If you e-mail Apple’s CEO, there’s a chance you’ll get a personal reply from Steve Jobs himself. But what happens if you write AT&T’s CEO? One inquiring customer received a legal threat.
“I want to first thank you for the feedback,” said a member of AT&T’s executive response team, in a voicemail recording posted on the recipient’s blog. “Going forward I want to warn you that if you continue sending e-mails to Randall Stephenson a cease-and-desist letter will be sent to you.”
The voicemail was in response to an e-mail that customer Giorgio Galante sent to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. In his letter (the second sent in two weeks), Galante accused AT&T of squeezing more money out of its customers with its new tiered data structure, which killed off the unlimited data plan.
“I don’t think even Steve Jobs can spin 2 GB for $25/month as a good thing for the consumer,” Galante wrote.
AT&T’s notoriety has increased in conjunction with the growing popularity of the iPhone. Ever since the launch of the iPhone 3G in 2008, many customers have quibbled about the carrier’s network performance, listing complaints about dropped calls, spotty coverage and other issues. The latest complaint is related to AT&T’s new data pricing structure, offering customers a choice between a 2-GB plan for $25 per month or 200 MB for $15 per month. The previous all-you-can-eat, unlimited data plan has been removed, though current AT&T customers can continue with that plan.
An AT&T spokesman on Thursday said the company was apologizing to Galante.
“We are apologizing to our customer,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We’re working with him today to address his questions and concerns. This is not the way we want to treat customers. From Facebook to significant customer service channels, AT&T strives to provide our customers with easy ways to have their questions addressed.”
“I can say that because of this incident, we are reviewing our entire process to ensure a situation like this does not happen again,” the spokesman said.
Stephenson’s executive response team did not immediately respond to an e-mail inquiry from Wired.com, nor did Stephenson himself.
As of this writing, Wired.com has not received any cease-and-desist letters from AT&T, either.
Photo: Jason-Morrison/Flickr
Hounded by international antitrust allegations, Intel fired an initial $1.25 billion salvo’s worth of settlement last year, but now Chipzilla’s biggest distributor of silicon is feeling the heat as well. Dell publicly announced it has set aside a $100 million reserve fund to head off investigations at the pass with a potential settlement of its own. While the company doesn’t admit wrongdoing, it recognizes “alleged violations of negligence-based fraud provisions,” also known as accepting Intel’s controversial chip rebates without reporting them to the government. Dell’s actually been under SEC investigation since 2005 for accounting-related transgressions and the company now hopes to tie up all loose ends at once — here’s hoping we see cheaper Core i7-infused laptops whether or not execs pull it off.
