WHAT THE FUCK.
I am pissed off now.
I was really excited about the number portability thing, so I stuck with Sprint PCS despite the inferior network and terrible customer service. I looked around a bit and decided to go with AT&T Wireless, since they had good reception at my house and office, Jacob seemed pretty happy with them, they had the phone I wanted, etc.
I knew that there would be some kinks to work out and that a bunch of people would be doing the port as soon as they started, so I decided to hold out for a couple of weeks before I went. And I did. At the store, the system screwed up and gave me a new phone number. “No problem,” the guy at the store said. “Just bring the phone in and we’ll do the port and get the number switched.” I did. They couldn’t get the system to change the number. They couldn’t get the port to go through. No one in the customer or technical support had any idea what was going on or what to do. The store manager got bounced back and forth between departments. One time I was in there, the store manager said he was on hold for 7 hours. (I wasn’t there the whole time, just the first hour or two.)
It became very clear that while the people in the store were very helpful, particularly JP and Francisco (yeah, I’m on a first name basis with them), everyone above them was a fucking retard and couldn’t get anything done.
Turns out, this diagnosis was pretty accurate, according to an article in CIO magazine, and a major reason why they sold the company to Cingular.
So after 4 (four!) months (months!), I went into the store and told them to just quit the whole thing. I returned the phone, and they said they’d credit the account and close it out without the contract penalty. Great.
After I did that, I walked across the street to T-Mobile and did the port in about 10 minutes. Everyone I’d ever seen sign up for AT&T Wireless took between 30 and 45 minutes. The next day, the port was done and the phone worked. T-Mobile kicks ass. Unlimited data, great coverage and reception. I am very happy.
So today I got ANOTHER FUCKING BILL FOR A PHONE I DON’T EVEN HAVE, which means I’m going to waste yet another god damned hour in the AT&T Wireless store to get this taken care of maybe and I suspect I am getting rather close to AT&T losing their shit and putting a blemish on my credit record.
ARGH @*($&!*$&@*^$&!@*#^%!