AT&T Store — Local services in Waltham

This is a store that conducts outrages blatant scam. I am extremely irritated. I have formally filed an complaint against this Franchised authorized retailer at&t store on July 26, 2018, and I am suing against their blatant scam.

Two years ago, at this store in September 2016, when I wanted to establish a 5-line family plan, I was required to pay a $500 dollar “security deposit” in order to establish a plan. (Weird right? They initially even wanted $300 more, and you’ll know why afterwards). At that time, I just arrived in the US. I had no SSN, so I thought this was legitimate. So I put up the “security money”, without doubt, with cash. And this is where they start to scam you.

During the two years, I paid each and every amount of my monthly due. I never participated in any promotions or discounts that could complicate my account status. I was being a text book low maintenance customer.

Then two years later, when I wanted to terminate the plan and take back my “security deposits”, guess what happened? They refused. They didn’t even bother to give me a reason. What’s more, they kept trying to convince me there is no way, no matter in which store, nor calling central customer service, will I be able to withdraw our “deposit money”. Their rhetoric was:”we can only refund your security deposit through billing.” Now pay attention to this line, because they are gonna change it soon, actually in less than 60 minutes.

I didn’t believe them, so I went to the other at&t store in Waltham, which is directly owned by at&t, not a franchise, at 475 winter st., providing 10-times-more professional service. What I was told shocked me: I was never required by at&t to put up any “security deposit” of any kind. One step further, in their internal system, track record shows that there was never a “security deposit” put up with at&t. The store manager called the franchise store (which is the main st. Authorized retailer store) in front of me, and confirmed that the franchise store are using two sets of record systems, one of which is outside of control of AT&T.

So I went back to the franchise store on main st. They were definitely expecting me to come back, and they were well equipped with a brand new rhetoric: “you have to have your receipt with you to proof you had a “security deposit”, otherwise who knows what happened two years ago?” So now they’ve evolved from refusing to refund, to outright denying the existence of the “security deposit”.

From then on things started to get crystal clear: AT&T never required their customer to put up “security deposits” of any kind. This dishonest store took the money secretly for themselves, hiding from AT&T (which I confirmed with AT&T central customer care). Since most of the people won’t terminate the plan for a very very long time, years, they can keep the money and assuming they own it. Then if someone remembers, after years and years, that they have a “security deposit”, this despicable store can just deny the fact and say ”show me the receipt (from years ago and I know you don’t have it, haha)”

After confirming with other international students at Brandeis University who had exactly the same experience, I am assuming they are doing this targeting foreigners who just arrived in the US, who assumably have less access to legal service, who are helpless. They should feel ashamed.

I am escalating this outright scam as high as possible, to at&t, the University, the international student community, the BBB, the general attorney’s office. I am suing them. I’ll make sure no more international students will go to their store for the next 3 years, and I’ll make sure this doesn’t...

I might as well start with the gist of this review: DO NOT GO HERE. What should have been a straightforward phone upgrade pickup turned into a 3+ hour nightmare involving several AT&T locations and three members of their customer support team across several departments. Additionally, this experience catalyzed my decision to switch carriers after having been with AT&T for about 20 years.

It started with ordering a phone upgrade online. A few hours after receiving confirmation that the order was successfully placed, I received another email indicating that the phone was ready for pickup at this location. The next morning, I decide to go and pick up my new phone. I expected a quick in and out (how could such a process be problematic?). I was wrong.

I should have known as soon as I walked into this location that things were not going to go my way. The service was slow as molasses, unprofessional, and unbelievably inefficient. I made the mistake of asking for help when I saw the service representative sitting on a phone at a table (I didn’t know that he was assisting another customer, probably because he never said this when greeting me and there was certainly nothing about his body language to indicate “I’m working.”). When he eventually started assisting me, he informs me that “we don’t have it.” Casual, non-chalant, couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, there are many customers milling around the store, some who opt to leave because they have things to do. Although the store acknowledged having the phone (and presumably linking it with my account), it was not present in the store. I showed him the order number, the emails, etc., but nothing could apparently be done other than call customer service at AT&T. Except, apparently, I could still go ahead with the upgrade if I elected to do so. I agreed with the stipulation that I had already paid for the device, so any additional charges would indicate that I was getting a second phone when I hadn’t received the first. As soon as he asked me to pay the tax (AGAIN) I told him to cancel everything. I also explained that the entire situation was really sketchy – a paid-for phone just up and disappears and I’m being asked to take care of that myself. Yeah, no…

Unfortunately, he had for some reason already switched over the SIM card information to the phone that I didn’t possess and didn’t tell me this, so I didn’t realize that my existing phone wasn’t active until on my way home. I was able to fix this at another location, but the damage had been done. You see, I had originally wanted to upgrade because it was part of a trade-in promotion, but not only was an iPhone 13 STILL on my account…it was at full payment plan price! Because of this, I spent another few hours on the phone while AT&T’s kind but powerless customer care agents tried to navigate their company’s ridiculous red tape. I should add that I was on the phone at one of AT&T’s corporate locations, but even their employees aren’t able to do anything because of the labyrinthian quagmire of bureaucracy that defines AT&T’s current customer care business model.

It's all so ridiculous, because what should have been an easy process became a nightmare instigated by one person’s utter fecklessness. Having managed large businesses in the past, I’ve learned that one is better off reducing hours and services than leaving them in the hands of people who can single-handedly destroy long-term customer relationships and lose business. Although I understand that this is technically a “licensed third party retailer,” the building and all of the employees are branded by AT&T and are representative of the corporation....

Postscript: I have filed a complaint with the FCC about your store and your practice of heaping on charges. Had your "manager" called me back while I was still a customer, maybe we could have resolved it. The manager never called. It is too late to resolve my issue. I will continue letting the public know what they are in for at your store. I have left ATT because of my experience at this store. YOU MUST READ THIS BEFORE STEPPING FOOT IN THIS STORE. The staff is all smiles when they are selling you something, so beware that this is clue #1. I needed a new phone and went there on August 5. I told them I didn't want to get it that day because I was leaving for a trip. The salesperson, Dartagnan, told me "no worries, nothing starts until you come and pick up your phone. You have two weeks from when you pick it up to try it out." I also needed to revise my plan to be on an unlimited plan in order to take advantage of the special phone deal. So, my plan was revised and I was promised that the bill would be lowered to $130./month (I was now paying $138./month). Great!! Til I got home from my trip and was greeted with a $344. monthly bill! Anything under the sun that I could be charged for was on that bill - this insurance, this fee, that fee - all things I did not want. I have since found out that ATT salespeople PURPOSELY add on all these extras and leave the customer to fight with ATT over the phone to remove them. I spent about 20 hours on the phone to get this straightened out. No luck! I was only able to get it down to $279. That was it! I was within 2 weeks timeframe of when I picked up the phone so I went back to the store, waited an hour and tried to return it. She pointed out a small notice at the cash register that stated there was a restocking fee. No one ever pointed this out. By now I was steamed. The Saleswoman went ahead and erased everything on my phone and proceeded to do the return. Suddenly, at the end, she says "Oh, you bought this on August 5, we can't return it, it is over 2 weeks." I reminded her that I had asked the salesperson, Dartagnan several times about when all charges, etc. start and that he said that these start when I pick up the phone. A Lie! They started immediately on August 5 when they ran the charge for the tax on the phone. She would not return it and practically threw us out of the store. I was a bit outraged. I am reporting them also to the FCC, for whatever good that does. To summarize, DO NOT enter this store if you are:

Going to get a phone on a promotion Need to revise your bill in any way

I lost my nice $138./month grandfathered bill because of these dishonest people.

LEARN FROM MY COSTLY MISTAKE. You will definitely be taken advantage of and be left to fight out the problem with ATT's phone service in India. DON'T SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED, BECAUSE I AM WARNING YOU NOW - ONLY DEAL WITH A TRUE ATT STORE. THEY ARE IN HARVARD SQUARE AND IN CAMBRIDGE GALLERIA.

PS - I went to T-Mobile and have gotten a way better deal, better phone service and was...