|
Here's what AT&T has done for me: With my wife's cell-phone bill spiraling skyward for several months, I rang up my friendly neighborhood AT&T Wireless representative (probably located in Sioux City). Let's call him Ralph. After pulling up my life on his computer screen, Ralph says something like: "Yeah, these charges are out of control." "You know why?" he asks, not waiting for an answer. "Cause those special offers you had ran out." "Since you guys are in business to make money," I joked for no earthly reason, "I guess I couldn't expect that you'd let me know that." Ralph managed a nervous chuckle. "So," I continued, "I want to cancel the service because to tell you the truth, I can get 500 minutes from Sprint for 50 bucks a month." That set Ralph's ears back, and he began dealing faster than a used-car salesman with a mortgage payment due. By the time he finished his spiel, he had conceded that AT&T was playing catchup to its rivals but would soon have more competitive rates. He urged me to hang tough until the new rates were released and as a teaser, promised me a rebate on the princely price I had been paying for service. Being genetically adverse to change, I took the bait and agreed to stick with old AT&T. LOST POINTS. Then on a recent Saturday, as I was going through a stack of bills I had put aside until after Christmas, I came across a snazzy offer to redeem the AT&T Rewards points I had built up using AT&T Long Distance. The brochure with the smiling soccer mom and two cute kids on the cover said I had slightly more than 2,800 points built up. I perused the offerings, finally settling on an AT&T 10-channel cordless phone -- one of those technological marvels that we seem to be buying just slightly less often than butter and milk. I dialed the 800 number, went through a menu selection, tapped in my member number, confirmed my address, and wound up listening to all the various categories of Rewards being offered. I picked "AT&T Communications Products," again listened to a list, and selected the cordless phone I'd seen in the brochure. After a moment, the machine told me my order couldn't be processed and transferred me to a customer representative. I paid a few bills while I listened to some dreadful elevator music on speaker phone. At last, a voice that sounded like one of the hillbillies who assault Ned Beatty in the movie Deliverance came on the line. In a saccharine twang, he asked for my name and number and then slyly slipped in: "You still usin' AT&T Long Distance?" When I reaffirmed that I was, he continued, telling me that I had 2,400 points to be redeemed. What happened to the other 400 points, I wondered, only to learn that they had been lost in the fine print. Seems Rewards only last so long, and as soon as the Times Square ball fell, 400 points earned in 1996 had expired. Stupid me, I thought, and pressed on for the 10-channel cordless. Twangy quickly countered that he thought the model had been "deplenished" and weren't bein' offered no more, but he'd check. "Nope, we got it," he said a few moments later. "Musta got in more inventory, but that model's not one we process out of our office." He offered twice to connect me to the "outside vendor" that handles the phone, but I declined, having already used up 20 minutes and what little patience I had. "Well," said Twangy, "thank you for usin' AT&T." "Well," I said, "I won't be using it for long." Shortly thereafter I opened an offer from AT&T Wireless. Ah, the long-awaited new deal. $89.99 for 600 minutes in all 50 states, even if you roam no further from New York than Jersey. Hello, Ralph? Scotti, BW senior editor for government and sports business, offers his unvarnished views of the world every Tuesday for BW Online EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT |
Copyright 1999, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.