I’m trying to get a phone line installed in my new rental house in Mt. Washington.

To summarize what went wrong, before I paste in the actual letter:

  • The original installer decided for some reason not to do the install.
  • Somehow the second outside install and the second inside install got combined without notifying me.
  • The second installer decided not to do the outside install because he couldn’t do the inside install at the same time.
  • No attempt was made to contact me.
  • No attempt was made (or possible?) to expedite the correction.

Here is the formal complaint I submitted to SBC Customer Service on 10/20/2005:

I’m trying to get a phone line installed, and your installers keep flaking, and appointments keep getting screwed up, and my install keeps being pushed back. This is unacceptable customer service.

I’ve moved in to a rental house that was just rebuilt. There are no inside wires in the house; there is no demarc box on the house; the phone pole is directly in front of the house and there’s a bare wire hanging from it that I’m told used to be the house’s wire.

On Monday 10/10 I placed an order for new residential phone service including DSL. An appointment was scheduled for Friday 10/14. I was told I didn’t need to be there for the outside wiring.

On Friday 10/14 around noon, the installer showed up, looked at the wire hanging from the pole, and left. No explanation, no hang tag on my door.

On Monday 10/17 we scheduled an outside wire install on Wednesday 10/19 — I was told it would be all-day but I did not need to be there. And an inside wire install on Friday 10/21, which I would need to be there for. I carefully verified all this.

On Wednesday 10/19, I was told by my contractor that the SBC installer showed up, could not get into the house, so he “wasn’t going to do half a job” and left. Apparently somehow the outside wiring install got combined with the inside wiring install, without notifying me. I supplied SBC with my cellphone number each time I called. I work 20 minutes from home and can be there if called. My girlfriend arrived at the house a few minutes after the installer left.

I called to find out what had happened, and was told the installer had installed the outside wiring and the phone line would be activated that night. I arrived home to find that the outside wiring had, in fact, not been done. The bare wire is still hanging from your pole.

Not knowing whether I was still connected, I hung up and called customer support back. Eventually I was transferred to an engineering supervisor who determined that the outside wiring install had not been done, the new appointment for 10/25 was for inside wiring only, and the soonest I could get an outside wiring appointment was 10/27. She was unable to expedite, or otherwise do anything at all.

I am a customer in good standing with a relatively simple account I’m trying to get installed. I have no other choice of local wiring provider, so I depend upon SBC to provide this service. I elected to have you do the inside wiring and DSL because I believed that would be the most convenient. I even ordered Dish Network through you, so you got a commission from me for that.

This is not the way a good customer should be treated.