AT&T tried to scam my 85yo father

And I am cycling through a weird series of emotions. Annoyed, furious, vengeful, but mostly sad. This is a multi billion dollar company. A household name. An icon of American ingenuity. And they have sunk to this. It's hard to process.

So the short of it is this:

The WiFi suddenly stops working at our farm. Dad calls AT&T. They bounce him around for the normal hour or so talking to different customer service clowns. He finally gets someone who tells him this:

"Your service was initiated through the Obama Stimulus Package of 2009 that subsidized Internet access for rural areas. But that deal only lasted for 10 years. Your 10 years is up. And we no longer offer that service in your area."

So he goes on to tell my dad that his only option is a Hot Spot at triple the monthly cost of his old deal. So he orders the Hot Spot. And he installs it himself (hours on the phone with tech supprt). But it doesn't work right because we don't get good enough cell coverage.

So dad spends another several hours on the phone with them, and they agree to send out a technician.

So today I meet the technician at our farm house. And he's this cool older black guy with a white beard. Really nice and professional. And I tell him the story, and he says:

"All of that is a total lie. The problem with your service is that someone cut the cable digging a water line. If your dad hadn't canceled his service to get the Hot Spot, it would have been back up and running within a couple or days."

It turns out that AT&T sales people make big commissions on the Hot Spots. So this guy just made up a bald faced lie to sell my dad something he didn't need.

And this wasn't one rogue sales guy. This technician says he hears this story all the time. There's an entire culture of some VPs at AT&T coaching their sales people on how to lie and scam their customers. Preferably older people like my father. Although I could have fallen for it almost as easy.

Anyhow, I know, I know. Greedy corporate scum bags. Why am I surprised? And I guess I'm just kind of sad. And my dad is embarrassed. And now we have to go through the BS of getting our old plan installed again. Which will take no telling how many hours on the phone with morons who will probably be trying to scam us again.

Rant over. This was cheaper than therapy. Thanks.