~The rant is about AT&T.
~It seems there are as many UNHAPPY AT&T customers as there are HAPPY ones....maybe it's the same way with Verizon, although I can honestly say that I don't randomly hear about unhappy Verizon customers as often as I hear of unhappy AT&T customers.
~So here's the deal...about 35 days ago, I finally ordered the iPhone...the only way I could justify the insanely high service prices was to qualify for the "text, talk, surf" discount through bundling my services. We already had home phone, internet & DISH through AT&T, so bundling was a "no-brainer".
~About 1 week later I received a confirmation statement regarding the iPhone & service costs. The $25.00 discount was missing, so I called AT&T. They reported that is was indeed in the computer system and would show up on the bill. On this same call, I was informed of AT&Ts new cable service, Uverse. Turns out that switching to Uverse from DISH would save us $40+ per month. Again, a no-brainer. We made the change.
~This is where things get tricky...it also turns out now that changing to Uverse CANCELLED OUT my $25.00 discount via the "text talk surf" plan EVEN THOUGH my services are STILL BUNDLED and STILL with AT&T. WTF? The AT&T rep DID NOT tell me this during this phone call. Does this sound shady to anyone else out there?
~On that same phone call I was also told I would be receiving a $250 gift card as "incentive" to change services and/or pay any cancellation fees with DISH. Today I was told that card is $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Now of course changing back to DISH would be a HUGE ordeal...service people have to come out, the countless phone calls etc. Just not worth it and frankly, AT&T knows most people, me included, will not do this and so ultimately I'm screwed.
~My only option to cut costs was to lower my minute plan, which I immediately did. That will reduce my bill by $20/month and I'll just have to be uber-cautious with my phone calls. By making this change, I also lose the A-list option, which is the ability to call 5 numbers (on other service providers) w/no "minute cost". This was a nice bonus since my parents are both (still) on Verizon and O's work phone is US Cellular. Ugh. In reviewing my first bill, I still have a cushion of 150 minutes before reaching the limit on my lower minute plan, so I'm thinking that this should be fine.
~I may even be able to drop down 1 step on the text messaging plan, but I'm going to hold off for now...it would save an additional $5.00/month and I would be going from Unlimited to 1500 messages/month. I am pretty sure I don't send 1500 text messages per month, in fact, I don't think I ever have, but I will monitor it just to make sure since exceeding would likely cost me an arm & a leg.
~All that to say AT&T did NOTHING to make me a happy customer, didn't even offer a small credit for my inconvenience in having to call them, be put on hold (forever) & being transferred 3x OR for the fact that my bill is still NOT bundled when in fact it should have been bundled all along.
~If I didn't like that
and the sequel and second book is 
