I acquired Cingular services during the Spring of 2005. I was previously a AT&T customer on a month-to-month plan with unlimited nights and weekends but after the merger, my provider became Cingular. I obtained a new GSM phone which I proceeded to sign up for a new account, month-to-month as well but no unlimited nights and weekends feature was available with Cingular month-to-month.

I do not like Cingular customer service agents. I called 3 times during the last 4 months and each time I was either misled with incomplete information or did sense any effort by the customer agent to resolve the situation amenably for me. When I first began my new month-to-month service, I knew that I could exceed my airtime quota so I checked my online account for usage details. The minutes were extremely high and I was unsure about the coverage period of the minutes so I called customer service. They did not explain the situation to me and they could not explain my billing details until my actual billing cycle was completed. I continued with my rate of usage and by the end of the billing cycle, I had exceeded my quota and received a bill for over $300. To my discredit, I was not stingy with my minutes. However, to Cingular's discredit, their agents were not helpful in explaining my minutes, my bill, nor even attempt to relieve my difficult first complete month of using Cingular services.

I subsequently researched another wireless provider and switched to Verizon, after talking to a Cingular service provider and understanding that my bill would be pro-rated if I discontinued service in the middle of a billing cycle. Of course, they informed me that switching at the end of a billing cycle was better, but minutes would be pro-rated if I switched in the middle.

My switch to Verizon was performed 2 days after the start of my Cingular billing cycle. I received a bill at the end of the Cingular billing cycle charging me the complete amount of my monthly plan fee and found out from the customer service agent that only services like mmode or text messaging are pro-rated while monthly plan fees are not.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 800