We are in the middle of a Covid pandemic, which means that the elderly are even more dependent than usual on their land-line telephones. Yes, there’s always the alternative of cell phone service, but many elderly people don’t have cell phones, or (as is the case with my parents, age 94 and 91) they have cell phones that get such lousy reception in their houses that they might as well not have them. The cell reception is better when you step outside, but my parents don’t do that anymore.
For circumstances like this, one would expect AT&T to maintain an emergency telephone number you could call to say, “Hey, my quite elderly parents’ phone went out, please get someone out today or tomorrow to fix it.” I spent the last 48 hours using everything in my reporter’s toolbox to figure out what that phone number is. I failed, because the number doesn’t exist.
Let me repeat that. If a phone line goes out, and the people who depend on it are old and frail or otherwise uniquely dependent for their personal safety on being able to use their telephone, there is no emergency telephone number you can call to alert a living, breathing human being of that situation. Not if the provider is AT&T. I wrote a whimsical obituary a few years ago for the telephone call, but even I never imagined we’d soon reach the point where even the American Telephone and Telegraph Company would stop talking to its customers by telephone.
Do you have a minute?
On Thursday I phoned my parents, who live 3000 miles away, to wish them a happy Thanksgiving. I couldn’t get through. My sister, who lives nearby to them, assured me that they they were fine but their phone service had gone out. When I tried again on Friday, their phone was still out. I set about getting it fixed.
After a couple of false starts, I found the AT&T number that’s specific to landline service. Navigating its phone tree, I connected to a voice-recognition robot that dealt with repair requests. It did a pretty good job of checking my parents’ number to ascertain that, yes this wasn’t a problem inside the house, it was a problem with the outside phone line. A repair man, it said, would be there in four days.
Here are some words and phrases that AT&T’s voice recognition robot couldn’t parse: “That’s not good enough.” “Emergency.” “Need service sooner.” “Send someone today or tomorrow.” Maybe it just didn’t want to.
The robot did understand “connect me to a person,” though I had to phrase it a few different ways to get the idea across. But that request got me to a recording that said everybody was gone for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. No “If this is an emergency, dial X.” No “Please leave a message after the beep.” Just go away.
Next I took to Twitter. I’m no Influencer, but I have 19,800 followers, which isn’t nothing, and I figured if I made a polite stink, then AT&T’s social-media department would get in touch with me. I knew from experience that social-media monitors never sleep. Two elderly and infirm people not being able to get swift repair of their phone line during a deadly Covid pandemic—that’s not an emergency. But their son getting so pissed off about that that he complains about it on Twitter? That’s a very serious emergency, because it risks bad publicity going viral.
Reply from @ATT was swift. “We’re here to help, Timothy,” said a Twitter DM. “Let’s get this resolved!”
By DM, I answered by stating my problem, and could I please talk to a person about why this needed to be done quickly, and here is my phone number.
“We’re here to help, Timothy,” said a second Twitter DM. “Let’s get this resolved!”
I DM’d back that we couldn’t get this resolved unless somebody actually read what I was texting.
“We’re here to help, Timothy,” said a third Twitter DM. “Lets get this resolved!”
Finally, 40 minutes after my initial request for help, I received a DM from CalebP. He said he’d contacted the landline service people and would let me know when he heard back. Meantime, if I wanted to talk on the phone, here was his 800 number and extension. The 800 number led me to a recording that said the extension I entered was invalid. I DM’d CalebP to this effect and could he please send me a number that worked, or call me. He didn’t reply.
Fifteen minutes later, however, CalebP DM’d me excitedly to say the landline service people had informed him that a service person would be at my parents’ house in four days! Also, in tacit acknowledgment that the whole reason I had summoned @ATT was that four days was too long to wait: “If they are able to dispatch someone sooner they will.”
Caleb, here’s my phone number! Again! Let’s please talk about this! No reply.
That was Friday.
On Saturday afternoon, after I’d tweeted out a couple of irritated updates, I received a text saying a repairman would arrive at my parents’ house later that day. Hooray! AdamG phoned me to say he was personally on the case, even though it was his day off.
AdamG is a prince. He phoned me a second time an hour or so later to assure me that my parents’ phone service had been restored.
But when I asked AdamG how others in a similar emergency situation—it can’t be uncommon—are supposed to alert AT&T, he didn’t have any great answers.
What you’re supposed to do, AdamG advised, is log onto this URL:
https://twitter.com/ATTHelp
and then DM that you need help. Interestingly, this is a tip that you will find nowhere on AT&T’s web page for landline support.
It’s a secret!
It would appear that AT&T doesn’t actually want to hear about your Covid landline emergency. It’s a matter of public knowledge that the company wants to get out of the landline business altogether; a few years ago it said it hoped to achieve this by the end of 2020. (It’s going to miss that deadline.) The Minotaur’s labyrinth that the company has set up to keep customers from reaching it to report a land-line emergency seems less bug, as the tech cliche goes, than feature.
After registering that bitter thought, I phoned my parents and wished them a happy Thanksgiving. They were delighted finally to hear from me. They had spoken to my sister moments before. Thanks again to AdamG for making this conversation only two days tardy as opposed to the threatened five.
Hi, Timothy. I have had an eerily similar experience with AT&T. I emailed the At&T CEO and eventually i received a reply from an underling. The promises made by that guy were never kept. Unlike you, I haven't the resolve and energy to write about it. Not only did the company's lack of care for its customers yield nothing, I wasted 14 hours of time trying to resolve the problem.--on menu and phone hell trying to find a person who could help me. I paid my computer consultant $500 which AT&T told me would be credited to my account. If i heard those fake typewriter keys clicking for one more second i was going to throw my cell phone against a brick wall. Could you reply with your email. I want to forward you the email to the CEO. You've inspired me. I might take action but first i have to figure out why, after all that, At&T is sending me monthly bills. Too difficult to explain on a saturday night. the thought of having to get on the phone with ATT to resolve that issue is just too much for me to bear. Carol Felsenthal carol@felsenthal.net