Sillyness, werd

I am so sick of telco think. I used to love Cingular. They were the last one. That was after love lost completely with AT&T and then Nextel. Then Nextel was bought by Sprint and Sprint started defending the stupid Nextel practices. And when I thought I had eradicated AT&T from my life, they bought SBC and Cingular.

Now I’ve got AT&T back — no one asked me last month when they didn’t include my singular changes in the bill so that this month I got whopper charges. Customer service … why should they care? When my SBC DSL when down they knew I’d have to use their dial up.

Thanks for the info, Chris. Any info about the telcos is important stuff. :)

yep - works great - we use it all the time on the work phones. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with verizon as their phones don’t use sim cards to hold the users data :-(

They push accessories and extra plan options because that’s where they make most of their commission - not the actual phone.

That is very interesting and so true. What a shame that corporations have to be that way. At least there is way around the craziness.

Holy crap, that’s a neat little trick. Anyone know if this works with any other GSM carrier (eg, T-Mobile)?

Unfortunately I’m reading this like two months after buying a new phone. So that sucks. But next time I break one of these things, I’m totally doing this.

…or just buy a phone keyed to your provider from eBay (or an unlocked one for that matter). Once you get it, switch your SIM to the new phone — for Cingular I had to call a number and tell them some number from inside the phone and I was in business in 5 minutes.

BEWARE IF YOU BUY A CINGULAR PLAN FROM OTHER THAN A CORPORATE STORE. DECEPTIVE PRACTICES. HAD TROUBLE WITH A PHONE FROM CINGULAR WHILE ON A THREE WEEK VACATION. ALTHOUGH THE ARE WAS FILLED WITH CINGULAR STORES NEITHER THEM OR CINGULAR CORPORATE WOULD ASSIT ME BECAUSE I PURCHASED THE PHONES AND CONTRACT FROM A NON CORPORATE STORE. LUCKILY WHEN I RETURNED MY THIRTY DAY GRACE PERIOD WAS STILL IN EFFECT. I WAS ABLE TO CANCEL EVERYTHING WITH MINIMUM FEES. STEER CLEAR OF CINGULAR. CUSTOMER SERVICE WORSE THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE.

Good Day All,

Well first off if you have verizon you can go and buy other phones and change them through the my account settings via the web and put the ESN number in to activate a different phone.

For Cingular, outstanding service, I always used unlocked phones with the original firmware on them not that Cingular modified, lets take out all the bells and wistles firmware. I left because of piss poor customer support and billing 6 months of over billing and account information screwed up, was the kicker for me. I how ever tested Cingular and Verizon as far as connections and making sure that when I switched to Verizon, I would not be missing any coverage area’s. Plus I get a 25% discount for being a home depot employee, even sweeter.

Cingular reps have there own UNION, once there in they dont give a rats ass about you, after the 30 day trial, all they do is tell u to call customer care. One thing I did do during my final months with Cingular is go into the local store and use there phone to contact customer care, WHY? because when I got loud and was correcting the idiot on the other end EVERYONE, and I mean everyone in the store heard me, customers and reps alike. The next time I went in they said I could use the office phone, and closed the door with the mananger for the store there also. He heard everything and next billing cycle, everything was the same all f___d up.

Enough was enough, did nextel, wife couldnt handle the push to talk , have to admit it was sweet but we let it go. I am really looking forward to the first of the year 2007, when its officially AT&T wireless again, if you go to www.howardforums.com you will learn allot more.

My 20cents.

Wow, I am so disgusted with cingular and am looking for a new carrier that will get me back to where I was before I switched from AT&T to Cingular. Cingular said nothing would change when I switched, would have the same plan, same amount of monthly bill…WRONG…to get what I had with AT&T I have to pay $18.98 more, my bill is always screwed up and the customer service will not refund charges that were not okayed until they go through third party vendors for the amount my bill is continuosly getting higher, and I have to call them every month because of the billing. The other day I spoke with a customer service rep that said my bill will be getting a $51.06 credit in one or two billing cycles. They won’t give me the credit until then but have to pay for everything to hopefully some day down the line get this off my bill. Mind you the credit started at $17.02. The pattern here is the credit is getting larger and I have to pay or they will charge me past due amounts and suspend my service and have a $36 reconnect fee also if the full amount even with the refund isn’t paid. I WANT A NEW SERVICE. When i asked to speak to a manager the CSR said that person couldn’t do anything about it either, then I asked to talk to owner or some other corporate person, they couldn’t give me any information on those people.

I knew i wasn’t the only person having problems with cingular thanks for letting me vent.

I have Cingular service and have had it for over a year now. I am overall pleased with the service, specially after being with Sprint for so long…uuugh.

Im writing everyone just to give a heads up on how customer service works and cell phone companies in general. I worked as a Nextel customer service rep for 6 months…worst job in the world by the way. Nextel is a HORRIBLE company, its no wonder Sprint and Nextel merged, they are both awful.

First things first. If you can help it at all, always always go to a corporate store. DO NOT go to an authorized dealer. These people are in no way affiliated with the cell phone company, just authorized to cell and market their products. They have already purchased their product from the company and do not have to sell them at the same price as the corp. (Although they usually do). They also may have fees/policies that are not backed by the company. They often rip customers off, tell them what they want to hear, screw up your account but then don’t take accountability for it. They just send you to customer service, which in all seriousness customer service can only do so much.

For example. If the authorized dealer tells you that your activation fee will be waived for one reason or another, but then it shows up on your bill. You go back to the store, they tell you to call customer service. Customer service CANNOT waive this. Activation is NEVER waived for any reason! If the dealer promised you that, they are the ones who have to give you that discount. Its on them not the corp. That money has to come from their profits. Remember, the authorized dealers only benefit from selling the product, not billing so they of course dont want to give you this discount. They tell you that to get the sell then put the blame on the company knowing full well the company does not waive activation fees.

Another reason to say away from authorized dealers. They will sell you a used phone at a new phone price without you knowing its used. I cant tell you how many times I encountered this as a rep at Nextel. People would pay 400 dollars for a phone that they cant use because it has either been reported lost or stolen, or is still connected to someone’s old or suspended account. Then only to take it back to the store to get a refund, and of course the dealers say it is the corps responsibility.

Also a secret: when you ask to speak to a supervisor at customer service, the person you talk to is not a supervisor at all. They are usually just represenatives who have been at it for a while and have a little bit more leeway in what they can do as far as crediting the account and things of that nature. There is actually no one at the call center that is in anyway connected to the cell phone corporate company. I worked for a company called ACS who Nextel subcontracts to do their customer sercvice. Never once had I met or seen anyone who actually worked for the corporate side of Nextel or Sprint, they two companies, that my company worked for.

Thats all for now because this is getting a bit lengthy but if anyone wants to know anything else regarding cell phone company “mysteries” you can email me at stephluv06@aol.com

I am happy that I don’t have cingular here in Turkey. Turkcell is the best as far as I know :) I used AT&T during my time in US, but I think cingular bought them. Am I right?

AT&T bought Cingular I believe, but yes they are now one company.