[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-I777] garyd9:
I know it's massively off-topic, but I really wanted to share my recent telephone experience with AT&T Wireless "customer service."

First, its important to note that I have two phones on my account: an iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy SII. AT&T knows this and verified it on each one of my calls.

Having in mind that I wanted to harass them about Carrier IQ, I called to "demand" that AT&T stop spying on me. I explained that I work in the health care industry and that CIQ (carrier iq) transmitting that data was not only a violation of my privacy, but also likey a violation of federal HIPPA laws.

For each person I spoke with, I simply explained that I never agreed to share my personal information, and I'm not legally able to share my business information - regardless of AT&T's privacy policy - due to HIPPA laws. I would ask that the CIQ program be removed from my phones or disabled.

First person I spoke with (obviously outsourced call center) asked me to hold and hung up on me after 20 minutes of hold.

So, I called back again, and this person eventually said they'd have to escalate my concerns. She put me on hold for 30 minutes, came back to say she found a supervisor for me to talk to, and then she hung up on me as well.

I called back, this time very annoyed. I asked the person from the outsourced call center to either transfer me immediately to a supervisor, and if she wasn't able to do so without putting me on a hold of more than 1 minute, to transfer me to the department that handles contract cancellations. She put me on hold for 20 minutes and came back with a supervisor (supposedly... the "supervisor" was more clueless than the original rep.) (Note that the rep did EXACTLY what I asked her not to do: put me on hold again.)

Now, I'm going to point out again that I only have two phones: the iphone 4 and the SGS2. This was confirmed, even, by most of the people I talked to.

So, anyway, I asked that "supervisor" to transfer me to the department required to cancel my service. She did, and now I'm talking to a person named "Tim" (I also have his last name, but won't print it here) in their resolutions dept. Tim, and that was probably his real name, didn't sound like he worked for an outsourced call center.

I again asked to have the CIQ software removed or disabled from my device. He said he wasn't able to do that. However, he did inform me that AT&T has adopted a policy that they will NOT waive ETF's due to CIQ concerns.

I asked, then, if he'd waive the ETF based on section 1.2, item 5 of the wireless service agreement (....reasonable cause to believe that equipment is being used for an unlawful purpose.) He said he would not. When I asked if that was AT&T's policy (to knowingly allow a device to be used illegally), he said "I plead the 5th." (I'm not joking - he actually said that.)

That was about the extent of my call with AT&T.

So, what's the punch line?

At no point did any of the people I talked to do anything other than read prepared scripts or responses. It never even occured to any of them to mention that it's trivial for the user disable monitoring software on the iphone with a simple menu selection. No one even came up with the absolutely brilliant suggestion that the SGSII doesn't even have CIQ on it.

The cluelessness of their customer service people, the fact that no one seemed in any way concerned with my issue, the fact that none of them seemed to have even a hint of knowledge beyond their scripts, and their absolute rudeness has, however, had one impact: I no longer wish to be an AT&T customer. Even the $140 I'll have to pay for an ETF is worthwhile (assuming I can't get out of it somehow.)

Take care

Gary