Unofficial Tech Support with Smashbard

[Smashbard]

Got a question about your cell phone? What it's like to work as Tech Support? What kind of crazy situations I deal with? Need help navigating a new cell phone or where to go to get information and answers on specific information regarding your service? I can help. I do have to stress that any answers given here are not necessarily representative of AT&T's policies or procedures. My opinions are my own, and I cannot share any specific information about our individual customers. For all intents and purposes, I am answering these questions on my time off and not working as a representative of AT&T. So please refrain from giving me any personal information or asking me to directly affect your service in any way.

Other than that, feel free to ask me anything in regards to what I do, or how I can help you. I will also periodically update this thread with interesting experiences I come
across on a day to day basis for your entertainment. Of course, I won't be able to share any account specific details, phone numbers or anything else that could be against AT&T's Code of Business Conduct.

I look forward to hearing from you!

[Pendulum]

Do people ever call you bragging about their high score on Angry Birds? What's the highest you've heard?

[Smashbard]

Nope. No Angry Birds braggarts. The most calls I get concerning games is the elderly with their Pantech Breezes wanting to know if they need a data plan to play Deluxe Poker.

[Pendulum]

How can I tell if my Droid's been phreaked?

[Smashbard]

As far as I know, I believe Phreaking has something to do with someone who has your number and sends spoof calls and text messages through applications that basically make it look like your phone is the one making and sending the calls and texts. I could be totally wrong about that but we don't get many calls on that problem. Sometimes we get calls about Caller ID spoofing, which is kind of the same thing.

If it does happen, the only real way to tell is if somebody messages you back or has the good sense to let you know somebody is phreaking you. Unfortunately since this isn't happening TO your phone there's not a lot you can really do to stop it beyond doing a wireless number change and being careful on who you add back to your contacts list to let you know you changed your number.

Generally you can expect a $36 dollar number change fee, but when it comes to that kind of stuff it's really just about how you ask for an
adjustment. Even a burnt out customer service rep will be more willing to work with you if you're not just demanding an adjustment and let them follow their steps they need to take before getting an adjustment approved.

[Smashbard]

So I had a rather interesting call today.

Customer calls in about the poor voice quality and dropped calls they experience in their home. Alright, no big deal, chances are it's a network related issue where we gotta create a case and let the Network Operations Team know there are degraded cell phone towers in their area.

I'm in the middle of explaining the process to the customer when he yells at me "What do you mean it's a network issue, my friends are sitting right next to me with iPhones and their service is just fine, it must be the device!"

Ok, as completely wrong as that is I'm not about to force a case on a guy who doesn't want one. So I play along with the fact that it might be a device issue and after doing a hard reset and making sure the device isn't physically or water damaged we only have the option to do a master reset, which resets all their settings back to factory defaults. So after I
start to explain the process he goes "What do you mean we gotta do a master reset?! I don't want to lose all my data and everything else works!".

I feel like I just got trolled big time. Nobody can be stupid enough to go "It's not a network issue, my friends are fine!" while also going "It's not a device issue, my phone is working!". I'm not allowed to fix your network, but I'm also not allowed to fix your device? smh.


It's probably one of the most annoying types of calls I get. The old chest nut of "I have horrible coverage but billy bob down the street has Verizon and he has perfect 4G!" Makes me want to strangle a midget.