While there are few companies anywhere that can survive while indifferently shrugging its corporate shoulders at the needs or desires of its customers, AT&T continues to find ways to grow and prosper despite leaving tidal waves of disenchantment in its wake. They give the world an awful lot to not like.

Still, indifference is one thing, but it’s quite another to embrace a corporate tactic of foisting open disdain on customers. I’ve been on the receiving end of just such a tactic.

I’ve never had the misfortune or desperation to have to engage AT&T for wireless services, but I’m in an area where there are scant few options for landline service. For years AT&T was my local telephone company, providing service that was steady, if unremarkable. For a very long time, that was good enough for me.

All of that changed in March of 2009. That was when I was talked into expanding my relationship with AT&T. That was when I discovered that after 15 years of measuring customer satisfaction for a living, I still had no idea just how spectacularly arrogant and incompetent a company could be. That was when I became aware that AT&T may very well be the antichrist of customer service.

And worse for me, that was when I discovered that not only does AT&T not give a hill of beans what anyone thinks of them; not only do they seemingly have no sense of wrong and right; but the evidence seems to suggest that what they do is very profitable for them. They are trying to lighten my pockets by over $6, 000.00, and the basis of their claim to that money is a long, long tale of failed service, contractual breaches, open lies and, in my opinion, outright fraud.

Months ago it became evident that resolving what they have done will probably entail the services of lawyers, so I began to document my experiences with them. I have posted the tale at: http://www.iqsurvey.com/blog/?cat=6 . Fair warning; it’s a long story. But, it's also a story that has left many people shaking their head in disbelief.

Many, many people have had trouble with AT&T. I wonder how many have had this much trouble.