Recently I purchased a spiffy new iPhone that I’m head over heels in love with.  So in love with it that when I go out to the local pub to meet up with friends for drinks, I’m often yelled at to put the crack phone away.  Yeah, I love it that much.

When I purchased it, I knew that it does not currently support MMS messages, but the software update is expected sometime this summer.  Having seen friends’ phones in action, I expected to be getting text notifications with a link in the event someone tried to send me a picture or whatnot.  Since I rarely get pictures sent to me anyway, I didn’t think about it much.

In a conversation with a friend yesterday, he mentioned having sent me a text message the night before.  I stared at my phone and assured him I had not received one.  He insisted he had sent one.  Being a stickler for always being right, I logged into my AT&T account and checked.  Not a single text message from him.  A few I had sent to him, but none from him.  He has an obnoxious tendency to not reply to texts, so it never occurred to me that there was a problem.

Well, see, Mr. Smarty Pants sends all of his messages to me in MMS format.  Always.  Highly annoying, but will he fix this little “feature” on his phone?  Nooooo, of course he won’t.  Realizing that the format of his messages was the problem, I contacted AT&T to find out why I wasn’t getting the notification at least.

The first person I talked to was a nice young man who checked my account, told me he didn’t understand what the problem was, and did some strange reset that required me to turn off my phone for a minute and then turn it back on.  I had a co-worker and another friend send me pictures via text to see if I got the notification, but alas, no such notification appeared.  After roughly fifteen minutes of going back and forth and testing, the customer service rep gave up and told me he would transfer me to iPhone support.

The second person I talked to was another very nice young man who did some brief trouble shooting and said he couldn’t help me, because the problem was in the service itself, not the phone.  Apparently, while he’s iPhone support, he has nothing to do with AT&T.  Why the first person transferred me to him is still a mystery.  And with that, after another fifteen minutes gone, he transferred me to yet a third person.

AT&T CS:  Hi, this is Tiffany, how can I help you?

Me:  Hi Tiffany, I’m having a problem with my new iPhone.  Apparently I’m not receiving the notification with a link to view MMS messages, can you help me get this straightened out?

Tiffany:  *reviews account*  Okay, you have a family text messaging plan, you won’t be able to receive the notifications.  But when the new software comes out, you’ll be fine.

Me:  Why doesn’t the family plan include this feature?  I don’t understand.

Tiffany:  The family text plan doesn’t send the MMS notifications.

Me:  I understand that, what I want to know is why.  Why doesn’t it?  What do I have to do to fix this?

Tiffany:  The family text plan doesn’t send the MMS notifications.

Me:  *voice raising slightly*  Yes, I know, you told me that.  Can you tell me why and is there anything I can do to get the notifications?

Tiffany:  The family text plan doesn’t…

Me:  Okay, stop.  I heard that already.  Can you tell me why?

Tiffany:  No.

Me:  Fine, what do I need to do to get this fixed?

Tiffany:  Well, you’ll have to have the people who want to send you MMS send it to yournumber@mms.att.net.  Then you’ll get it.

Me:  Okay, hold on.  *emails something to address*  I’m not getting anything.

Tiffany:  It needs to be sent via email, not text.

Me:  Hi, just did that.  Sent from my corporate account to the address you gave me.  Nothing.  Where should I be seeing that?

Tiffany:  On your device.

Me:  Where on my device?

Tiffany:  On your device.

Me:  Tiffany, what application should be receiving that message?

Tiffany:  On your device.

Me:  WHAT APPLICATION?

Tiffany:  Oh.  Your text messages.

Me:  It’s not there.

Tiffany:  You have to send it from an email account.

Me:  Um, HI?  I sent it from my corporate email account?

Tiffany:  When?

Me:  *headdesk*  Just a minute ago when you gave me the address.

Tiffany:  Oh.  Well, okay.  What you’ll have to do then is use your regular email address.  Is that set on your phone?

Me:  Yes, but I tried sending myself something from my daughter’s phone to my email address the other day and it never came.

Tiffany then sends me something to my gmail account from her phone and I get it.  Yay.  That makes me happy.

Me:  So, anyone wanting to send me an MMS has to email me instead?

Tiffany:  Yes.

Me:  Tiffany, why am I not getting notifications via text that I have an MMS to download?  Those incoming messages are not even showing up online when I view my account.  Are they being blocked?  Why does the address you gave to me not work?

Tiffany:  Let me review your account.  Can you tell me what number you should be receiving messages from?

I give her the number, she goes to review my account.  We go back and forth in pretty much the same manner for another fifteen minutes.  I realize I’m getting a little louder than is acceptable in a cubicle environment and send an email around to my closest cubemates apologizing.

I test a few scripts I’m writing while waiting, file my nails, and search the web for some type of answer that makes sense to me.

Tiffany finally comes back and tells me that she doesn’t see a problem with my account.  I tell her that the email I tried sending to the @mms.att.net has bounced and I have a permanent failure notification in my inbox from our email server.  As she attempts to figure that out, I stumble upon a page that tells me that what I need to do is switch the type of text messaging plan I’m on.

I need to remove the family unlimited, and give Mini-Me her own unlimited and my own unlimited because apparently the iPhone is *special* and AT&T wants to steal as much of my hard earned money as they can.  And also, the @mms.att.net won’t work, I need to use @txt.att.net.  Because, you know, MY PHONE DOESN’T ACCEPT MMS MESSAGES.  Gah.

Tiffany:  Okay, I don’t understand why that message failed.

Me:  Tiffany, that’s because it’s not a valid address for this phone.  I have to use @txt.att.net.

Tiffany:  Oh.  Really?

Me:  REALLY.  Tiffany, let me ask you this, if I split up the family unlimited and set each phone on it’s own unlimited, will I receive the notifications then?

Tiffany:  Oh, yes.  You’ll get them then.  The family messaging plan won’t do that.

Me:  Why didn’t you tell me this a half an hour ago?  Is it entirely possible we could have not wasted all of this time?

Tiffany:  Well, I didn’t know that was what you wanted.

Me:  *headdesk*

Tiffany:  Is there anything else I can help you with?

Me:  OH HAI I CAN HAS NOTIFICATIONS?  Can you adjust my account accordingly?

Tiffany:  So you want to split your family plan into two seperate unlimited plans?  One for the iPhone, with the iPhone unlimited, and one for the Samsung with the regular unlimited?

Me:  *headdesk*headdesk*headdesk*  YES PLEASE.

Tiffany:  Okay, that’s done.  Is there anything else?

Me:  You know, the next time someone with a family messaging plan calls and has this problem, maybe let them know that if they switch to a different messaging plan, it will be resolved.  I don’t know, just a helpful hint.  Know what I’m saying?

Tiffany:  Well I didn’t know that was what you wanted.  I’m sorry.

Me:  *deep sigh*  My account is all straightened out?  Yes?  Have a great day, thanks for all of your help.

Tiffany:  *brightly*  Thank you for calling AT&T!

*click*

Cubemate:  *chuckle*

Me:  Can you believe that?  What in the hell?!  All that time for a two minute fix!

Cubemate:  *chuckle*  Unbelievable.

Me:  *mumble*  I’ll be over here sticking my finger in a light socket.

The account is updated, I get the stupid notices (which is a story in and of itself people, believe me) and all is well with the world.  But that is an HOUR of my life I will never get back.  T-mobile had the worst reception ever, but their customer service department was amazing.  AT&T has great reception (oh and did I mention my sexy iPhone?), but that has got to be one of the worst CS experiences I have ever had.  Ever.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, apparently someone sent me a picture and I have to break out the voodoo magic in order to view it.  Seriously, it involves burnt offerings, chicken blood, and a cast of a thousand demons to make it happen.  Where did I put those pins and needles?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Just Another Day in the Life, Ranting and Venting, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.