In which I insist on--and eventually get--customer service

I've called my co-worker at home a couple of times this week; she and her husband both asked, "Why does someone else's name come up on our caller ID when you call?"

That name would be Stephanie H., former owner of my phone number. Stephanie who failed to alert her friends, family, hair stylist, dentist, car leasing company and other random people that she moved and got a new number. As a result, I get calls from all the aforementioned 14 months after the number was assigned to me.

I also get dumbass text messages about garage sales, a screening of Twilight and bargains on canned goods at a certain Ogden market. Since I don't have a texting plan, I pay to receive them and if I respond so they stop. sending. them.

Hearing that infamous Stephanie's name was coming up on caller ID was a major annoyance. So I called AT&T to get this sorted out. Since I use my Utah cell primarily for work, I need to have the right name show up when I call people.

When I finally got through to a live rep, Candace perkily said she'd be happy to help me. She checked my account and determined that this Stephanie problem occurred when I was calling land lines as opposed to other cell customers. The solution she supplied was that I would have to ask every person with land line to clear my number out of their caller ID cache.

Whaaa? How does that FIX the problem? I asked. She didn't know--that's just the answer in the script. I try to clear the cache on the upstairs extension (and can't figure out how) and Candace says I'd need to try before she can escalate it to a tech call.

So I go downstairs to try clearing the cache on the primary extension. After much button-pushing, I delete the test call I made with my cell. I inform Candace and say I can't make another test call to my land line without hanging up on her. She offers to call back in two minutes while I test call.

The test fails: there's Stephanie's name again.

Candace does call back and I ask her to escalate the call to tech support. She puts me on hold and comes back to tell me that I need to call my home phone service provider to ask them to update my phone number.

This makes even less sense than the previous solution. What do I even ask them to DO? How is that going to fix a problem that originates with MY phone? Aren't they going to refer me back to my own cell service provider? Candace says she's not in technical support, so she doesn't know the answers.

So I'm supposed to do all this extra work--and tell people I call to do extra work--to fix a problem that I'm fairly certain originates with AT&T. So I tell Candace, look, the test failed; would you please just escalate this to a tech support call?

She puts me on hold again (we're now at 25 minutes and counting) and comes back to say "Tech support won't even take the call if you haven't tried the solutions I've given you." Well, Candace, you just told me you aren't tech support, so why not lob me over to them so someone WITH technical expertise can answer my questions?

Candace grudgingly puts me on hold again. She finally comes back with a tech guy on the line. She sounds relieved to be rid of me; her "have a good night and thanks for calling AT&T Business Support!" sounds pretty forced.

I explain the problem to the tech guy and he checks his system. Sure enough, the name was never changed on the account when I took over the number.

He asks me how I want my name to read (have to negotiate because my full name is over the character limit). It will take 72 hours for the change to take effect. Can he call me on Saturday to make sure the problem is corrected? Absolutely! We sincerely thank each other and sign off.

I like resolution. I just wish it took less time and consternation.