AT&T has has had texting problems for over six hours so far on Thursday evening, April 28, 2016. AT&T cell phone customers have lost the ability to text properly, and according to reports, there is no word on when the problem will be resolved. After getting repeated messages which state “Message has not been sent” and “Failed” from attempted texts, AT&T Customer Service was contacted at 6:33 PM on Thursday. The message offered the option of receiving a call back in an hour. More than two hours later a non-productive call was returned by AT&T while text messages were yet to function properly.
While some messages are getting through, recipients say that they are getting duplicate copies of some messages and not receiving others. The duplicate messages started occurring after a lengthy period of time when no messages were being transmitted at all. Facebook users commented on the AT&T Facebook page and other Facebook platforms to indicate that many customers have been having texting difficulties and not getting timely responses – if any – from AT&T as well. While it may be comforting to know that it’s not just one’s phone – and others are also experiencing difficulties – it is a huge problem for customers who depend on texting to communicate.
Attempts to get customer support or feedback via other social media outlets such as Twitter went unanswered. The problem, as far as social media posters have indicated, is in the Midwest. Persons in and around Chicago have reported texting problems as well as someone as far north as north of Madison, Wisconsin – in Sun Prairie. Finally, some two hours after the problems surfaced, one Facebook user said that she got a response from techs. The techs claimed that it is a system issue with text messages and they are working on it. She was told that they don’t know when the problem will be fixed. They also allegedly told her that it’s not AT&T’s fault because it’s an operating system issue. The response to that last claim, however, is that it’s the AT&T customers who can’t text during the operating system issue – and therefore it is an AT&T problem.
According to downdetector.com, around 6 PM the concern peaked with 1,429 AT&T problems reported. The high number of complaints poured in for another couple of hours. The “Live Outage Map” at the site showed that the most severe problems were throughout the nation’s midsection from as far north as the norther portion of Wisconsin to as far south as Kentucky. Less severe problems were also cited as far south as Texas, as far west as California, and as far east as New Hampshire. The symbols suggesting severe concerns also blanketed San Francisco. The major severe issues, however, were throughout the Midwest from Wisconsin down to Kentucky as of mid-evening.
After two hours and 13 minutes, AT&T returned a call to this reporter and wanted a host of details about the caller before addressing the issue. The only addressing of the issue was that there has been a problem with texting for six-and-a-half hours and there is no estimated time as to when the problem will be fixed. The representative, incredibly, said that if the problem continues, “Call back again.” He was told that that would not happen since it took over two hours for this call to be returned. When asked if there would be any accommodations or reimbursements for inconvenienced customers, he said to call AT&T Customer Care. He was informed that Customer Care had been contacted online and had still not responded to calls for help within two hours. As expected, he apologized for the inconvenience and wished for the frustrated caller to have a good evening.
