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Posted on May 05, 2009 - 1:21am by John P. in News
I’ve been an AT&T VoIP client for 5 years now via their CallVantage service. But they just sent us a letter in the mail telling us that they are going to discontinue the service. First of all, why didn’t they email it to us? Or drop a recorded message in our voice mail boxes? Anyway, I absolutely love their rationale…
As AT&T continually strives to deliver new and innovative products… AT&T will be discontinuing AT&T CallVantage service in 2009.
So, let me get this straight… In AT&T’s quest to deliver new and innovative products, they’ve decided to eliminate the internet based VoIP service which delivers flat rate calling, digital access to voice-mail, online capabilities to manage and change services, and instead offer “wireless from AT&T and traditional voice service”? Brilliant.
The letter they sent goes on to say:
To move your current AT&T CallVantage number to another AT&T service such as AT&T U-Verse Voice (VoIP) service… Contact AT&T…
What? Wait a minute. There is ANOTHER AT&T VoIP service? Well, fine, then why the hell don’t you just roll my CallVantage account into this U-Verse thing and NOT make me all upset and have to do work like “contacting AT&T”?
Well, maybe I’m just one of a very small number of clients they have on CallVantage, right? They really don’t care about us, because what’s maybe 200,000 users paying $30 per month each to AT&T? $6 million per month? HA! Fine, so if we all leave they could care less. Piss off!
But, if we do want to stay, our alternative is to contact AT&T to switch to U-verse. Ok, let me just find the number to call and waste my time taking care of that…. Where is that number? Where is …? WHAT?!?
They didn’t even give an F-ing number!!!
Ah, telecom customer service…its like getting a love filled hug everytime they contact you.
I love my Time Warner VOIP (I switched after I cancelled that crap service that you recommended) because it runs through the jacks in my house. Now I can have multiple wireless handset hubs instead of buying one that allows 10 handsets. Also, my wife feels safe because she can plug in her phone from 1993…I haven’t told her that it won’t work if the power goes out.
Yeah, I was pissed too by the letter from AT&T. I called them with the same question you had, if they have a new service why not convert over? Well, because they don’t have U-Verse in Arizona! I called the ever dreaded QWest, got basically the same package. Just not a fan of QWest, but right now AT&T will never get my business again!
Geez, this reeks of really poor customer service! Down here in South Africa we were at the mercy of a telecoms monopoly for many years, and even now our fixed line offerings are dominated by the very same player, so I can relate.
Telkom is the same of said service provider, and websites like telkomsucks.co.za (subsequently killed off) and hellkom.co.za (still going strong) did a lot to expose their BS and educate customers as to what alternatives there are. No consumers should be given the cold shoulder, and when that does happen it is time to take your business elsewhere.