Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com (07/16/88)
No one ever said AT&T was perfect. I've always been a supporter of the
company, and have never yet seen a competitor with quite the class and
reliability. Still, even Ma Bell, as we knew her for many years, can
mess things up now and then. Consider what happened when I had to get a
new PIN recently --
Early in June, I got mugged coming home on the subway one evening, and my
wallet was stolen. The loss included a couple of credit cards, my state
identification card (issued here for non-drivers in lieu of a driver's
license), and my AT&T Calling Card.
I put a stop on the credit cards the same evening, and about midnight that
Friday night also put a stop on my calling card PIN. I have both the regular
unrestricted PIN as well as a restricted ('Call Me') type PIN. The latter
is useful since a relative frequently calls me late in the evening and I am
able to charge it on Reach Out as long as a calling card assigned to my
phone is used.
I told the AT&T Representative to put a stop on the unrestricted PIN, and
issue a new one. I said there was no reason to put a stop on the restricted
PIN, since all it was good for was calling my number anyway. Furthermore, I
had not been carrying the restricted card, therefore the mugger would not
have known about that PIN.
None the less, the next day my relative calls me to say the restricted PIN
has also been cancelled. I call back to AT&T to get it turned on, and the
rep says she will call me *at the phone number in their records* to read me
the restricted and unrestricted PIN being issued. I asked why not just turn
back on the old one? She said can't do it that way.
She called and read me the PIN for each, and said the actual card would arrive
in the mail 'in six weeks or so.'
Several days later I went to my post office box and found a calling card from
Illinois Bell. It had the PIN I had been quoted on the phone by the AT&T rep
earlier in the week, and since the logo and design on the card was (to me)
much more attractive than the plain AT&T card, I decided to carry the new
Illinois Bell card in my wallet instead. It also has a magnetic strip for
use in card reader type phones, etc.
In case you are wondering, the Illinois Bell design is a blue plastic card,
with white clouds and a long beige colored phone cord stretching across the
clouds, with a message: Dialing Instructions On Back Side. It is quite an
attractive piece of plastic.
Two days later at the post office, I am asked to call at the counter for a
package too large for my box. In it I found <five more> cards, this time
from AT&T, and with the same PIN as the earlier IBT card and the phone quote.
I called and asked why did I get five cards. You didn't order five, they
asked? No I did not. Then about three days later, another box from AT&T
too large for the mailbox, and this one had <five> Call Me restricted cards.
This, despite the fact that I never actually give out the Call Me cards to
anyone; I just tell them the four digit PIN to append to the number when
they hear the special tone.
Two days later, my relative calls me. The new restricted PIN is dead once
again. On a hunch I tried my Illinois Bell unrestricted PIN -- dead also.
This was on the first of July, late in the day. I called 1-800-222-0300 and
raised enough hell to make them think they got their fireworks a couple
days early this year. The rep put me on hold while she called Illinois Bell
to see what was up this time.
She came back on to say nothing could be done because the computer was down
until Tuesday, July 5, and would I please be patient. I gave a very snotty
response in kind, asking if AT&T Reps were now getting their training from
Sprint Customer Service. I concluded by telling her to cancel the Reach Out,
cancel all cards and I would see if Sprint was able to do better this time.
She did apologize and said a supervisor would call me back 'soon'.
Lo and behold, Saturday about 8 AM I did get a call from a woman at AT&T
who said she had the authority to look at the Illinois Bell data base and
she was at that moment looking to see if she could detirmine the problem.
I stayed on the line with her for close to 20 minutes while she puttered
around, and she finally said for some reason she was unable to get the
system to provide a PIN that would 'stick' with the file maintainence she
was doing. "I'll get back to you,' she said.....
Sunday, July 3 about noon: She called again and said the problem seemed to
be that 'there has been so much activity on the account in recent weeks
the system, as a security precaution, is not issuing a new PIN.' I told
her of course there had been alot of maintainence; ten cards in my mail from
AT&T alone, plus one from IBT, etc. She said, 'Illinois Bell certainly has
messed this account up; I will make it my business to get it cleared up
personally Tuesday morning when the business office is open...' and she
again said I would have to do without for a couple days.
Tuesday morning I went to the post office for my mail. Guess who had sent
me *two more packages of five cards each* -- AT&T of course, with still
different PINs than before, explaining why the PINS which had worked until
the week before were suddenly dead. But nothing is simple in life. I tried
the new PINS in the latest shipment, and they did not work either, because
of the maintainence that had been done over the July 2-3 period by the
woman who called me.
When I got to my office Tuesday morning, I had a message to call Mrs. So and So
at Illinois Bell. I called, and she asked me which PIN(s) -- of the several
received from AT&T and themselves in recent weeks -- I would prefer. I said
why don't we keep the one on the card IBT sent me three weeks ago, and the
restricted one from the first batch from AT&T. Consider it done, she said.
Give me until about noon, and try both PINs. When I went to lunch at 11:30 I
tried, both worked, and have continued to work since with no difficulty.
I called her back, thanked her profusely, and asked if we knew for certain
this time, before I called my elderly relative and gave her still another
worthless PIN. She told me they would be okay, but asked me to allow about
24-48 hours before assuming it would work all over the country. "We will
merge tapes with the other Bell Companies later today, and with the GTE
data base tonight sometime."
Almost as an afterthought she added, "Say! Do you have a Sprint PIN or one
from MCI? Let me check and see if those got bounced out also." I told her
I did not have an active PIN from either of those companies at present. She
complained, "AT&T is *always* taking orders on PINS and then duplicating or
triplicating the orders, causing the PINS to cancel each other out, and
sometimes violating our security procedure in such a way it causes the
subscriber's Sprint PIN to bounce also."
I told her that the AT&T rep from two days before had blamed IBT for doing
the same thing and screwing up AT&T's files. She just laughed and said,
"Judge Greene made the Right Choice, didn't he!"
We let it go at that; my PIN has worked properly ever since. Aside from not
enjoying getting mugged, I do hope I don't have to cancel/change my phone
PIN again anytime soon.
Patrick Townson