Why was my order canceled?

I'll try not to bore you with the whole story, it's too long, but suffice it to say it's been a total mess.

Basically, the account I'm on has been active for 18 years.  It was part of a corporate plan starting in 1996.  

The plan now includes myself, and my father.  I had been grandfathered in on unlimited data, and AT&T promised better bills if we switched to a sharing plan.

My father had an iPad with a data plan that was never being used, so we decided to order a new iPad mini which I would use, and would keep us qualified for the 3 devices needed on the sharing plan.

On Friday, October 24, I attempted to order the iPad mini through the site, but it wouldn't let me add it as a new line.  Even though the existing iPad was not on a plan. We purchased it, and then activated a data plan on it.

Having no luck, I went online to their web support.  Here, I realized that placing an order with a representative meant they just tell you what to do.  They don't actually placed the order on their end.  Since I'm not stupid, I didn't understand this process.  I knew where the order failed each time, and I explained it.  But, they continued to make me follow along with their instructions.  Sure enough, it failed, exactly as I said it would.  I tried again on the phone, and the rep had the same problems.

So, I tried the store, where the rep didn't know any information about the products, or how your "NEXT" plan works.  She kept saying "Just do NEXT, it's so much easier" and I explained I wanted to pay out of pocket up front since it's $100 cheaper.  She didn't understand that.  As we waited for a "table to open up" she tried getting the order started, and she too had trouble.

I figured at that point that maybe the device was too new, and your employees hadn't been trained.

So, I tried the next day.  Chat support tried, failed, and sent me to phone support.  Phone support tried, failed and sent me to chat support.  4 hours later, no order.

So, I tried again on Monday.  Chat support failed (after, of course, making me go through the order process for the 10th time in 3 days, not believing that I knew where it would break).  Eventually I was connected to a phone rep who spent over an hour trying to place the order for me and finally...SUCCESS!

She even comped the overnight shipping so I was pretty happy.  Then I saw that the item wasn't going to ship right away.  Ok, so I wish on the phone she had offered me a store pickup option, but I figured at least it was ordered and because this seemingly simple task took 14 AT&T employees to solve, I wasn't going to tempt fate.

Well, a week comes and goes, as do my estimated shipping dates.  So I write a support email and they tell me they would be happy to cancel the order so I could go pick it up at a store.  Again, I expressed my fear in doing that since the original order was so difficult for AT&T, who apparently can't add a device to an existing shared data plan and cancel another device.  Not sure how this is an outside the box request, it seems kind of like what you do ALL THE TIME, but who am I to question the difficulty.  Clearly it's hard to do since only 1 out of 14 of you can do it.

So, I let go.  Then, the item goes on backorder.  I'm sufficiently upset about this turn of events.  So I get on live chat...again.  And I explain my case to 3 different employees...again.  Each time saying that they will have to escalate the case, because that's what's happened every single time.

They don't care, they have to go through their steps...because god forbid I waste any of AT&T's escalation staff's time.   Never mind that I've been on the phone and computer for HOURS over a 2-3 week period.

Finally, I tell them I'm going to cancel.  Then, all of a sudden, they will talk to me on the phone.

The person I talk to once again offers to cancel my order.  Again, I explain the fear in doing that, especially since one of the devices has been canceled, effective in a couple of weeks, so if I don't get this new line set up correctly, I'm not using the minimum number of devices required for my plan.

After more frustration he offers a small credit to appease me.  At this point, I've given up, I just can't deal with anymore.

Until this morning.

When I receive a notice that my order has been canceled and no one can tell me why.  I do the live chat to phone support dance, again, and spend 45 minutes to learn nothing.

Now, I have to try doing this again at the store.  And it's going to, again, be a huge issue.

I've never really seen anything like this, not even with COMCAST.  

This is the worst service for such an easy request: We have an iPad on a shared plan.  It was never in a "contract", we just paid as we went, $30 a month for fixed data.  When we switched to the new shared data plan, we decided to get a new device and make THAT device part of the data plan and remove the plan from the old device that's never getting used.

Simply, right?

Apparently not.  And now, after 18 years, we find ourselves thinking that maybe Sprint, or Verizon would offer us just about anything to pull a long standing account from their competitors.  And we're thinking maybe that's the way to go because we can't keep this up.  Just exhausted.