from Hacker News

Ask HN: What to do when beholden to AT&T's flawed sign-in state machine?

by akouri on 1/6/22, 6:48 PM with 3 comments

AT&T is the only internet provider in my area and I needed to sign up for service with them. They seem to have magically linked my account to my parent's account and I am stuck in an endless sign-in loop. They have snail-mailed me codes that I've had to wait for, they have called my phone with an automated system and sent my my plaintext password that I generated with 1password via email. I am fed up. Has anybody else experienced this awful experience with AT&T's account management system? It seems like they have 5 different systems that are all patched together. Would love to hear from an engineer that actually works at AT&T as to how these systems are so bad.

  • by gt565k on 1/9/22, 6:32 PM

    AT&T customer service, sleazy ass door to door salesmen and their website and support sucks, as I agree. Their fiber is good though. Unfortunately I had a horrible experience with AT&T as well and if I had another option for fiber I would switch. Alas, the American regional monopolies persist. Internet infrastructure should be govt owned and you should be able to get quality service at a decent price.

    Your only option is to escalate to a higher tier support engineer or manager to resolve the issue. I’ve had to deal with their support system for billing errors on their side and once you get to the right person they are very helpful but getting there takes hours on the phone.

  • by Nextgrid on 1/7/22, 12:22 AM

    Can you sign up over the phone pretending not to be an internet user and having no email nor internet access?

  • by toomuchtodo on 1/6/22, 11:35 PM

    Is StarLink an option?