Whenever I hear the carrier formerly known as Cingular advertising itself as “the new AT&T” I can’t help but think of The Who’s classic line “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” In other words, you can recycle a washed up brand name from decades past and try to pass yourself off as a fresh new company if you want, but it doesn’t mean anything’s changed.
My history with Cingular has been up and down, with my recent cell phone number change to a new area code definitely finding its way into the “down” category. Suffice it to say that when a company botches something so badly for you that they end up giving you a sizable credit without your even having to ask for it, you know it didn’t go smoothly. At this point the number change is all squared away with no harm done (thanks for the credit anyway), and today I received my monthly bill. For $1.74. That’s one dollar and seventy-four cents.
Because the bill was so large, the new AT&T was kind enough to offer me the option of paying only a portion of the bill…
…but I wonder: can you actually write a check for $1.74?
As I took several moments to ponder my payment options, the new AT&T was kind enough to log me out automatically. Probably because they didn’t want anyone to see that they had actually sent me a bill for $1.74.
So I logged back in and promptly paid my bill, which went smoothly enough.
Now I owe them $0.00, which they made sure to point out will be due by July 8th.
As I was trying to figure out how I was going to come up with that kind of dough by the due date, the new AT&T decided to log me out again.
Meet the new AT&T. Same as the old AT&T.
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