I had had simple AT&T cell phone service for several years, prior to upgrading my plan to include laptop tethering capability. This is a method of using a USB port, a USB cable supplied by them, and a capable cell phone sold by them, (which I already had). This setup allowed the cell phone to be used as a (claimed) broadband, connection for my laptop, using their phone as a modem.
Having previously heard of this technology, and having a profession where I traveled the entire United States, I certainly needed such a service, so I visited a local AT&T store. I had my doubts, being somewhat technically savvy, that this service would work in many areas of the United States, despite their claim of having the best World Wide networks.
I expressed my doubt to the salesman, who assured me there were very few isolated areas where their 3G service would not work, but that they had service everywhere, and it would work in 99% of the places I visited, but that some of those, locations might not have 3G access, but that I should always be able to get at least dialup modem speed regardless. Their plan included 10 Gigabytes of traffic per month. I was impressed.
Notwithstanding my communication needs, I knew that this would be more than enough traffic in a month, and I'd have enough bandwidth left over to download a movie or two on top of that. They assured me there would be no problem in doing that. I signed up for the 2 year required plan.
At first, the service worked great. Even in the isolated mountainous areas of the western United States, and I used the service to my allowed capacity almost every month for the first 3 months. Then I began to notice slowdowns, disconnections, failures to reconnect, and spent literally dozens of hours on their technical support, lines. No matter what they did to attempt to correct the service, including their convincing me that I needed to buy their most expensive phone at that time, the Samsung BlackJack II, my service continued to degrade.in the end, it degraded to a complete lack of usability, even in big cities like Las Vegas, Reno, and Los Angeles. Then they even flipped a switch to where I couldn't even make cell phone calls in areas where I'd been making them without problem or issue for years. I could not even get a signal anywhere along the 1-80 corridor in Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, or Nebraska!
I am a Private Investigator and Researcher, and I'd found out that I was, most of the time, using cell towers that AT&T didn't own, but instead leased from other companies! When I confronted them about this, they admitted that this was so, and that my usage was actually costing them more money than what my (approximate), $120.00 monthly bill would cover! Apparently also, with my incessant calls to their technical support morons, and my refusal to stop using what I had been sold, I figured out they were in fact electronically manipulating and limiting my service. Apparently in attempts to coerce me to discontinue it. I even told them I knew that that was what they were doing, and they told me, we are a business, and we cannot continue to operate if we are losing money!
However, since I had a contract, had never missed, or was late on a bill, had never used over my monthly allotment of bandwidth, and had told them exactly where and how I planned to use the service, I decided to toy with them, refusing to terminate my plan. Though for over a month, I could not even make phone calls outside my local area, I continued to pay the bills. Obviously, soon enough I could not do my business, and I called them and told them I wanted to terminate ALL service. At that time I spoke with an agent of AT&T that had a very thick east Indian accent, and could barely speak English. She told me that if I chose to end service, I would be subject to the maximum early termination fee. She asked me if I might have a friend or family member who might be willing to take over my commitment so that I would not have to pay this termination fee! Rediculous. When I told her I just wanted to end the relationship, that I was current on all my payments, she LITERALLY REFUSED to terminate my service and contract without an immediate early termination payment. I flatly refused of course, and she continued to try to convince me to just drop the data service and stay with them.
I was not about to do that either. I said, just end the service, and do it now. She replied, I cannot do that! I calmly reminded her of the many years I'd been a loyal AT&T cell phone user, never been late on any bill, and was not going to pay ANY early termination fee when it was they who had virtually disabled my service. She kept talking and trying to arrange other solutions as my blood pressure rose to the point of losing my temper, and told me again that she was not authorized to terminate my service. I said, either you dis-connect my service as of right now, or I will see you in court. She reluctantly agreed to do that at that point, but not without reminding me that I'd be receiving a $250.00 bill for early termination.in the following months, they sent me a three or four mailings, that looked just like the usual billing statement envelopes. I ignored them. To this day I feel totally justified in ignoring corporate extortion.
Now it has been more than six months since termination of that service, and today I receive a collection notice for $358.21, but an offer to settle now for only $232.21. I paid my last bill, I paid ALL bills, I will NOT pay extortion or by coercion in any case.in fact, as soon as I post this complaint, I mail the exact same letter to my local State Representative from his website, as I would hope anyone else who experienced these tactics by an extortionist corporation would also necessarily do. These people are evil, pure and simple.
Dennis
Portland, Oregon
U.S.A.
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