuck. This particular tv had a manufacturing defect with the light engine. I managed to skate by 4 years with having the issue when *BLAM*, there it is, out of the blue. *sigh* I call Toshiba who tells me that I have to get it serviced locally and they give me the name of who to call. Fine. (guess who forgot to call this morning. dammit).

Later on in the night, i noticed that it was hot as hell in the living room. Did I leave the oven on? Nope. It was 10pm and my livingroom sat at 80 degrees. Oh HELL no. try to run the AC fan. nothing. I push random buttons on the thermostat and only get clicks. OH GOD NO. I look impotently at the furnace/blower. It’s cold. Cold, cold air is drifting from the intake, the whole system is cold to the touch. All breakers outside are fine, none tripped. Welp. There’s the extent of my HVAC knowledge! Time to call somebody (it is now 10:30 and 83 degrees inside, 81 on my porch). I call Strand Brothers because they installed my AC less than 6 years ago and they maintain it as well. Sweaty and grumpy (humidity hitting 70%), I call, because fucking hell, I just had the damn thing serviced a month ago! They send some poor guy out. Turns out that my compressor was running fine but the blower wouldn’t. this made the coils freeze. He fiddles around and gets me mah air conditioning! W00t! Sorta. It’ll run, but the fan won’t shut off. Why? The control board is busted. And he doesn’t have one (hey, you can’t stock every single type of control board), but they’ll call me Monday to get it all sorted. In the meantime, I can has the cold airs with the fan on constantly. I don’t care. I’m going to bed. Then, as he’s leaving, he says “Oh, since you don’t know how long the compressor’s been on, you probably should run the fan by itself for about an hour or two to let all the ice melt.” It was almost midnight. *cry* I stayed up, letting the fan blow 85 degree air all over the house so that the coils could thaw.

I then grabbed my work laptop and messed around for a bit. Well, tried to. I couldn’t get a connection. Why?

My internet connection was down.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

Tags: , , ,
Permalink

AT&T, goddammit

Filed Under: consumer by topenga — Comments Off on AT&T, goddammit
June 14, 2010

I moved into this house in 2003. I hadn’t gotten DSL installed yet so I had dialup. Shitty, static-y dialup at a whopping 28.8k. The phone line was crap. Static all the time. I called AT&T over and over. They would come out, do some voodoo and it would clear up for all of three days. I eventually gave up.

Then the DSL started being shitty. I called again (over and over), they had shitty customer support and I gave up.

Finally, when I upgraded to U-verse, it all went to hell and I called. Support had gotten MILES better. They sent a tech, he replaced the gateway, connection goes down that night. Fuck. I call again, they send a tech who claims “someone ran a new line for you already.” he’s an idiot who was looking at the cat6 WE laid a year ago. He replaces the jack. connection goes down again a day later. They send ANOTHER tech. He runs a brand new line from the box to the jack, no breaks. He also used the second pair of wires to run the phone because the OTHER tech that was sent with him saw that my main phone line was spliced at least 4 times with different types of line each time. Which is why my main line is now dead and the secondary line now works. Whatever. All is well for a few weeks when, guess what? Connection goes down AGAIN. I call and get another 2nd tier tech.

Now, each time I’ve called, I would tell them what happened, how long it’s been down and that–this is important–whenever I pick up the phone to call tech support, I can hear my DSL connecting and the connection come back and the static disappear. Yes. When the connection is down, my phone gets horrible static. WHen I make a call, the connection returns and the line clears up. They all ignored me. This tech? Listened. Said flat out “that’s not a coincidence.” Dispatched a tech then made sure the tech stayed on the phone with him so that he could monitor the line reads. Turns out that the last guy who ran the new line crimped the cable hard AND the grounding strap wasn’t…grounding. So. It’s all fixed. I’ve been static free and connection up for a month.

And it only took 7 years.

Tags:
Permalink

Logic, do you have it? (a smacktard post!)

Filed Under: smacktard by topenga — 1 Comment
June 16, 2009

Dear AT&T,

I subscribe to your services. Some services I hardly use but feel I must have because, frankly, it’s just weird to not have a proper landline. Anyway, I subscribe to your services. Multiple services. So why is it that I have to go through two different portals to pay my bills? Why are they not fucking combined on one bill? I almost understand when it comes to wireless. It was SBC Wireless (or Mobility, whatever) in this area but Bell-whatthefuckever somewhere else and when you combined to form the mighty juggernaut you are today (just like you were back in the day), you had to absorb all the little baby Bells and their billing. This created a horrible monstrosity that has become your wireless billing. Even though you offer perhaps the best 3G coverage in my area, I am far too frightened of getting fucked and fighting every month (happened to my mom with a PREPAID ACCOUNT) to even think of going with you guys for wireless. But for landline, long distance, internet, and tv, you’ve been okay and everything has been one big happy online-payable bill (the bill format itself has not changed since I was a child. it is literally the ASCII text of the old paper bills from the 70’s with some hyperlinks).

Then, I decided to get U-verse for internet.

So now, I still have my long distance, tv (Dish), and landline on one bill, one portal with a specific due date. And another separate, differently coded portal (with a different user/pass) to pay the internet bill with a DIFFERENT due date. Even though U-verse is tracked by my landline phone number. Why? Why is this, AT&T? You have THREE DIFFERENT PORTALS. Why does the login link for internet/tv/phone take you to a different login page than the “make a payment” button? Why does my phone bill contain a link urging me to see if I can get U-Verse? I HAVE U-Verse! It’s tied to that goddamn number!

*sigh*

Please fix. k thx bye.

Oh, to my readers who will simply cry “Oh you should use Time Warner! you can get everything on one bill and they handle all of it!” I hate Time Warner. They sodomized my cats and molested my parakeet I had when I was 8. They also drive by my house and moon me and send me lewd voicemail messages*.

*may or may not be true, I just really fucking hate them.
Tags: , ,
Permalink