On nonsense and monkey business...

For the past four years, I’ve had the following services bundled through AT&T:

1. My home phone.


2. Internet.


3. DISH Network.

At the end of April, in preparation for my move, I went ahead and called AT&T with the intent of transferring all of my services to the new address.

However, once connected to a customer service representative, I was convinced to switch from DISH to U-Verse by the AT&T lady on the other end of the phone. Trevor had mentioned receiving a flyer advertising U-Verse in the mail, and seemed interested. But I wasn’t 100% persuaded until I spoke with the representative and crunched the numbers (it would be a little cheaper a month for a comparable U-Verse package to the one I’ve been enjoying with DISH).

The fact that I wouldn’t lose TV signal every time it rained was also a perk – although, I can’t say it really effected my decision that day on the phone. Honestly, I had no idea that a satellite wasn’t involved until the U-Verse dude was installing the system on Saturday and explained the wild, wild world of “Fiber Optics” to me. I know, I know: I’m an idiot.

But, as always, I digress.

Since I was transferring all of my services except DISH Network, the nice lady at AT&T offered to go ahead and cancel it for me. We went through the whole line of pre-cancellation questions: When to stop DISH service (April 30th since DISH bills monthly and the month was almost over); When to transfer my home phone number (May 8th); When to install U-Verse (May 9th); etc. She even explained the logistics of returning the DISH DVR: A self-addressed, pre-posted box would arrive in the next 10 days at my current address. All I would have to do was pack up the DVR and remote controls in the box provided, and mail it back to DISH within 30 days. After the DVR was returned, I would be good to go. My commitment to DISH would be over.

Or so I thought.

Today, I received my AT&T bill notification electronically through my bank. It was for an odd amount, so I opened the bill to investigate. After scrolling through it, I realized that two major things were wrong:

1. My new address wasn’t listed on the bill.


2. DISH had already charged me for programming from 5/1/2009 through 5/30/2009.

Hmmmmmm. Something was amiss.

Granted, I hadn’t received the prepaid box for the DVR yet, but I technically didn’t cancel the DISH account until April 29th – two weeks ago tomorrow. The 10 day period only expired over the weekend, so I really wasn’t that concerned (although, I HAD thought about it and decided I would call if the box didn’t arrive by Wednesday). But, still, box or no box, I shouldn’t be charged for another month of programming. That was definitely an error.

Figuring I might as well take care of the problem while I was thinking about it, I went ahead and called AT&T on my lunch break. I thought I could use the same phone call to inquire about the status of the DISH DVR return box.

After talking to four (4!) different AT&T representatives, I came to learn the following:

Despite the fact that AT&T bundles their services with DISH and AT&T can initiate service with DISH, AT&T cannot cancel DISH services. But – for whatever reason (none of which I fully understand) – many of the AT&T representatives apparently still offer to cancel your DISH services when you agree to make the switch from DISH to U-Verse. In reality, however, AT&T has no authority to do so and you have to go directly through DISH if you wish to cancel.

As a result of DISH not really being cancelled, AT&T could not fully change my address on my account because DISH was still listed at the current residence (instead of my new address with U-Verse). This means that I have had multiple addresses connected to a single account and phone line since the end of April, which – needless to say – is confusing. It also creates a billing problem because I’m being charged for the different addresses on the same account separately. I’m sure this will end up taking months to sort out – I have zero faith in large companies when it comes to fixing small errors of their own making.

And, despite cancelling the DISH service with AT&T (and having AT&T tell me that the DISH service was – indeed – cancelled), the DISH service was not cancelled and I have been charged for DISH programming for the month of May.

Grumble, grumble.

DISH, to their credit, feels bad for the confusion created by AT&T, and has offered to credit my account for most (but not all) of May.

What gets me is that AT&T can transfer me directly to DISH and vice versa. You would think that companies so closely tied to each other would be able to make the process a little easier. Especially since AT&T told me the exact same thing that DISH did about the process of returning my DVR (prepaid box will arrive in 10 days, must return DVR and remotes within 30 days, etc.). AT&T obviously knows how DISH operates. Am I missing something here? Why wouldn’t AT&T just tell me to contact DISH directly to cancel? Because I would have if I had not been told by AT&T that they had taken care of it. It honestly would not have made a difference, and AT&T could have transferred me to DISH if they wanted to save me the trouble of hanging up and dialing another number (which, again, would not have bothered me to do!). All I wanted was my DISH account to be cancelled. Being charged needlessly for a service I am no longer using does not make me happy! Talk about a problem that didn’t need to be a problem!

If I had to guess (and I really don’t know anything), I’d speculate that AT&T use to be able to cancel DISH in the not-so-distant past. But now that AT&T has started U-Verse and is actively marketing it to their customers, DISH no longer wants AT&T to have any authority over their active accounts (mainly to prevent AT&T from stealing their customers). AT&T still acts like they have the authority to cancel DISH’s accounts, though, so they can hook customers like me into changing to U-Verse by making it seem so simple (even though I'm already choosing their service over DISH and it makes no sense why they would make that process more complicated than necessary – and at my expense, too!). They even divulge word-for-word what DISH is going to tell you about returning the DVR. It all sounds very legitimate and easy (which should have been my first clue that something was very wrong!).

Of course, what AT&T fails to mention is that you really have to ASK to be transferred to DISH to actually cancel your account. And poor DISH ends up looking like the bad guy, because they’ve continued to charge you for a service that you supposedly canceled with AT&T.

I’m convinced it is a scam designed to undermine DISH by AT&T. Can I prove it? No, but something isn’t right over at AT&T. And I doubt I’m the first (or only!) person to be told by AT&T that they’ve canceled my DISH service when I switched to U-Verse. Especially, since I had to be transferred to four different people at AT&T before FINALLY being transferred to DISH (odd since it was ALWAYS DISH that I needed to talk to). Something smells fishy, no? All this is creating more work than necessary for absolutely no reason. Which maybe makes sense for a company so obviously run by a bunch of monkeys.

Or maybe I am just dealing with gross incompetence on a very human level? It’s possible. Very possible.

Either way, I might be returning to DISH sooner than I thought…