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Tuesday July 7, 2009
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AT&T has a new message for its copper-wire customers: Keep your landline, or put your loved ones in peril. At least, that seems to be the idea behind a new Home Base campaign, which lists the reasons why it believes having a home phone is important, according to GigaOm.
Among the reasons given: you'll always have a phone even when the power goes out, 911 responders will know your exact location if you have an emergency, you can fax from it, and it doesn't drop calls.
In and of itself, this isn't so bad. But the company's picture of an ambulance racing to the scene of an emergency is a little over the top. The fact that paying for a landline means more revenue for AT&T? Irrelevant. Remember, if you disconnect it and you have a family, it means You Are a Bad Person.
Also, AT&T can't count (see above).
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July 7, 2009 5:43 PM
Wow - that's pretty terrible. Considering exactly how badly AT&T needs to keep its hold on the wireless space and the overall trend towards wireless devices for consumers and enterprise VoIP for businesses instead of land-lines, you'd think that they'd try to make a legitimate argument instead of using FUD.
Then again, perhaps that itself points to the lack of there being a legitimate argument?
July 7, 2009 7:03 PM
I'm not surprised. I have their service now and it seems as though they will stop at nothing to weasel out just a few more dollars from their customers by purposefully tagging you with fees and then when you call to straighten it out, it takes about an hour and three different service reps who don't communicate with each other, much less, speak good English. So you do that more than twice and it's easier just to pay the unjust bill!!
July 7, 2009 9:59 PM
The Federal Government needs to look very carefully at some of the billing practices of At&T. They should split them up again. They change prices then have half educated agents try to give a reason why the price was changed. If you ask to speak to a supervisor there is none present; and if you leave your name and number for one to call it never happens. We need a movement to have all customers leave AT&T and then see how successful their high handed billing practices would be to their earnings.
July 8, 2009 1:30 AM
All above must be under 30. A land line is the ONLY safe way to conduct financial transactions. There is no such thing as a secure internet site as many will eventually discover. The cost of a wire line is trivial compared to what you will lose by banking on the net. I run 9 home computers - one on cable and the rest on an AT&T DSL line. It worked fine during a hurricane when the cable was out for a week.
Nuff said.
July 8, 2009 3:38 PM
@ KRHill - WRONG, there is no truly safe way to conduct financial transactions but the safest is in person and in cash. A hard line is just as easily compromised as an internet connection or internet site and you can do less on your end to mitigate the risks.
By the way... yes the $16 charge for a name change on an account due to marriage was so trival I should have never used it to convince my wife to drop the (lack of) service. More power to you if you want to pay just under $30 in taxes and fees for a "service" listed at $15 (just don't expect everyone to be so guilible).
September 5, 2009 8:51 PM
I've been trying to drop my landline since April 2009 and Verizon won't do it. I call back at least once a month and they pretend that everything is set up and it will be dropped in two days, but it's not. Nice that I keep getting bills. I'm going to write up my notes and send them to 60 minutes, the NYTIMES and the Wash Post. Ludicrous thievery.