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.

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Completely untrue and an insult to medicine. It is actually like choosing to live under Hilter or Stalin.

Re:re AT&T

[samkass]

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.

not just about the Ipad

[Widowwolf]

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..

Re:In related news...

[je ne sais quoi]

On the other hand, the political climate in the U.S. is becoming unstable. Just off the top of my head, in the last couple of years we've had a security guard at the holocaust museum gunned down by a white supremicist holocaust denier, a guy flew his plane into an IRS building because he didn't want to pay his taxes and a christian militia that was allegedly planning on murdering police officers. This is to say nothing about the people screaming threats at e.g., Obama, at conservative/tea party rallies. 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. We heard one side of this story, until we know the whole story in the court case, I will reserve judgment.

I'm certainly not for AT&T sending C&D orders because people are e-mailing them rants, but I am tired of the minority of people in this country who think they can hold the entire country hostage to their will through threats, imaginary or real. I'm also tired of hearing of people espousing sedition.

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[swb]

Is Comcast that bad?

I recently switched and have been happy. I got 12/2 business class with 5 static IPs for $69/month, free installation and it was all up and working within FOUR DAYS OF ORDERING.

Performance has been great, and it beats the shit out of the 1.5 I was stuck with on DSL forever.

Re:No, it was a republic senator

[Eryq]

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.

Re:Indeed, it is like AT&T doesn't have Androi

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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 just emailed their CEO too.

[Lord Kano]

I just emailed him a link to the Wikipedia page on the Streisand Effect.

These are his email addresses.
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

I wonder if they'll respond to me too.

LK

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[LordKronos]

Is Comcast that bad?

Are they that bad? Well, lets see. The last time I had them, I had no internet service for 3 days. After repeated calls and a tech coming out I got no resolution. Finally I took it upon myself to install a packet sniffer, and what do you know...all of the IP traffic on my subnet was in an entirely different range than the IP I was being assigned. I picked a random IP in the valid range that appeared to not be in use and statically assigned it, and *mysteriously* every was suddenly working. I had to wade through first level tech support, convince them to let me talk to a network engineer (because he had no clue what I was talking about), and then tell that guy how to fix my internet service.

Then there is the billing department. The bill is conveniently itemized so that you can see the comcast charges, and then separate entries for the franchise fees, city taxes, universal service fees, etc. Comcast raised the bill by exactly $1 with absolutely no mention in any of my previous 6 bills about a coming change. That $1 increase was in the line item for the comcast charge. Yet when I spoke to the billing department, they were insistent that they absolutely did not raise the rate on me, and that the increased charge was solely due to city taxes. Even showing them my previous bill and pointing out exactly where the increase occurred could not budge them. They blatantly lied to me, and continued to lie even when shown evidence that they were clearly lying.

Now, compare that to WOW, where I can personally email the CTO directly about a problem, and he'll happily respond with a technical answer, and even admit fault if something went wrong on their end. Or with the install techs, who routinely show up in the first 30 minutes of the 4 hour service window, instead of the last hour (or even after the 4 hour window). And those techs are always willing to chat with me about how much better WOW treats them and makes it easier to do their job.

yeah, comcast is that bad. I kind of feel bad for the comcast guys that come around to my door every now and then trying to get me to switch back. They probably feel like I treat them as if they're carrying the plague or something, as I won't even humor them to listen to their sales pitch. I'm very polite in declining to hear their offer (I know the guys going door to door really have nothing to do with my experiences), but they always act like they've never seen someone so dissatisfied with a company before.

Re:In related news...

[jbeach]

What makes me say that is, my own eyes.

We haven't started another two wars, we actually have a health care bill, we actually have a stimulus package, we actually passed the Ledbetter Fair Pay act, and on and on. That makes him far better than Bush right there. And as a bonus, Obama didn't bring that obscenity Palin one heart attack away from The Button.

Now, there's a lot with Obama that sucks. I wish he was also better than Bush on warrantless wiretapping, prisoner rights, stuff that really bothers the crap out of me. But Obama's not really, at least at this point. Can't deny it.

But he's still better than Bush in enough other ways, and it's important to keep a clear perspective on it rather than get sucked into purity troll rhetoric. That's what gave Nader enough juice to give the White House to Bush ten years ago - when it's pretty clear that Gore, whatever his faults, would have been a far better President.

The C&D gave a glimpse the true AT&T

[anonymouse23]

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

Re:Having to choose between AT&T and Comcast

[Amouth]

never seen dancing with egos before but

http://www.watching-paint-dry.com/ [watching-paint-dry.com]
is currently off line as it has dried and is now directing you to
http://www.watching-grass-grow.com/ [watching-grass-grow.com]

so really not much choice there...

Re:How is it bait & switch

[Totenglocke]

The modem also doesn't support frequencies for 3G other than AT&T, so you'd be stuck at EDGE speeds. So you're locked into AT&T, but on paper you're not.