Get this.. I called AT&T today to get the lowdown on uVerse in our area today. Once I was on the phone with a sales rep, I was rushed into trying to establish service. Before I let them head down that path, I broke the stride and said that I would like to discuss limitations like how many concurrent channels can be watched, etc. Just stuff I have picked up from these forums.
The rep wouldn't answer my questions until I proceeded with the application for service.. hmmmm.. I asked what that required. I was told that AT&T would run a credit check before any more answers about the service were offered. I said fine, is this a soft or hard credit check.
She said it's a HARD credit check......
I about fell out of my chair! AT&T wants to run a hard credit check on me which goes beyond just getting a score (ours is over 800). This type of check gives AT&T access to your entire credit history (i.e. other credit card companies, loans, etc.) and usually performed for financial transactions such as loans, credit cards etc. This also leaves an inquiry on your credit score as well.
I then said that they just ran a check for my new AT&T wireless service (they only ran a soft check btw) which she replied was irrelevant. So, every time I buy a new service from AT&T I need to have my credit checked?
I told her that it was my credit and I was very uncomfortable handing that information out and I will pass on the service. She then tries to upsell me on phone service since I don't have an AT&T line! I told her I had already declined on everything and the call was complete (I was nice during all this).
She was pretty put out that I would not listen to any more of her sales scripts for other AT&T services.. I was pretty miffed by all this so I later wrote the CEO of AT&T to let them know that this is a pretty invasive policy for TV service.
Go figure...
I will be sticking with DISH for the foreseeable future with this policy.
