I notice in the dbstalk website you can't talk about "moving" but you can here.

[Juan]

Where are you coming up with this garbage? The ATT & DirecTV employees are ID'd in their replies to a customer. On the Facebook pages.

http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5595

In carrying out the Company's business, employees, officers and directors often learn confidential or proprietary information about the Company, its customers, suppliers, or joint venture parties. Employees, officers and directors must maintain the confidentiality of all information so entrusted to them, except when disclosure is authorized or legally mandated. Confidential or proprietary information of our Company, and of other companies, includes any non-public information that would be harmful to the relevant company or useful or helpful to competitors if disclosed.

Sometimes the line between personal and Company benefits is difficult to draw, and sometimes there are both personal and Company benefits in certain activities. Employees, officers and directors who intend to make use of Company property or services in a manner not solely for the benefit of the Company should consult beforehand with the Legal Department or the Code of Ethics Contact.

 

[Broe67]

Juan as I stated, that when the employees answer or help customers on say dslreports.com, or on ATT, they place their name into the message, and give the customer an ID for their ticket, when they email the employee that is going to be looking for that ticket in the email system. My father is retired ATT, I am also retired ATT, there was never a limitation to what kind of support we could do on our own time. ATT has no problem with other customers helping out someone with a problem, same as on the DirecTV forum. Matter of fact, I get compliments all of the time from both sides. I used to be a part of the group on the ATT forum, that we would get stuff every month, to thank us for our service in helping customers out. That was our payment for the time we spent working customer problems.

You are reading way too much into it. That disclaimer is put in there, to protect the employees & company from attempting to state that the employee is at fault, same as the company, if a customer tries to file a suit. It is nothing more than Lawyer speak.

I have only one job that I have a gag order from, when I retired last year. That is with the State of Illinois, because of the two units I worked in, that the clients that those two units work with, will use any conversation against you, to file a complaint. My brother and father have a gag order from their branches of service in the military, because of the highly classified work they did in the military.

 

[Broe67]

Again Juan you are reading way more into that Boiler plated lawyer speak,. There is no restriction in place that keeps an employee from helping someone online. When my father was still working with the telephone company. If myself, my sister or a neighbor had phone issues and dad was working nights. He would go in and look at the problem, then fix it. If he could not, he would file a ticket for someone to handle in the morning.

Like I stated before when employees answer customers issues on Facebook for any company. They give their name a Ticket ID# for the customer to place into the Subject line, and a canned response that is boilerplate, so that a customer cannot state that an employee favors one customer over another.

The techs that are on the dslreports forum, used a private forum to handle customer tickets. Those techs took on other jobs, and ATT has not replaced them to handle tickets, so they closed the forum. Those employees that are in the various company forums are allowed to do what they want in being in those forums, as long as they are not favoring one user over another.

When I worked for the State of Illinois in their Child Support dept. I would get texts or emails about a question from someone during the day from friends, same as when I was home. We could not go into their accounts at work, nor could we answer legal questions. If we had an issue that one of the offices or employees that work directly with employees, that they have not followed up on something. We would have to give the information to our supervisors, and they would assign the issue to a neutral third party employee or manager, who would look into it. Same as entering any updated employer info.

The most I am allowed to state about my work, is yes I worked with in a certain unit, and that is it. I can direct them to the proper websites, or help a friend on getting their ducks in a row for a upcoming Child Support hearing now that I am retired, because it is no longer a conflict of interest, and that I have a major in Accounting, and a minor in law on the degree I have.

Getting back to the topic at hand. Too many people read too much into the original question, and we all have gone into different directions at this point.

 

[Jimbo]

http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5595

In carrying out the Company's business, employees, officers and directors often learn confidential or proprietary information about the Company, its customers, suppliers, or joint venture parties. Employees, officers and directors must maintain the confidentiality of all information so entrusted to them, except when disclosure is authorized or legally mandated. Confidential or proprietary information of our Company, and of other companies, includes any non-public information that would be harmful to the relevant company or useful or helpful to competitors if disclosed.

Sometimes the line between personal and Company benefits is difficult to draw, and sometimes there are both personal and Company benefits in certain activities. Employees, officers and directors who intend to make use of Company property or services in a manner not solely for the benefit of the Company should consult beforehand with the Legal Department or the Code of Ethics Contact.

Wow,
Nothing that I may talk about with those that need help/ advice is Confidential info.
You can help the majority of people without letting out confidential information.

 

[Broe67]

Wow,
Nothing that I may talk about with those that need help/ advice is Confidential info.
You can help the majority of people without letting out confidential information.

Tell me about it Jimbo. All it takes is one person whining, or one employee getting upset that a third party is helping customers fix their problems, instead of calling in to get played like a game of Musical Chairs.

Then you wonder why there is so much grief stated on the various providers Facebook pages about lack of service or help over the phone, or on the company ran forums.

It really is no different than those of us that help others on the Windows forums, to fix issues. The part that still irks me, is that you have a group of techs and a few employees on different forums, who deeply hate when someone comes along and is honest with helping a customer out, not just go "You need to call such and such at this phone number. We cannot discuss your problem in public."

Last time I had an ATT tech here to swap out Gateways. He started asking me questions about my network layout, equipment, etc.. What was really funny, was while I was working on my router that I use behind the Gateway, he stood there watching what I was doing. Of course I always get asked about my APC UPS, because it looks like a desktop computer, but has of course a bunch of plugs on it. The other is that a tech will point at something on my shelf and ask what it does.

I think that if a lot of people would drop the attitude or think that someone is taking business away from the CSR's. They need to get past that. They need to realize that people are going to continue using Facebook for help on problems, not call in. I called in on Friday to see if a tech could reattach my phone line to the house, because after the crew that did the siding, only put up the NID. The tech was supposed to be over yesterday if they could, but nothing. It took three times to tell the rep on the phone that I need to only have the tech do outside work, nothing else. At this point, I am just going to end up doing it myself.

Stuff like technical issues, service outages, upgrade questions, complaints about why the Cubs have to be aired on your local NBC affiliate's station, not their sub-station, is stuff that is basic 101 items. But in turn the person going through the posts, just puts up a canned response and that is it. Out of the majority that I have seen. I would have to say that at least 25% of the people just wanting an honest answer, will post in an angry tone, about why should they have to email someone, vs. just getting pointed in the right direction to get the answer.

I just had new siding put up over the past two weeks. I had more customer service through the company who has been around for over 100 years, than any of the other two that I had bid on the job. The one I went through, had the job contract drawn up no more than four hours later and in my hands. It took about 3 weeks for one other. The third never called me.

 

[robjlevin]

I remember when you could pick up a magazine and there would be maybe 10 pages total of ad's. Now the magazines have become 99% ad's, 1% of real content.

All the news that fits, we print!

 

[levibluewa]

Big surprise coming from there in the coming weeks

Surprise? From where? Some of us are just nosy!

 

[Jimbo]

Broe67, juan,
None of our post have ANYTHING to do with D* and moving locals.
If ya all want to discuss it further I would suggest finding a different thread.

 

[peds48]

Actually the ones that feel that it is their own private clubhouse, are installers. They do the same over at the DirecTV forum. I signed up at the DirecTV forum when I first got Direct. Within a week, one of the installers, started to report my comments as trolling. In turn I was banned from there, because the installers on there, were getting upset that an outsider got into their own private clubhouse.

I can speak from facts that none gets ban from answering questions, but there are many cases where someone comes as "the now it all" and post incorrect information, then once corrected, the person gets all "up in arms". Taking this attitude is what get you banned

 

[peds48]

Actually the ones that feel that it is their own private clubhouse, are installers. They do the same over at the DirecTV forum. I signed up at the DirecTV forum when I first got Direct. Within a week, one of the installers, started to report my comments as trolling. In turn I was banned from there, because the installers on there, were getting upset that an outsider got into their own private clubhouse.

There are zero installers on DIRECTV® forums, if there are any they post as anyone else. Rules of the forums is that no one is authorized to represent DIRECTV®.

 

[ChadT41]

Are we talking about this DTV forum? The reason I ask, most the names I see on here are also either on the Dish forum posting similar info, myself included, or they are in the PIT letting go. SG is pretty relaxed and kicked back, and everyone has a say in the topics, but the golden rule does remain policy. That and do not release information that could get you or the site in trouble(confidential product releases and the likes, that you acheived under an NDA).

 

[peds48]

Never happen .... the majority of the subs no longer have home phones and your not gonna tell me I have to have the internet connected to every recvr in the home.

DIRECTV® made it really easy to connect ALL receivers with one hook up.

 

[Jimbo]

DIRECTV® made it really easy to connect ALL receivers with one hook up.

Still doesn't mean you have to have them hooked up.
What if I don't have the internet or a home phone ?

 

[peds48]

Still doesn't mean you have to have them hooked up.
What if I don't have the internet or a home phone ?

correct, I was just pointing out that you dot need individual connections to each receiver.

 

[Jimbo]

correct, I was just pointing out that you dot need individual connections to each receiver.

gotcha.

 

[raoul5788]

There are zero installers on DIRECTV® forums, if there are any they post as anyone else. Rules of the forums is that no one is authorized to represent DIRECTV®.

So I haven't seen your screen name on the Directv website help forum?

 

[iceturkee]

Its not frowned upon here because it is not illegal. As long as things are legal and fit within the rules and subjects of the site then we don't have a problem with it.

if it violated the terms of your agreement, how can it be considered legal?

 

[texasbrit]

It violates the terms of service you agreed with DirecTV and so DirecTv could cancel your account, but that does not make it illegal. It is however illegal (against Federal law, it being an FCC ruling) for DirecTv to deliver you locals from a different DMA, so they would not knowingly agree to "move" you., Apart from the technical issues of having people in a different DMA not getting the signals because they are out of the spotbeam.

 

[Ronnie-]

if it violated the terms of your agreement, how can it be considered legal?

I can agree to supply you with 14 free ripe tomatoes every week then only deliver 10.
I will have violated our agreement, but I have not done anything illegal.

 

[Hall]

if it violated the terms of your agreement, how can it be considered legal?

What law was broken ? If the courts got involved, it would be civil court, not criminal court.