AT&T Wireless attws.com check minutes feature is a lie! ripoff Internet

AT&T Wireless claims that you can view your minutes used on their website (attws.com). Really handy to make sure you don't go over your minutes, right? WRONG! The site is notorious for being days behind in it's estimation of minutes used. AT&T tries to hide behind the excuse that they sometimes need useage reports from third party cell towers, but in the computer age, can anyone believe that this should take up to five days? Unbelievable.

\AT&T Wireless stalled for years in even having such a "minutes used" feature (too lucrative were millions of AT&T cell users dialing in ignorance of their minutes used) even though Sprint has had a "minutes used" feature since the wheel was invented. Regardless, even when AT&T broke down and introduced the system, they made two provisions that would make this feature as un-useful as possible. First, they made a lag period so that you couldn't even use the system until several billing periods had passed by (to get a last chance at picking your pocket). So, you had to wait at least 40 days until you could view the top secret info. Secondly, if you don't log on your account every so often, you PERMANANTLY lose access to the "minutes used" feature.

To wrap things up, customer service representatives are willfully ignorant of everything from the English language to math (I dare you to try to resolve a billing problem) and, I believe, are trained to obfuscate your clear attempts to resolve any problem you may have. Also, they are nearly impossible to get through to.

E-mailing your question is probably more effective as AT&T is forced to put a quasi-literate person behind the keyboard (when you're not sent a canned answer). Ultimately, AT&T wireless is in the process of being spun off from AT&T (parent company) so that's why AT&T's traditional standard of excellence got lost in the spin off. I agree with one of the other postings: if these people were on fire, I would not help!

Ron
Springfield, New Jersey
U.S.A.