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Man Emails AT&T's CEO, Gets Threatened With C&D Order
An anonymous reader writes "After its recent bait and switch, AT&T went ahead and threatened someone emailing the company CEO about customer service concerns, namely with a query about tethering and eligibility rates. The email author also put up a voicemail recording of the company's response and how he managed to contact the CEO in the first place — through The Consumerist." As Engadget notes (as does the complaining customer's updated page), AT&T did at least offer an apology for the threat of legal action, which the company says was unauthorized.
is like trying to decide whether you'd prefer to have cancer or AIDS.
Fuck AT&T. Go Android.
Steve Jobs says, "You can do that?"
Bottom line is you can't do anything all you can do is if you don't like they way they run business is to cancel your service with them. America is for the corporations now after all they paid for it.
I continue to fail to see how it is "bait & switch" when a company decides to stop offering one plan, after several years, and change to offering a different pricing plan that it thinks will better meet its and its consumers needs. No contract you ever signed with them guaranteed that you would ALWAYS be able to buy unlimited access at $30. They never guaranteed that unlimited access at $30 would be available forever. Me, I've been using my iPhone pretty extensively for almost 2 years now, and I've run up a grand total of 3.8 GB. That's 2GB a year for me, and AT&T's service will now be $5 per month less and give me 2GB per month. I'm coming out ahead of the game here. I'm glad AT&T has decided to change their plan to charge me less for the same amount of service that I am actually consuming now. AND they've announced this change just before release of the new iPhone version. That's the exact opposite of bait & switch. "Hey, folks, before you sign a new 2 year contract to get the new iPhone, we're telling you about this new service terms that you'll be signing up for, so you can make an informed decision." That's truth-in-advertising, not bait & switch.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]14,323 plays
Grrrrrrrrrrrr
locked out of this slashdot account for 10+ years... Im back
It worries me slightly that someone would send out a letter threatening legal action without even considering whether or not they had the authority to do that.
Every day I try to be a little more cynical, but I can't keep up.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
this is the company to which you are going to entrust control of your internet. enjoy.
Read radical news here
That's right. How DARE the unwashed masses try to contact a clearly superior human being. The aristocracy should be protected from such riff-raff. Don't you people understand that certain people are just better than others and should not be even looked at--let alone have their judgment questioned--by a "commoner".
And you'd still be getting those same free rotary-dial phones today to hook up when/if they felt like it, and still need permission from them for each device you connected to your POTS line, once that device type had been cleared with AT&T.
E pluribus unum
You do realize this isn't just because of the IPAD but also for all those users that will want the brand new Iphone 4G that will be announced last week. There is a reason they did it effective prior to June 7th(Iphone 4G announcement), because to get discount you will need to sign up for a new contract and with that they will move you to the new data plans, instead of being grandfathered in. That is unless you pay full price for the phone without a contract..
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
"Dear Mr. Tony Hayward, we, the collective fishermen from the Gulf Coast would like to apologize for taking your life away from you. We realize that you, as a CEO of British Petroleum, have had a hard time what with all these US politicians, sportsmen, fishermen, tourists, vertebrates and invertebrates being a little miffed that your company continues to vomit well in excess of 5,000 barrels a day of poisonous hydrocarbons. You, as a CEO, shouldn't have to surrender your golf game or your wife's Sunday tea just because your company and its subcontractors are poisoning the living shit out of the one of the most economically important strips of water in North America. Please except our humble apologies.
Signed - the people, animals and single-celled life you're wiping out."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The phones were leased, not free. You didn't own it at all. That's why they were built like brick shithouses and only changed design a couple times in a century.
Sent from my PDP-11
Try reading.
The guy was complaining about iPhone stuff, tethering on his iPhone, etc etc.
Since AT&T is the 'only' provider of service for iWidgets that makes this an apple story too.
And it's actually filed under 4 categories, not just Apple.
and unicorns got blown away in the wind. They just don't make straw objects like they used to.
If anyone thinks that preloaded software on PCs is bad, they have never seen crap that AT&T installs on their phones.
The thing that bothered me most about my last phone (a Samsung w580i) was not the shareware-like games and other apps they preinstalled on it, it was that the web browser is accessible from a easy-to-bump button on the keypad, and the phone doesn't bother asking you "are you sure you want to spend $0.01 per KB to access an auto-refreshing webpage?" when the button somehow gets bumped in your pocket.
The phone also includes several "password-lock this program" settings, but the web browser is not one of the things that can be locked.
They can disable data on your line, which solves the problem, except then you can't send or receive MMS messages (even if you have the "unlimited picture and text messaging" package which includes unlimited MMS messages).
So you're hosed either way.
At least the iPhone doesn't come with any pre-loaded AT&T software - they don't even bundle the quite handy myWireless app or the equally handy (from AT&T's perspective) "Mark the Spot" app, both of which I would not have objected to them bundling at all. I guess I'm saying Apple has done quite well at keeping AT&T from digging their claws too deep.
You seriously think that's an abusive email? The closest he came to profanity was "crappy". He displays some frustration tbs. But I don't see anything in that letter, were it sent to me, that would cause me to reach for my lawyer for protection.
--
$tar -xvf
I grow weary hearing "democrat party" instead of the proper phrase "democratic party". Of course, it's members of the republic party who are at fault.
The wingnuts learned the phrase "democrat party" by listening to Rush Limbaugh -- you know: the OxyContin-junkie radio host that they all worship. Apparently, when a wingnut says "democrat party" it's supposed to make Democrats mad or something. Beats me. I think it's cute, in a pathetic sort of way. Like when a five-year-old calls you a "poopy head" and thinks they've scored a victory or something.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
At least the iPhone doesn't come with any pre-loaded AT&T software...
I got my girlfriend an HTC Fuze (Windows Mobile phone) and she started using Yahoo Instant Messenger on it. The phone bill was $20 higher than expected. Upon inspection I discovered that, by default, the Messenger was using SMS messages to ferry the data back and forth. I did a Google search for the number that the texts come from and found a number of messages from people on forums wondering if that phone number is a sign that their significant others are cheating on them. Heh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
a complaint about AT&T's new data rates. Nothing crazy about either of those.
Was it just a complaint? If so, why hasn't he posted it? Or was it a bunch of swears, insults, and threats, like we've come to expect from most anonymous people on the internet?
It's a bit tough to claim the high, noble road when you're hiding your actions.
I guess I just dont get this whole "email the CEO" thing. We keep seeing people getting replies from Steve Jobs (no doubt really from his team) and I have read of people having luck with other big companies.
But there are two parts to this. First - someone is frustrated and has nowhere else to turn. Second - the CEO (or whomever) may actually nt know about the practice.
A couple of years ago I got a lemon of a Whirlpool refrigerator. After three trips out by the service company (A&E -- don't ever buy an appliance whose warranty service is done by A&E), and five times ordering the wrong part, and several failed attempts to escalate within A&E... I got annoyed and started doing some digging.
I learned the email of the CEO Whirlpool. I took the time to write out the saga -- including the three refrigerators full of lost food, several days spent waiting for service folks (who were either late, didn't show, or "oops" had the wrong part. Did I mention they get paid for each trip by Whirlpool regardless of whether they fix anything?)...
The result? The CEO sent their general council head an email saying "take care of this, it shouldn't be happening." The general counsel got the right people involved -- people who didn't realize the scam A&E was running. I got a new refrigerator (two tiers up from the one I bought) and some cash. A&E at the very least got a firm speaking to, but I suspect it went a bit further than that. The CEO sent me a note thanking me for raising the issue.
So yeah... I could have just sat at home and whined about how unfair life is and how Whirlpool really sucks. Or I could do about two hours of research to find the right email address, send a well-written email detailing how their customers were being treated (including links to several blogs and forums indicating that my experience was not unique) by their service contractor, and see results.
I think the problem would go away if they just stopped answering normal customers emails to the CEO and executives, or at least just replied with the customer service contact details.
I guess that depends on how you see the "problem" -- if the problem is a whiny customer customer annoying you his petty complaints, I guess that tactic might work. On the other hand if the problem is that your customers are being treated poorly by the company you're putatively in charge of-- well no, that problem won't go away if you ignore it. It will just get worse.
I just emailed him a link to the Wikipedia page on the Streisand Effect.
These are his email addresses.
rs2982@att.com
randall.stephenson@att.com
I wonder if they'll respond to me too.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Where in that text do you see something that says AT&T can not tell you to stop being a jerk to their CEO. Where in there does it say that Slashdot is required to keep your post showing, where does it say that you are allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater.
All it says is that CONGRESS can not pass laws that abridge your right to speech. If you are talking poorly in my house - I have every right to ask you to leave.
Next
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
AT&T doesn't give a damn about you or anything else, they just care about money. The C&D order was intentional and authorized, I'm sure. Otherwise it wouldn't have been issued. They only "apologized" after they saw that the public reacted the way that the did. The AT&T CEO is the very same one who proposed the idea of a tiered internet and also said something along the lines of "we own all of the lines and they're going to have to pay us for them" in order to make money off every packet of information flowing through their routers. Don't kid yourselves... AT&T/Cingular is as greedy as they come. Anony
Let's just call them the "fuck you on even days party" and the "fuck you on odd days party". They can trade names every four years.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"