Marianne Schultz

I first called AT&T customer service last night after getting home from work, using the number I normally dial from my cell phone. I talked to a polite young man who, after hearing my description of what happened, said that I needed to talk to the warranty department and gave me their number. I called this number and spoke to Crystal, who sounded all of 15 years old, and she started the process to authorize a return and get me a new modem. After 15 minutes on the phone with her, she realized that I’m a Premier customer and that I was still within the 30-day return period and said, without much in the way of an apology, that she couldn’t handle this exchange because of my Premier status and because she’d thought that I was past the 30-day return period (despite the fact that I’d mentioned the dates of my order numerous times). She then gave me the number for the Premier warranty department. I called this number to find out that they were closed. Of course.

I called the Premier warranty department first thing this morning and was pleasantly surprised by the results. Davalyn issued a return label via email, which I received while I was still on the phone, placed an order for a replacement modem and realized that it should have been free for me to begin with, not the $29.99 I paid when I ordered it, and arranged a service credit for the 8 days I was unable to use the modem (they start charging you for service the moment you place an order regardless of when you actually receive the device). So, I have a new (refurbished) modem on the way to me for $0, a credit on my account for the past 8 days, and a return label in hand to ship back the non-functional modem I have now, after which I’ll receive a credit back to my credit card. Not bad in the end, eh? All of this took 1 hour to achieve on the phone with the long initial hold time, however, and I do own up to the fact that I didn’t think to call Premier customer service first last night instead of the “regular” customer service number, which could have avoided some of the run-around I got. Oh well. Now I just hope I receive the replacement before my trip to CES (I love my job!) next week.