“It began on a Friday, early in February. At 12:33, I received a text message from AT&T as follows: “Hi, it?s AT&T. Your number change is now complete. Your wireless number ending in 9936 has been changed to 309******* and you can start using it right away.”

Below it said, “The sender is not in your contact list. Report Junk.”

I never asked for a change. I never wanted a change. The punctuation was funky. What was that question mark? I just deleted it. More spoofing, right?

I went on to a fun afternoon in Chicago, hanging my art in a science fiction-related art show and then attending live panels on science and writing. Check out capricon.org, reader, if you are looking for a February science fiction convention. This last year’s theme: Let Your Geek Flag Fly.

But back to the AT&T story. Driving home, I call an Agent of Shield multiple times. Fortunately, I left messages that were indubitably, well, me… One example:

“The sign said there was supposed to be a traffic slowdown, but it didn’t happen. So I can’t hang up because the red button’s not on the screen, Siri’s not answering and I can’t look for the phone. Too much traffic. Sorry about the long message.”

This was when I discovered that the text from AT&T had been legitimate — if any sudden, unsolicited change of a phone number without forewarning can be called legitimate. On the issue of forewarning, I loved the AT&T rep who said they sent me an email beforehand. She then asked if I had checked my spam folder. Er, no., I don’t usually read spam. I did check the folder after I spoke with her. I never found that email nor the alleged text from them. Though if the text came in loaded with weird question marks and other wacky punctuation, I might have deleted it. I don’t think I did. I undeleted all my recent texts to find the alleged text. Hundreds of pleas for political contributions re-flooded my box. No AT&T messages were among them. I had to re-delete all those texts, of course.

On February 9th, I drove straight from the con to the AT&T store in Wheeling. I trusted them to help, and I still expected to be able to fix this weird problem. I doubt I can fix it now, without changing carriers. AT&T customers in the Chicagoland area, I will recommend the Wheeling AT&T store on Dundee. They definitely do try. I have nothing but praise for this group. They spent over an hour with me, calling AT&T and trying to figure out what was happening and who could fix it. Then they told me to go home finally, when they could not reach anyone who could help. Call “611” they said. AT&T customers can use this number to go directly to support — I should say to be put directly on hold. Sometimes hold lasts over half an hour. I recomment the option where you push a number so they can call you back whenever tney get around to you.

I recorded a “33 minute” outgoing call to AT&T that on the 9th at 7:33 PM. My first attempt to figure out what was going on. Looking back, the zombies had shuffled over the hill but I was so distracted I barely thought about the implications of what was happening. BTW: You can’t count those 33 minutes as the total time. I’m pretty sure the phone stops counting when they transfer you. More on that later.

Back to the phone log:

I call “611” again on 2/10/25. It says 1 hour 53 minutes — but you can’t trust the phone numbers, as will be clear further on.

I call again on 2/16/25. This might have been the four hour call, a monstrous nightmare of transfers. Let me explain how this goes: You get a tech support person. They may or may not appear to understand the situation. You have to repeat the whole story even though supposedly everyone is taking notes. A couple of them have been excellent. Most were barely adequate if that. None of them solved the problem.

I call again on 2/22/25. One hour 12 minutes listed.

There are 4 calls on 2/28/25. A couple more hours plus of my life gone.

I called today on 2/27. My phone says I called at 2:26 PM Outgoing call. This is important: The phone log says the call lasted 3 minutes. Why I believe the log ends as soon as they transfer you: Because I did not get off that call until about 5:45. My friend Bhagya spent an hour visiting during the call. We let the puppies play while I went on and off hold. My first tech guy was great, but he did not understand what he was up against. I explained it all again. I told him I had been transfered to the porting department four times already. (Looking back I think it was five or six times if you count three-way calls with Consumer Cellular. Those calls are on Albert’s phone.) It never worked. But “L” believed in himself. He tried and he tried. He initiated a 3-way call with Consumer Cellular. Lots of repeating the old information. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. They give us a new porting pin. Then the fatal blow: “L” transfers me to the Ports Activation Center. THIS DID NOT WORK BEFORE. IT WILL NOT WORK NOW. I know this but I thank him profusely. So much effort on his part. And now I will lose it. These tech support people do not have extensions. There is no way to ever call them back.

And maybe the brand new porting pin will help, I think. It doesn’t. More conversations with AT&T employees in another country, I struggle to understand their questions sometimes, and I am a former bilingual teacher. I am good with accents. But some of them are definitely fighting language barriers as well as my peculiar situation.

Like I said, hours have gone by again. I had a zoom call set up for 5 and I texted that I was on hold with AT&T so I would be late. That was at 5:04. I finally got off hold (over half hour) spoke to “M” at AT&T until about 5:45 when I gave up — when “M” TOLD me to give up. It can’t be done, she says. The number can’t be found. Except the ports guy said they had the number and it was right there. I ask for a manager. “M” for Maria — I’m sure I am not identifying anyone. I imagine there are whole cities full of unreachable tech support people — does not help. She says she cannot transfer me to a manager. She cannot escalate. Maybe she is right. There have been two case files. Both were closed. No one above Maria’s level has talked to me for well over a week. Or called. Or said anything as they closed those special case files. As far as I can tell, all they have done is try to repeatedly port over a number that cannot be ported.

Here is where I strongly suspect AI enters the picture.