I have Sprint service, had for years, with no real reason to switch… until the iPhone 3G. My contract with Sprint was up some time ago, so I go to the ATT store today, to sign up and switch, but apparently AT&T are retarded.
You see, I have a family plan. I have my phone, my wife’s phone, and one phone for her mother and one for her father. My wife and I live in Chicago. Her parents live in Columbus, Ohio. This is not a problem for Sprint. It should not be a problem for AT&T.
Every month, for years now, Sprint sends a bill to my house. It has all four numbers on it. I pay $10 each for the additional lines. We all share our “family” minutes. Easy!
So, the AT&T employee at the store insisted that AT&T couldn’t do that. All of the numbers had to be in the same area code. Then he checked with his manager. His manager said, they have to be in the same “market”. So they wouldn’t do it. This couldn’t be right, I thought. Surely, this must just be something that the 16 year old working the counter at the local store can’t figure out.
So I go home, and call AT&T. No, the representative on the phone explained to me that “the system won’t let us enter it that way, so we can’t do it”.
Am I the only one who thinks this is utterly ridiculous??! It’s 2008. AT&T is a nationwide provider. *OTHER CARRIERS CAN DO IT.* It makes absolutely no sense to me that AT&T can’t do it because they can’t “bill across markets”. I don’t even care if I have to pay “Chicago” rates for them. The point is to have consolodated billing and share minutes. It’s supposed to be about convenience for families. Am I really the only/first person to want to do this with AT&T? Is AT&T really this clueless?
I’m frustrated.