AT&T is getting some pretty bad press from some pretty serious bloggers.  First there’s Ed Cone’s billing fiasco that was prompted by AT&T sending him a DSL package that he never asked for, billing him for it and then cutting off his service when he didn’t pay the DSL bill he didn’t even know about.  They promised to fix it and then shut his service off again a month later.  Then I read about prominent tech blogger Fred Wilson’s scrum with AT&T over his iPhone.  You have to read this to believe it:

Last night I tried to activate the iPhone that I recieved as a gift
with a pre-paid plan. A plan that I am sure tens of thousands of people
have on their iPhones. The iTunes system would not allow me to
activate. I got a message that said:

Additional information required to activate your iPhone

Please call AT&T at 877-800-3701 to complete your activation.

Refer to your Activation ID when calling

It
was late when I got to that point, so I called AT&T this morning. I
talked to a very nice customer service rep who told me that I could not
get an iPhone without giving them my social security number. I told her
that I was a tech blogger and just wanted to test the iPhone, review
it, and then give it as a gift and I had no need or desire to sign a 2
year contract. She told me there was nothing she could do. So I asked
for a manager.

After about five minutes, the manager got on the line. I repeated my
case, asked him to authorize a prepaid plan for my phone. He said he
could not do so. That it was AT&T policy to only issue pre-paid
plans to people with valid social security numbers who fail a credit
check.

So there it is. You cannot get a prepaid plan from AT&T unless
you are a deadbeat. That’s discrimination in my book. And I suspect its
illegal at some level.

I will never, ever, use an AT&T service again.

Both of these guys are widely read bloggers who exert a great deal of influence in their respective readership communities.  I hope that someone over in AT&T’s PR department is paying attention, but I seriously doubt it.