This is a long one, but it delivers… – Rob
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Thank you for your patience! An AT&T customer service representative will be with you shortly.
You are now chatting with ‘Nina’.
Nina: Hello. Thank you for chatting with AT&T today. I understand your U-verse account is locked. Is that correct?
Jeremy H——-: I’m not sure, but I can’t login… maybe i’m not using the right userid?
Nina: I am sorry you are having difficulty logging in to your account. I am happy to assist you with this today.
Nina: Please begin by selecting the ‘Forgot your User ID’ hyperlink on our website or click here.
Jeremy H——-: can you not just tell me the userid for my account?
Nina: I will be happy to tell you your account information.
Jeremy H——-: thank you
Nina: Before we get started and for your security, may I please have the U-verse Account Number and the First Name and Last Name on the Account?
Jeremy H——-: 105###### Jeremy H——-
Nina: In order to protect your privacy, could you please provide the Passcode associated with this Account?
Jeremy H——-: it could be one of the following: 2###, 8#######, or d——
Nina: I am sorry that is not correct.
Nina: The four-digit AT&T U-verse Passcode may have been created when AT&T U-verse service was ordered or it may have been created later.
Nina: Could you instead please provide the Answer to the Security Question, which is Who is your favorite childhood hero?
Jeremy H——-: the only other 4 digit code i could think of would be 2###
Jeremy H——-: or 6###
Nina: I can only accept one.
Jeremy H——-: I don’t remember ever answering the childhood hero question, is there another question you can ask
Nina: No, there is not other question.
Nina: Please, provide me with the right passcode on the account.
Nina: You told me two and I can only accept one of them.
Jeremy H——-: well i don’t know which one you have so try them both
Jeremy H——-: is the passcode printed on the bill?
Nina: No, it is a code that is used for Identification purposes.
Nina: That is the code that I need to ask you, so I can make sure I am not giving any account information to someone else.
Jeremy H——-: well then like i said try 6### and if that’s not right try 2###
Nina: I can only accept one answer.
Nina: Which of the two will you use?
Jeremy H——-: you already accepted an answer earlier and when it was incorrect you are now accepting another answer so obviously you can accept more than one answer
Nina: This is for you privacy.
Nina: Would you please provide me with one of the two passcode that you gave me.
Jeremy H——-: I choose the first one, and if that doesn’t work then I choose the second one
Nina: I apologize for the inconvenience.
Nina: What is the first code that you will like to use?
Jeremy H——-: as I have said multiple times now try 6### and if that’s not right try 2###
Nina: I understand your frustration, but in order for me to provide you account information I will need the right passcode on the account.
Nina: Just pick one or the other.
Jeremy H——-: You’ve spent more time arguing with me about giving you codes 1 at a time than it would have taken you to just try one and then the other
Nina: Mr. Herrmann, I am not here to argue with you.
Jeremy H——-: and yet that is exactly what you are doing
Nina: I want to help you.
Jeremy H——-: then try the first one and if it doesn’t work try the second one… or get me a supervisor
Nina: I can connect you to my supervisor who can further assist you. Would that work for you?
Nina: Mr. Hermann, my name is Matthew C—- and I am the current floor supervisor.
Nina: Nina has connected me to you because you requested to speak to a supervisor.
Jeremy H——-: Hello
Jeremy H——-: Yes I did
Nina: You have provided two passcodes, and one of them was correct.
Jeremy H——-: great then why aren’t we proceeding
Nina: Though we are not permitted to tell you which was the correct passcode, I will accept the correct passcode and we can proceed.
Nina: Your U-verse member ID is jeremyherrmann@att.net.
Jeremy H——-: LOL… so you’re not permitted to tell me which passcode is correct, but if i tell you one and then the other you will proceed when i tell you the right one… which in effect tells me which one is the right one anyway? does that make any sense to you?
Nina: Please allow me one moment to think about that.
Nina: I know this can seem rather silly at times, but AT&T has very strict rules in place that we are required to follow. These rules are to protect the security and privacy of your account.
Nina: I can unlock your account and reset your password for you, so you may access your account.
Jeremy H——-: Which I will be happy to submit to if you can tell me in response to my question above how the two scenarios are any different
Nina: Mr. Herrmann, I have reset your password. Your temporary password is uyj234. I am happy to stay with you to help walk you through the remainder of the process.
Jeremy H——-: What about the security of my account?
Nina: There is a passcode set up on your U-verse account that we use to authenticate your account when you call or chat in with us.
Nina: You have provided the correct passcode in addition to an incorrect passcode. We are allowed to accept the correct passcode, yet we are not allowed to provide your passcode to you.
Jeremy H——-: Yes I know, that’s what this whole conversation has been about… In actuality you reset my password without permission. I never at any point in time asked you or Nina to do that.
Nina: I will be right with you.
Nina: Mr. Hermann, you have indicated in your pre-chat survey that your U-verse account was locked and you needed it unlocked.
Nina: Resetting the password is the method by which we unlock U-verse accounts.
Jeremy H——-: Correct, however after the first sentence from Nina when she asked me if that was correct I stated: I’m not sure, but I can’t login… maybe i’m not using the right userid?
Jeremy H——-: Then she began to help me recover my userid and that is then the whole passcode trouble started
Nina: Yes, that is correct. I see that in the chat. I apologize for resetting your password without permission. However, we have provided you with a temporary password and your member ID that you may use to log in.
Jeremy H——-: Very well… I’m glad that it took an hour to achieve what could have been done in 5 minutes, if you were more interested in helping your customers rather than playing logic games with them… which has been fun none-the-less.
Nina: Upon a successful login, you will be prompted to set a new password of your choosing.
Nina: I know it has been an inconvenience and I am sorry.
Jeremy H——-: I’ve already done that
Jeremy H——-: The correct passcode was 6### wasn’t it
Nina: I am sorry that is not correct.
Jeremy H——-: So the correct passcode is 2###?
Nina: I am sorry, I am not permitted to tell you the correct passcode.
Jeremy H——-: But if I called in and asked for information on my account and provided you with the passcode of 2### would I get the account information I requested?
Nina: Like I said I can not disclose that information and I am sorry.
Jeremy H——-: So if I asked you if 2### was the correct passcode and it wasn’t you would tell me “I am sorry that is not correct” though right?
Nina: If you want to make sure you are using the correct passcode, you can go to the nearest AT&T store, with two forms of ID(s) and they will be able to tell you that information.
Jeremy H——-: Good to know… but in response to my last question: if I asked you if 2125 was the correct passcode and it wasn’t you would tell me “I am sorry that is not correct” right?
Nina: I am sorry I can not disclose that information and I am sorry.
Jeremy H——-: Lol… very well… I think I can make a solid logical inference on that myself anyway… One last question before I let you go…
Jeremy H——-: Have you been laughing as much as I have during this conversation?
Nina: The information you provided does not match the information we have on record. For your security and to protect your privacy, you will need to come back to chat with us when you have the correct information needed or you may contact one of our Product Specialists at 866-755-0463. Thank you for chatting with AT&T today. We appreciate your business. You may click the “Close” button in the chat window to close this chat.
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
Jokes should be short… They shouldn’t make you lose interest after 5 lines.
I rather enjoyed it.
Agreed. The only thing this delivered was his full name, email address and passcode. Plus that AT&T are sticklers for procedure, which I sort of expected them to be – and as they say, for our own security.
what an a$$ i would of hung up on this guy out of principle,
Wasn’t all that funny… Also, why is his last name blanked out in his username, even though it’s mentioned three separate times in the conversation?
you owe me 5 minutes of my life back
What a douche. This is why sometimes you need to wait forever to talk to CSRs.
Some people think this guy’s a jerk, but in my mind he’s justified to question their security through obscurity policies. If they have a policy of accepting only one passcode, to prevent someone from trying multiple to determine the correct one, but then they accept multiple he should be concerned about the security of his account.
Companies need to start hiring competent support personnel. Following a script is not acceptable for this exact reason. They followed the script, deviated, and then attempted to follow the script again when they were unable to comprehend what he was asking.
bababooey
and thanks for his passcode
So from reading this I now have the client’s correct email and their U-Verse code. Time to get some new programming buddy. 😛
This guy is a jerk. They are trying to do their job. I have friends that work at call-centers. They are not really allowed to deviate. He took up extra time for her, that could have been spent helping other customers, and keep her average time down, to prevent her from getting fired. But, he has to be a know-it-all and keep pushing buttons to prove he is right. He proves that he needs to quit interacting with people.
This was a waste of 2.5 minutes of my life.
I guess we all know his security pin is 2125 now.
The inconsistent blanking out lets us know that AT&T U-verse user Jeremy Herrmann’s User ID is [jeremyherrmann@att.net] and his Passcode is [2125].
He didn’t do a [replace all] on his personal info before publishing that chat log on the net, because a password retrieval attempt on that User ID offers either answering security questions or having a temporary password e-mailed. A non-existent User ID would throw an error. Thankfully, either retrieval method at least requires his ZIP code, which hopefully isn’t (and won’t be) posted on the net (right?).
It’s probable that he registered for AT&T U-verse before 2012.01.12, because his AT&T U-verse ID seems to be a AT&T U-verse Member ID and not a unified AT&T Access ID. If you hit [Register] at the login screen, fill out the form with his details (and “invent” the rest yourself), hitting [Continue] will result in a prompt for the password to the [jeremyherrmann@att.net] Member ID.
…
It’s also very, very likely that I’ve just got him a lock on his Member ID password when I tried entering an invented password 3 times at the aforementioned prompt.
If I were Jeremy Herrmann, I’d probably need to visit that tech support chat, tell the consultant (not likely to be Nina again) that I can’t log in and provide them with my User ID and Passcode. They’d pull up my profile and see in the notes what a troublesome customer I can be, so if they’d ask me for any further credentials and I threw a fit that I’m away from home and neither remember them nor have the documents with me, they’d probably “deviate” from the script again and I’d get a new temporary password.
But I’m not Jeremy Herrmann, so I certainly would never do such a thing.
Man, that Jeremy Herrmann is a really security conscious guy.