For reasons that will soon be obvious, I'm hiding the subject of this column behind the name “Susan Donym.”

On the evening of Jan. 2, Sue received a phone call at her home. The unidentified male caller knew a fair amount of Sue's personal information, including her name, address and apartment number. And that last bit was especially disturbing because the caller threatened to rape her.

The police told Sue to contact her phone company — AT&T — and have the incoming number traced. After hacking her way through an automated response tree (“There was no option for call tracing,” she said) she finally got through to a service rep. Granted, one who needed the situation explained to him twice before he offered to transfer her to the appropriate person. But before he transferred her, he asked if he could tell her about AT&T's wireless services.

“And that's where I cut him off and said that I really didn't think it was an appropriate time for that,” Sue told me.

But the next rep did more or less the same thing, asking Sue if she had caller ID. “She said, ‘It sounds to me like perhaps you'll want it, of course,’?” Sue said.

“Her pitch was a bit closer to the point, but I was still put off by the first guy. My exact response was, ‘Now, I said I do not want any sales pitches. I simply would like you to trace the phone number of the man who threatened to rape me last night!’”

There are certain words — rape, assault, threat — which when used by a customer should automatically result in the sales script being tossed in the wastebasket. Attempting to cross-sell an unrelated product, such as wireless service, to a customer who has just used one of these magic words is stunningly inappropriate.

If there is a time for a sales pitch on such a call — and that's a pretty big if — it should be after the company has offered what help it can. Then, and only then, it should be expressed as an extension of the company's concern. “We have some services that might offer you a bit more security. When you're ready, we'll be happy to tell you more about them.”

I e-mailed AT&T's media relations for their reaction to this. I expected a response along the lines of “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. While we're sure it was a one-time occurrence, we are going to undertake an internal investigation to determine what happened in this instance.

“Again, we appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention. And have you considered upgrading your wireless connection?”

All right, I didn't expect them to include that last bit. But even that would have been better than what I actually received from AT&T.

Of the five people in media relations I e-mailed, only one responded. His message? “We are looking into the details of this situation and will address it appropriately. We value our relationship with the customer and apologize for any inconvenience.

“Thank you.”

Inconvenience? Overwhelmed I ain't. Hey, AT&T — check your service, 'cause there's definitely a disconnect here.