Rant on "My Caller ID has been Hijacked!"

For 3 weeks, people I have been calling have been saying, hey whats up with your phone, your caller ID says Thomas Lotter.   This could be very disturbing to a potential business client, or an existing client who would be wondering what the heck is up….what didn’t you pay your phone bill, now you have to borrow a phone?

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I called ATT, big run around as usual. 30 minutes invested.

After talking to a flunky, who said it’s the other carriers problem and that she couldn’t do anything.    She said you have to talk to the “other carriers”.    How many others “I don’t know”.    How can I get a hold of them and what do I say to them?  “I can’t help you with that, it’s the other carriers problem”.   No it’s my problem because potential clients could be very turned off or not even answer the phone if they see an incorrect caller ID.      “There is nothing we can do Sir”

Since the flunky didn’t even have good lies, I asked if she could detail my whole issue to the supervisor so the supervisor could not just call me back, but call me back with an answer.  She said her message system only allowed about 50 characters, all she could say was “customer caller ID not correct”

She had  supervisor call me back 2 hours later (not bad for a Saturday)

She said its not ATT fault, its those other “carriers” who didn’t update their records.

In explaining to her that it is not an update problem, but that is was correct ID and then became incorrect ID.

She said that their database department has sent a request to Time Warner to update their database.    I see….so there is something that ATT can do…..

I asked how.    She said that she had sent an email to ATT database people.  

I asked how did she know that ATT database people sent the request to TW database?

She said, oh it probably didn’t happen yet.

I asked if I could get a record of her request to ATT database people, she said no, that is internal correspondence.

I asked if I could get a phone number for ATT database people so I could verify when they sent the request.   She said the database people don’t talk to customers on the phone.

I asked for an email to the ATT database people, she stated that is proprietary protected information.

I asked her to confirm that the TW database people received the request, she stated she couldn’t do that.

I asked her for a phone or email to the TW database people.      She said she didn’t have that information.

I asked her to check up in 7 to 10 business days, and report back to me if TW updated their records.     She said they don’t provide that service.  

I said what if it get lost in the process, and I lose 2 customers who are put off by having a fake name show up on caller ID, then what-- I call back after 10 days and go through the whole shenanigans again>?   “We can’t control their database Sir”

She continued, I just had another client who had the same type of problem with TW caller ID.        So they are trained to use a deflection….don’t worry because lots of people are screwed just like you.

She said I could call back to ATT in 7 to 10 days to check on things if I liked.  

And these companies make 40% profit margin, whilst most “real” businesses that are not monopolies who capture their government regulators, are happy to end up with 8% to 10%.   They only have to pretend they have any respect for their “captive audience”

Rant Out

Then, after never being able to remember an email from ATT, I receive this 2 minutes after I post up my blog rant.    Wow!