If you think you are a mentally strong person and are immune to depression from all the hoopla about economy and job loss and North Korea trying to smoke us all, you may need to think again. You can rethink your claim if you have not dealt with AT&T customer service yet.

This is my second day on phone with AT&T and I have not reached any milestone yet regarding my issue. What makes it worse is that I have a so-called "Premier Account" with these folks. If they are treating a premier account holder the way they are, I dare not even think what they do to a common man!

I was so happy with Sprint customer service. They were at least better with the music they put on for people who are on hold! Jokes apart, Sprint is really getting back in the game with the customer service. It was bashed for a long time for customer service but, in recent times, I think they have aced it, especially if compared with other biggies out there. Sprint already has a much better network than AT&T and better 3G service. For the 2 years I had Sprint from 2007-2009, I hardly got any dropped calls. While trying AT&T out for a month, dropped call became a part of conversation. AT&T is not even allowing the tethering feature to be active on the latest iphones because of just one reason, the network sucks. Is this company serious? I believe Apple realized the potential disaster of exclusivity with AT&T and they are working on partnering with Verizon. We all know when it comes to the basics, the network, Verizon is top-notch. Can't wait to see this A&T butchered.

Here is what they did to me. I order a phone on May 11,2009, and activate on May 17th, 2009. The phone turns out to be junk and being a premier customer, I have a 30 day trial period. I call in on June 08th, 2009 and ask the rep to exchange the phone and she recommends a couple. I call back on June 11th and I was on hold for more than 45 minutes but, had to give up the hold since I had to get into a meeting. Now I call the next day again on June 12th, and after 20 or so minutes of hold, they tell me I am 1 day over the 30 day period and they can not exchange the phone. After asking if they can make any considerations, I was on phone for 58 minutes and no success.

Finally, I ask about walking away from AT&T altogether, and they give me the early termination ordeal. In a premier account, you have a month of trial period. Since my service started may 17th, I am still well within the can-still-cancel period.

How lousy can you be to not understand simple policy stuff if you are a rep at the call center. Can't decide whether the rep is lousy or the management who hired them.

Any way, here is my prediction for the next year. Once Verizon gets its hands on the iphone, AT&T has got very little chances of survival as it did before the iphone days.

God Bless America!