I got a $25 service credit for the 12/17 BIS outage

[climbguy]

So like many of you I called at&t on the 17th inquiring about the service outage. I spoke with a nice guy who called me back a couple of times Thursday afternoon to update me with the status of the outage.

On his second call to confirm everything was working, I asked him what at&t would be doing to compensating their customers for the outage. He asked me to call back in a day or two once everything was sorted out.

So I called today to follow up, and was offered a $25 credit to compensate me for the outage. I thought that amount was more then fair, at first i thought they would try and offer me $0.80 for the prorated period where the service wasn't working or something crazy like that. So thumbs up to at&t for offering a generous credit for a problem that originated on RIM's end.

[gotblackberry]

I would have offered $.80 and that's $.80 more than you deserved for a blackberry outage, not an AT&T outage.

[ComfortablyNumb]

You're lucky you're not a verizon customer. You would've been lucky to even get the $.80. Glad to hear you got good serivce, but bum is right- it wasn't your carrier's fault.

[phreddyl]

Maybe I am the fool but it wasnt anyones fault but RIM and I wouldnt think about asking for money back- I guess ATT has enough bad publicity with the bad service so they have to do something

[noaim]

I kind of agree with these guys its rims fault

[Mister Xiado]

Just so you know, getting frequent adjustments can backfire. Also, it decreases the value of your account. Which is bad.

[climbguy]

from a customers perspective it doesn't mater who's fault it is. Also, part of my $30/month that I pay at&t goes to RIM to host the BIS servers. I expect at&t and verizon will ask for a credit for the outage or have some other agreement in place for a situation like this.

Telling me that since it was a problem on RIM's end means at&t has no responsibility is BS.

[climbguy]

Originally Posted by Mister Xiado

Just so you know, getting frequent adjustments can backfire. Also, it decreases the value of your account. Which is bad.

What do you mean?

[00Smurf]

climbguy,

What they're saying is too many credit adjustments on your account and when you have a serious problem. You'll get something along the lines of 'sorry we can't help you, or no further adjustments on your account due to previous adjustment history' They can be nice and probably deserved but they can bite you in the end. Either for a serious issue or if you try to see about an early upgrade at times.

00smurf
speaking from experience of a long term issue never resolved and when trying to explore other options, due to adjustments AT&T shut the door on me and even let a customer of over 14 years just walk away no struggle.

[Mister Xiado]

Originally Posted by climbguy

What do you mean?

Well, frequent adjustments and calls to customer service cost AT&T money, often more than you pay for your service. But people have ridiculous expectations, despite the contract stating that AT&T is in no way responsible for 3rd party services, such as the BLACKBERRY INTERNET SERVICE, PROVIDED BY RESEARCH IN MOTION.

[gotblackberry]

Originally Posted by climbguy

from a customers perspective it doesn't mater who's fault it is. Also, part of my $30/month that I pay at&t goes to RIM to host the BIS servers. I expect at&t and verizon will ask for a credit for the outage or have some other agreement in place for a situation like this.

Telling me that since it was a problem on RIM's end means at&t has no responsibility is BS.

Please tell me how AT&T has ANY responsibility considering your browser and BBM worked?

[climbguy]

Originally Posted by Weekendbum

Please tell me how AT&T has ANY responsibility considering your browser and BBM worked?

I really don't understand this argument. I pay a monthly fee for email on my phone, each moth the bill comes from AT&T, on the bottom of the phone there is a big AT&T logo, the phone came in a box covered in AT&T logos and color scheme, I bought the phone from a store that had a big at&t sign on the front of it, the guy who sold it to me had an AT&T shirt on and my receipt says AT&T.

Last year I had a problem with a toilet in my house. So i called my land lord and asked him to have it fixed. He sent a repair man to fix the problem, however we started to have the same problem again the next day, I called him again. The process continued for about 3 weeks. The land lord wasn't a handy man, so he hired someone else to do the job, however I still held my land lord responsible for any problems with the house. The same rules applies here.

[jahoobob]

Originally Posted by climbguy

I really don't understand this argument. I pay a monthly fee for email on my phone, each moth the bill comes from AT&T, on the bottom of the phone there is a big AT&T logo, the phone came in a box covered in AT&T logos and color scheme, I bought the phone from a store that had a big at&t sign on the front of it, the guy who sold it to me had an AT&T shirt on and my receipt says AT&T.

Last year I had a problem with a toilet in my house. So i called my land lord and asked him to have it fixed. He sent a repair man to fix the problem, however we started to have the same problem again the next day, I called him again. The process continued for about 3 weeks. The land lord wasn't a handy man, so he hired someone else to do the job, however I still held my land lord responsible for any problems with the house. The same rules applies here.

Great answer. You have a contract with AT&T. You have NO contract with RIM and as such have no recourse with RIM. AT&T probably has a contract with RIM in which there is an agreement for RIM to provide BIS for every BB that AT&T sells with a BIS plan and AT&T agrees to pay RIM a fee.
I imagine all the carriers will get a rebate or credit from RIM for this outage. Whether and how they pass it on to their customers is up to them. The squeaky wheel got $25 in the OP's case.

[pkcable]

Originally Posted by jahoobob

Great answer. You have a contract with AT&T. You have NO contract with RIM and as such have no recourse with RIM. AT&T probably has a contract with RIM in which there is an agreement for RIM to provide BIS for every BB that AT&T sells with a BIS plan and AT&T agrees to pay RIM a fee.
I imagine all the carriers will get a rebate or credit from RIM for this outage. Whether and how they pass it on to their customers is up to them. The squeaky wheel got $25 in the OP's case.

No way do they get 25 dollars per customer thou. Like you said the squeaky wheel.

[Mister Xiado]

The nail that sticks up gets pounded down after a while, though. Frequent adjustments may be reversed simultaneously if you irritate a manager with an unreasonable demand.

If you're not making the company any money, they won't care if you take your alleged business elsewhere.

RIM does not reimburse carriers for BIS outages. In fact, RIM has been voiding service codes to prevent free support calls to them.