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.

Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

is like trying to decide whether you'd prefer to have cancer or AIDS.

Fuck it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck AT&T. Go Android.

bottom line is

[Dyinobal]

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.

How is it bait & switch

[PatHMV]

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...

[mikeskup]

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]14,323 plays

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Re:How is it bait & switch

[Totenglocke]

It's bait and switch because they advertised $15 / month for 250 MB and $30 / month of "unlimited" (5 GB) for the iPad - you know, that same iPad that's only been on sale (well, with 3G) for about a month. AT&T advertised that you will have no contract, can change your plan at any time (go up, down, or no data all together) at no charge, and that you can have unlimited data on your iPad to watch all the Netflix, browsing, apps, etc you could want. So yes, telling a customer X to get them to buy a product and then just a couple weeks later making changes that make it impossible for the customer to use what they bought under the terms with which they purchased it, is a bait and switch.

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[davester666]

Well, you did choose Comcast over watching the paint on your walls dry. Now doesn't that make you feel better?

Re:How is it bait & switch

[calmofthestorm]

Current customers are grandfathered in and can continue to receive what they signed up for. For now.

I agree that changing things after a month or two is pretty crappy, but I guess on some level no-contract is a two-way street.

Unauthorized

[SilverHatHacker]

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.

To all the morons against network neutrality

[unity100]

this is the company to which you are going to entrust control of your internet. enjoy.

Re:How is it bait & switch

[Lunix Nutcase]

AT&T advertised that you will have no contract

And thus in the absence of a contract they had no legal obligations to maintain these terms. If you wanted a guarantee things maybe you should have had them written down in a legally binding document (aka a contract)?

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[peragrin]

I don't know I would rather watch paint dry and grass grow rather than watch idol, or dancing with egos.

Re:In related news...

[Low Ranked Craig]

Seems more and more like the country is being run by Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader with Grand Moff Tarkin tightening his grip.

These elitist assholes need to be slapped upside the head with the constitution, and the bozos on the grand jury that handed down the indictment need full frontal lobotomies. I guess I should be waiting for a knock on the door for the previous statement...

Re:I dont get it

[Stiletto]

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".

Re:I dont get it

[MightyMartian]

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. 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.

"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."

Re:Apple?

[gyrogeerloose]

Why is this filed under Apple?

It goes like this: Although the story has nothing at all to do with Apple, one of the Slashdot editors decided it would get more page views from both Apple fanboys and haters if it was posted as if it did.

It's all about page hits, my friend, all about page hits.

Re:re AT&T

[mirix]

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.

Re:In related news...

[Shakrai]

I was just in eastern TN last weekend and saw a bumper sticker on a traffic light box that read, "Secession before socialism." I'm glad that the FBI is checking up on these things, because I have no desire to see any assassinations in this country.

Wow, the nerve of that person to exercise his 1st amendment rights by having a bumper sticker that you might not agree with. Pray tell, what does such a bumper sticker have to do with assassinations?

I'm also tired of hearing of people espousing sedition.

This country was founded on sedition.

Re:In related news...

[tsm_sf]

This country was founded on sedition.

Aren't most of them?

Grain of Salt

[Anonymous Coward]

I would take what defendant claims with a grain of salt here.

I would want to see the email contents before getting outraged.

From your FA

'He's particularly alarmed because he's already got a criminal record: In 1995, he and his girlfriend pleaded guilty to 35 burglaries in Bucks County, Pa. The Philadelphia Daily News dubbed them "Bonnie & Clyde": "Their last embrace came in their Northeast Philadelphia apartment. Cops with a warrant did some breaking in of their own and caught the couple, well, coupling -- surrounded by half the booty they'd burgled." '

What was the email?

[Theaetetus]

This story was cross-posted at Fark.com also, and everyone immediately launches into a discussion of how awful AT&T is...

... and yet, we've never seen the email the guy sent. He hasn't posted it, and Gizmodo merely describes it as:

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.

Re:I dont get it

[MerlynEmrys67]

Ah lack of understanding of the constitutions amendments strikes again...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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

Re:Democrat Party

[drinkypoo]

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.