AT&T Customer Service

4,000+ rollover minutes to use by July 4th. Plus the 600 I never use. How will I do it?

23 months ago I was in the midst of a painful, languishing dating situation. He was hot, he was a musician, he had a good job, he had a great house, he had 4 dogs. He was also hot. The problem was that he had a Cingular phone & he wouldn't fucking stop calling me, constantly, all day, all the time. He would even call me during my Thursday night BWL raid, when I had told him I would be unavailable to chat. But I put up with this nonsense because, well, he was hot.

He ran my T Mobile bill up to $200. I went out & got a damn Cingular phone.

I got rid of him a month later. I just can't talk on the phone that much. And here I was stuck with a 2-year contract. I had perhaps 5 friends with Cingular accounts, all of whom were more likely to text or call from a landline than call me on their Cingular phones. I'm not much of a phone talker to begin with.

I gave the phone to my mom who used an average of 45 weekend minutes per month & nothing else. Add 600 new rollover minutes, every billing cycle. For 23 months. Yeah, minutes expired while I paid $55 each month. Sheesh.

But emancipation is now imminent.

Cancellation was a painless, pleasant process. Cancellation can't be done at the AT&T website, & when I was informed I would have to call their customer service number I experienced misgivings.

I called 1-800-331-0500 & went through the automated menu options. The recorded voice spoke quickly (unlike HMSA Provider Services' recordings, which draw out every word & every space between every word to the max length short of actually slowing down the recording) & I only had to choose options twice: 0, then 4. Then as I was being transferred to a representative, my T Mobile phone lost signal & I was disconnected. For a second I thought it was a dirty trick (they did this to us at Tricare), but then I realized it was my T Mobile connection. Talk about irony.

My 2nd call to the 1-800 number was answered almost immediately by a CSR who was not from India (hey, this is already better than Dell!). Not only could I hear her clearly, she was very pleasantly to the point & did not attempt to waylay my cancellation attempt by reciting special offers that I might be interested in over & over again (already better than Citicard). I explained that I wished to cancel simply because of non-use, which could be seen plainly on my account information. She then transferred me to another representative who would do the actual cancellation.

I was interviewed briefly & not inappropriately, & then the cancellation was done. I was informed of the exact end date, my options should I wish to reactivate, & details of my final billing. She thanked me for my business with AT&T & wished me well.

Now, that's how a cancellation of service should go.