Ordered Upgrade > Tech No-Show > Line Dead

The story so far: 12/4/2014 While updating my auto-pay credit card information, I realize I could upgrade my Uverse from 24Mbps to 45Mbps. I place the order, hesitating, because my connection has been rock-solid for years. The confirmation says that my installation is scheduled for 12/8/2014, 11 AM - 1 PM. “Wow! That’s quick!”, I think. 12/4/2014 - 12/8/2014 I get multiple text messages from AT&T asking me to prepare for my appointment and to make sure I will be present for it. I work from home — so this is not a problem, I will be here. 12/8/2014 12:50 PM. I get a call from a tech. The tech says that he is delayed and that he will be at my house in 45 minutes to do the upgrade installation. About 50 minutes later the tech calls again, saying he can’t make it today at all, that he is working on an outage elsewhere. I then ask the technician if it’s possible to re-schedule. The tech then says he will re-schedule me for the morning of 12/9/2014. Slightly confused (thinking “could it really be re-scheduled that simply”), I say “okay, come at any time, I will be here”. 12/8/2014 4:50 PM. My existing 24Mbps connection goes down. I haven’t had any issues with my Uverse for 2+ years, the entire time I’ve had it installed. I logically assume that this must be related to my upgrade order, and I wait for a call from the tech (in case he is now working on my upgrade after all) or the connection to return. I turn on the personal hotspot on my phone and log onto att.com. I notice, under my account profile, that what used to say “Max Turbo” now says “Hsia45”. I say to myself: “Ah, they switched my line to a higher profile before the tech got a chance to do his part”. 12/8/2014 6:00 PM. I chat online with a customer service person. I explain the upgrade order, the tech calling me to cancel, and then the consequent outage. This turns out to be a useless conversation in terms of trying to determine what actually happened. The person schedules a repair appointment for 12/9/2014, between 8 AM and 12 PM. Time spent chatting: 60 minutes total. 12/8/2014 7:00 PM. I called AT&T to tell them what is going on in person (since I wasn’t quite sure that my online chat had really resulted in an appointment being scheduled). AT&T assures me somebody will come tomorrow AM, as scheduled. I asked them that if in the meantime they could change my service back to “Max Turbo” (from “Hsia45”), my connection would probably return, and I would be okay until the upgrade order is actually completed (since I’m now realizing this upgrade might be more complicated than I initially thought). The person agreed that this was a good idea, indeed something she could do, and that it would take about 2 hours for the profile to switch back to “Max Turbo”. 12/8/2014 10:00 PM. About two hours later the connection is still down. Whether they switched it to “Max Turbo” or not. 12/9/2014 6:00 AM. The connection is still down. Whether they switched it to “Max Turbo” or not. 12/9/2014 9:00 AM. I log onto att.com. It now says “Max Turbo” again under my profile. So, somebody did “flip a switch” somewhere. I still have no connection, though. 12/9/2014 10:30 AM. With zero communication from AT&T, I decide to call them again to verify that my repair appointment is still on. The customer service person immediately tells me that “it’s definitely NOT on”. Nobody knows why it’s no longer scheduled to take place after I just confirmed it last night. I eventually talk to someone who says that a re-scheduled repair appointment is now taking place between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM. This person confirms somebody is definitely coming by 3 PM. 12/9/2014 3:00 PM. I call AT&T to tell them that nobody showed up. They again tell me that somebody is definitely coming, and that I should now wait until 4 PM. 12/9/2014 4:00 PM. I call AT&T to tell them that nobody showed up. They are now saying that “somebody keeps closing the open ticket” or something similar. They chat with the dispatch center for quite some time. The person tells me that she did something with the ticket so that it couldn’t be simply closed again with no appointment taking place. They assure me somebody is coming tonight. 12/9/2014 5:00 PM. I get a call from Glen (“Premises Technician”, “Uverse Installation & Repair”) who says he’s on the way to investigate the issue. Glen says he’s confused about the ticket and order history being so complex. I mention to Glen that we’ve had to make several calls to AT&T, and that he’s the first person to actually actively deal with the issue. 12/9/2014 5:40 PM. Glen calls again. He is now at the DSLAM/VRAD down the street from our house. Everything checks out okay there, he says. 12/9/2014 6:15 PM. Glen arrives at our house and establishes that there is no signal at all. The line is simply dead. Glen mentions that somebody else needs to now come over, potentially climb the pole on our property, and re-connect the wires so that the pair bonding will work. He re-does the inside wiring at the box outside and also at the wall plate so that it now uses all 4 wires. Glen then proceeds to file a “helper repair ticket” to get someone over to do the wiring at the pole tomorrow morning. Glen mentions that he gets to work at 11:30 AM and that it might just be him coming back to work on the issue, unless somebody else makes it here before him. Glen leaves his business card with me. 12/10/2014 11:00 AM. I email Glen mentioning that I haven’t heard anything from AT&T. I ask if the “helper repair ticket” was filed last night. 12/10/2014 11:27 AM. Glen emails me back and confirms that he filed the helper repair ticket last night, but he says that repair tickets are running behind. Glen says that he will let me know about an ETA later after talking to his manager. I’m really happy that I’m talking to somebody who’s following up and actually communicating about this issue. 12/10/2014 12:35 PM. Glen emails me saying there was a problem with my order (assuming he means the original upgrade order) and that it has been turned back over to the AT&T sales department. Glen suggests I call 1-800-288-2020, and try to get to the bottom of it myself. Glen concludes with “Sorry there's not anything more I can do from this point”. 12/10/2014 12:45 PM. I call 1-800-288-2020. I explain the issue — the entire history, just to re-iterate it once again. I then explain that Glen was here last night and that the line is completely dead. The first customer service person escalates me to Russ. I re-tell the whole story to Russ. Russ promises to call back within 30 minutes with a definite answer. I was on the phone 19 minutes total. 12/10/2014 2:11 PM. I call 1-800-288-2020 again. I explain the issue — the entire history, just to re-iterate it once again. I explain that Russ was handling this and promised to call me back within 30 minutes but didn’t. This customer service person doesn’t know who Russ is. This person escalates me to some other person. This person then chats with dispatch (or some other department) for about 20 minutes. The person explains to me that the order/ticket was closed when it should’ve remained open. Nobody knows why. The person then assures me a tech “will show up and fix the outside wiring problem by 8 PM” and that I “don’t even have to be at home”. As long as “the gate is left open and I have no dogs running loose”. To which I reply: “The gate is always open and I don’t have a dog.”. I, of course, remained skeptical about this tech showing up. From what Glen told me, somebody would have to climb up the pole, to do some re-wiring. I think to myself: “They’re going to do that before 8 tonight, when it’s pitch black outside!?”. I was on the phone 33 minutes total. 12/10/2014 4:36 PM. I google “Uverse” and some other words relating to what’s potentially going on. I find this quote from (supposedly) a Uverse tech: “the process on the network side of going from a single pair to a bonded pair at customer request is usually brutal and a call most agents dread getting. this [sic] is due to the amount of divisions this has to go through, and definetely [sic] not something that we can just 'click click done'. most [sic] sales (upgrade) agents will immediately refer it to us in tech support, and even then its [sic] a journey that often times wont [sic] go anywhere”. Wow! Is this what’s happening with my order? Did somebody do whatever might be step number one at the DSLAM/VRAD, and then realize they’d need to complete the job by climbing up a pole and do more wiring at the house? I’m still not entirely sure. 12/10/2014 6:30 PM. On hold with AT&T, trying to verify whether somebody is still coming, before 8 PM, as promised. 12/10/2014 7:10 PM. Wrapped up another phone call with AT&T. Short answer: nobody is coming tonight. “This appointment was canceled through dispatch” says AT&T. Nobody told us. “Why was it canceled?”, I asked. “Dispatch said there’s too much work in our area”. Wait, excuse me, AT&T? You kill my connection first, and then tell me there’s too much work in my area to come back and fix it? Also, the “helper repair ticket” for today was apparently filled out incorrectly by Glen. The ticket was then canceled because it wasn’t the “right ticket” or “properly filled out”. I pointed out that this was done last night yet earlier today AT&T assured me that somebody was coming, with no mention of an incorrect ticket or anything being canceled. I asked myself: “Are any of the people or departments at AT&T connected at all?”. We also, according to AT&T, had a random appointment coming up for 12/13/2014. Nobody knows what that appointment is or who made it. So, that appointment was then canceled. The final answer from AT&T to close out today: “We’ll deal with this in the morning. Somebody will call you back in the morning. We have to deal with dispatch. It’s the fault of dispatch, it’s the fault of dispatch!”. 12/11/2014 8:30 AM. I called the executive office and now have an official case number. The current promise from the executive office: “this will be handled in no more than two days”. I also found out that I was given a bogus phone number last night for the dispatch center. During that conversation, I asked “is there a number for the dispatch center that I can call directly?”. And I got the following answer from customer service: “Yes, sir, it’s 1-888-485-8310”. “An 888 number? Really?”, I thought. Turns out that’s an AT&T survey number. I was also given a bogus email address that was supposed to be a “higher up complaint email address”. Lovely. Thanks! I wasn’t expecting to get a direct number for the dispatch center but the fact that you actually lied about it and gave me a survey number to call!? I mean, really!? 12/11/2014 8:48 AM. A lady from 1-888-362-6886 called. She says she has no ETA for anything but wanted to follow up. Wow! This is the first follow-up phone call ever. Thank you! According to her, the dispatch center says that they're "under a heavy work load and unable provide an ETA for me”. I ask: “Is there an x number of hours I should wait before I call to inquire about it?”. She says: “No, sir, you don’t have to call us. We will call you. I promise we will call you when we have an ETA”. I say: “Alright. Well, you have to understand that I’m a little skeptical at this point about AT&T calling me back”. She continued, saying that I should just trust her and that they will call back with an ETA. Alright, I’ll trust you, I guess. What else can I do than just wait until you do have an ETA and actually show up to fix the issue? I guess I will try to get back to work now, to earn some money to pay for this month’s AT&T bill. 12/11/2014 10:55 AM. Since nobody, once again, called me back with an ETA, I call AT&T. As mentioned above, the person who called me this morning at 8:48, asked me to trust her and that she would call me back once they have an ETA. Anyway, I, once again, explain to a new person what’s going on. This person then calls dispatch to get an ETA. I’m on hold for some time. Meanwhile, @ATTCares starts DMing me on Twitter and asking if they could help. “Sure, please do help, if you can”, I say. The person I called gets tossed around between 3 or 4 different dispatch people. Meanwhile, Travis (@ATTCares) DMs me saying he has fixed the problem with the order and I now have an appointment for 9 - 11 AM tomorrow. Really? Travis fixed the problem? I’m still on hold. The person I called eventually comes back to me with this: “the ETA from dispatch is that nobody is coming today”. However, she is, right now, seeing a new ticket for 9 - 11 AM tomorrow. This appointment is to “Re-wire for a bonded pair and also new modem installation”. Now, did Travis just slot this appointment in without really looking at the history of this order, and will it once again be cancelled at some point because, ultimately, somebody should be climbing a pole before an installation can be finished? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. I might call again later, just to make sure this appointment hasn’t been canceled. Or, maybe the better option at this point is to just shut my mouth, and wait and see? 42 minutes on the phone total. 12/11/2014 3:42 PM. I get a call from 1-888-362-6886. Somebody asking whether anybody had called me back or not yet. I said no but that I had called AT&T at 10:55 AM, and that we’re supposed to have someone come over tomorrow between 9 and 11 AM. The person proceeded to say that he was calling to confirm our 9 - 11 AM appointment for tomorrow. I thanked him for calling us back. 12/11/2014 4:04 PM. Three guys in hard hats show up. I assume they are AT&T. But no, it’s a company contracted by LADWP. They need to climb up the pole to inspect the power lines (assuming this is due to the recent rains we’ve had). I laugh, thinking it’s ironic that these guys are climbing up this very same pole I’ve been hoping an AT&T guy would be climbing up, to fix the Uverse problem. I was tempted to ask if they could do the bonded pair for us while they’re at it. (At every turn, I’ve re-iterated that I work from home and really need this connection to work. And how I wasn’t anticipating that ordering an upgrade would actually render my existing service completely dead, before the upgrade installation was even completed.)