I was honestly not prepared for the e-mail I received regarding this my first installment of
“Consumer Consumption” so I thought it would be interesting to share some of these with everyone.

 Reader Pam Green writes:

 Thanks for the tip.  My brother in law frequently calls using 1-800-collect.
 I'll add MCI to Sprint on my list of companies I won't deal with.  Sprint slammed me THREE TIMES,
 once claiming that they were Ameritech and only trying to get me to agree to put slamming protection on my line.
 They could offer me free phone service and I still wouldn't use them.
 Peace.
 

 Reader Dennis Courtney writes:

 Cliff,

 I enjoyed your 1-800-COLLECT horror story and I would like to share one with you
 regarding an encounter I had with AT&T.

 I do a lot of volunteer work as President of the local computer club (over 2,000 members).  On occasion I'll get a call from  someone with a problem that, if it's convenient, I'll make a house call and help them fix it.  About two months ago I got a frantic call from a woman in her 50's saying that her father was having trouble connecting to the Internet.  For a number of Senior citizens, the Internet is their only link to the outside world.  Since the problem she described was particularly knotty and her Dad lived in a local retirement community that I drive right past on my way home from work, I volunteered to stop by and help her wheelchair bound Dad out with his Internet problem.  When I got there I discovered that Dad, a kindly old gent in his mid-80's, had signed up for AT&T's 7 & 7 program.  The deal is that if you sign up for both AT&T's long distance they bill you $7 per month for unlimited Internet access and .07 cents per minute for long distance calls.  Seems like a deal until you get into the specifics of what it is you are really getting.

First of all, it's not Internet access like you and I know Internet access.  You have to install AT&T's special software to access the Internet, browse web pages and read browser based Email.  You don't use your own Internet browser, dial up software or Email client.  The reason is that everything you do through this software is LOADED with on line advertising.  AT&T has figured a way to charge unsuspecting people for an advertiser driven service you could get free just a few months ago from providers like Freelane.com or BlueLight.com.  But besides the scam of getting customers to PAY for looking at hundreds of ads, they add a support scam that is beyond belief.

The 7 & 7 program does not come with ANY free technical support.  AT&T farms it out to another company and you have to pay them $17 to get them to answer a question - any question.  To help the old guy out, I went through his machine from top to bottom and made sure that it was in pristine working order.  I checked everything from the modem to the dialup connections and made sure that there was nothing in his setup or configuration that would be a problem calling the Internet.  Then I called AT&T for technical support and that's when the fun began.

 Me: It looks like everything should work but your software reports an error every time
        I try to connect to the local number.

AT&T: You'll have to call tech support and there is a fee of $17

Me: If they can't fix the problem will I still have to pay the $17.
       After all, it's not MY $17 but a cripple 80 year old's $17.

AT&T: No problem, if they cannot fix your problem you won't be charged.

Me: OK, what if it's YOUR problem and not on my end at all

AT&T: No problem, you won't be charged

Me: OK, put me through to Tech Support

TS: Hello, can you give me your Credit Card number?

Me: Well, wait.  The AT&T lady told me that if you couldn't solve my problem or if the problem
        was on your end I wouldn't be charged.  Is that correct?

TS: We'll solve your problem, what's your Credit Card number

Me: I don't want to give you a Credit Card number unless you tell me that I won't be charged
       if you can't fix it or it's a problem on your end.

TS: We'll be able to fix it

Me: And I won't be charged unless it really is my problem?

TS: Can you describe the problem?

Me: When we call the local access number we get a cryptic response like Error #650 and it hangs up.

TS: That's definitely a problem on your end, can you give me a Credit Card number

Me: Are you sure?  I checked this computer from top to bottom and I could call my Internet access site
       with no problem.  What exactly is an Error #650?

TS: All I can tell you is that it is definitely a problem on your side and I'll have to have a Credit Card
       before we can resolve it.

Me: But I'm *very* technical.  I run a Support Desk for over 3,000 workstations at my business and
       I'm telling you I cannot find a damn thing wrong with this machine.  Are you SURE it's on my end?

TS: Absolutely, no doubt about it. Error #650 is always on the customers end.

Me: OK here is the credit card number....Now, what is Error #650?

TS: Your modem drivers are out of date!

Me: How would you know that?
       You don't know what modem I have much less the date of my installed drivers.

TS: That's what Error #650 means

Me: OK Smart Guy, what version of the drivers should I have.  If Error #650 knows that
       the drivers are out of date it must be smart enough to know what the current drivers are?

TS:  Why don't we try to change the modem setup strings.  Add an &ZX4 to the modem setup string

Me: OK but I don't think that will do anything

TS:  Try to call the local number through the modem

Me: OOPS!  The modem reports that it has an unsupported command in the setup string.

TS: OK, change the modem setup string back to what it was.

Me: Any other bright ideas?

TS:  Try calling this different local number....

Me:  That number is not on the list of local numbers that come with the software.

TS:  I know but we have been getting reports of problems on the line you are calling.

Me:  OK, here goes....

Me:  Hey, looks like it worked!  The software is dialing and we're getting a response.

TS: OK, I'll mark the case closed and only charge you $17.

Me:  Wait a minute, why are you charging me?  The problem is on your end!

TS: No, the problem is that you had outdated drivers.

Me: Well, if that's the problem then why - without changing drivers - am I dialing into your site?

TS: We fixed your problem and we have to charge you $17

Me: No, you fixed YOUR problem, I ought to charge YOU $17.  What do you think you did for that $17.

TS:  Well, we changed your modem command string.

Me: But your change didn't work and we had to take the change out.

TS: But you can dial in now...

Me: Yes but the only thing we changed was the phone number to dial.

TS: But we fixed the problem and I have to charge you $17.

Me: Let me talk to your Supervisor

TS:  This is the Supervisor, how can I help you.

Me:  You're trying to charge $17 to an 80 year old, wheel chair bound man
         because the modem on your end was bad.

TS: But we fixed the problem so we are going to charge you $17.

Me: But you didn't FIX anything on my end

TS:  Yes, we did - I see it in the notes right here.

Me:  What, pray tell, did your tech say that he did

TS:  It says that the modem drivers are out of date

Me: But we already established that your technician doesn't even know what modem I'm using,
       what date my drivers are or what, if any, drivers are current.  And, without changing the drivers
       we're able to connect with another one of your access numbers.  Don't give that nonsense.

TS: Well he changed your modem command string.

Me: Yeah, to something that didn't work!  And we had to take the change out to even get
       the modem to respond at all.

TS: Well, is the program working?

Me: Yes, but all you did was waste an hour having me check things that weren't broken when
        all that was needed was to give me a different phone number to call because you had
        problems reported on the line we were calling.

TS: Well, if we fixed the problem we have to charge you $17

Me: Let me talk to your Supervisor

Four Supervisors and two hours later, round and round the same story, they still would not give up
their $17 charge.  We had spent hundreds of dollars of Supervisors time haggling over $17.
I finally gave up.  They ripped that old guy off for the $17!

 Dennis Courtney

 And last but no least reader Warren Gammel wrotes this little jewel:

 I've been at war with Sprint - our only local provider - for the past 6 years since I moved here,
 and AT&T is just about as bad.

I finally got smart and dropped AT&T for a discount long-distance provider, and I dropped everything with Sprint except for basic local service.  I'm now saving $30-40 a month over what I used to be paying.  Fortunately,  there's a lot of long-distance competion nowdays and you can shop around on the internet for good deals.  Unfortunately, I can't do anything about Sprint. Competition is good - monopolies suck!

 Sprint promises you the world, but delivers doodly-squat.  To get new service when I moved here they put me through absolute hell.  I had to go downtown 3 times and literally scream at Sprint management to get service after it had been promised on my move in date.  After getting initial service, it took many more aggravating calls to get my service the way I requested it.  Then to top it off, about 3 months later I started getting all these unwanted calls from Sprint while I was asleep asking if I had any problems with my service and soliciting me to add extra services.  I told them I thought it was a sick joke for them to wake me up and disturb me wanting to know what I thought about the quality of their service and if I was having any problems with it - after all the hell they had put me through just to get service!   Additionally, I had to make several more threatening phone calls to get them to stop calling me - I had to repeatedly pound it in to their thick little heads that I work nights and do not appreciate anyone waking me up when I'm asleep!  I've raised so much hell with those bastards I think they've finally figured out it's best just to leave me alone.

 You know what else they do that really sucks?  I called their operator for a new phone listing.  I got charged $1.00 for it!

They say they charge for looking up numbers in the phone book.  After seeing the charge on my bill,  I called them up and again gave them holy hell and got the charged dropped.   I said I wouldn't have bothered to call them in the first place if I could have looked the number up myself - it was a new listing so how could it possibly be in the phone book?  I could go on for 10 more pages about Sprint's total incompetence.  I won't even tell you about AT&T, except to say they charge way too much and they're a big rip off.

 Good luck in your battle against the corporate dead heads!  Read 'em the riot act!

 Warren Gammel

Ocala, Florida

My own story left out of the last column related to long distance service. My wife and I own our business
and we make all our long distance calls from there for obvious reasons. When I chose not to pick a long
distance company for my home phone service I was charged a dollar each month on my phone bill for not
having a long distance service. This may not seem like much but let's do a little match. If one million people
decide they don't need a long distance service then the phone company, in this case Southwestern Bell,
makes $1 million dollars for doing absolutely nothing. When I wrote our congressman from Tulsa,
Steve Largent, his reply left no doubt that he was definately on the side of corporate american and
had absolutely no intrest in helping the little guy.

We would welcome some sort of reply from representatives of the companies that are mentioned above.
Until next week let's keep consuming.

Cliff