What kind of company is AT&T?
AT&T woke me up at 4:42am this morning to tell me that they were going to give lists of all my phone calls, who I talk to, and which web sites I visit and when to a broad list of marketing companies so that those companies could try to sell me things.
This afternoon I went to AT&T and asked for them to disable their locks from my iPhone so I could use it while out of the country. They refused since I still had a few days left in my contract with them. I was clear that I wasn’t leaving the contract, this would cost AT&T nothing. They refused.
So let’s try to opt out of CPNI:
• Link in email, wants the account id and zip code. Does not work. Account is now locked and won’t unlock. It suggests I click on a “chat” button of which there is none on the page. (This may be because I had to change the account billing zip code to my daughter’s residence to enable her femtocell.)
• The CPNI opt out page suggests I get my account number from the email. The email does not contain my account number because they replaced most of it with “x”s.
• Find my account number on an old bill…
We’re Having Trouble Processing Your CPNI Request You can still make your request by phone. Please call a representative at 1-800-288-2020.
• Call the 800 number, navigate the voice robot to be told “This office is now closed, please call during normal business hours.” No hint what those might be.
• Try to 800 number automated system. This one worked! It took three tries to get the account number in, it doesn’t like pauses while you look for the next few digits, but it did work. Maybe. There is no apparent way to see if you are actually opted in or out.
They could have just included a working link, with a unique identifier, in the opt out notification email and saved me 20 minutes. But they also could have not woken me up early on Sunday morning with their email too. They just aren’t that kind of company.