Relocation Move Turned Nightmare...
Written: Jun 23 '06
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Pros: Customer Service Reps are generally good and patient. Wide area for GSM coverage.
Cons: Poor computer systems. They will break their contract with you.
The Bottom Line: Recommend at your own risk. Shop all other plans first. They break their own contracts.
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| seracorde11's Full Review: General Reviews of Cingular Wireless Customer Serv... |
I switched to Cingular cell phone service after being a Cricket customer for four years. I changed because Cricket could not offer me at the time a family plan, and I needed a third phone. At the time in April 2005, I compared prices of Cricket to Cingular and found that Cingular was more competitive and more willing to accommodate me.
Unfortunately for Cricket, they offered me a family plan the day after I activated my Cingular service. I wasn't crazy about a contractual type of plan, but I thought I could stand a two year contract with Cingular, and if I didn't like it, I could always switch services again after the two years.
The Customer Service upon ordering my new phone service was
great. They have no problem coming up with a plan for different needs; however, these plans are subject to change upon their whim which they fail to disclose and still hold you liable for in the contract.
I find it extremely disturbing that a company can break their own contract and still hold the customer responsible for their broken end of the deal. Read on for further information on this.
In January of 2006, I was going through a divorce and had just received one of my cell phones back from the ex. I called Cingular to change the number which they are happy to do for $36 and to reestablish service that I was forced to shut off per ex troubles. I explained the situation to the Cingular Customer Service lady, and she was very helpful.
She discovered that my ex had taken out the SIMM card and replaced it with a disconnected card from his new
service that he had already gone default with and owed them
money. She sent me to the nearest Cingular shop to replace that SIMM card with a new one with the new number for free! This was great service.
In February of 2006, I wanted to add another phone to my service, and when I added this phone, I was told that the phone plan I had was no longer available, but somehow they overrode the system and put my fourth phone on my 1100 minutes for $69.95/month for the family plan with each additional phone at $9.99/month. I had around 4,000 roll over minutes at that time.
This plan also included free mobile to mobile, free long distance within their GSM Coverage range which is extremely wide and covered all the areas I needed. Internet is activated for free, but it costs to browse around. Text messaging is free to have, but it costs $0.10 per text message whether inbound or outbound. Multimedia messages are the same costs as the text messages. As with everything with Cingular, should I want to add another package such as Texting, I could, but I would have to pay around $10 more per month. I think my $130/month phone bill is plenty.
This plan was sufficient for me, but I have recently moved to Rochester, NY, and we wanted our cell phones to be in the correct area code. I called Cingular's Relocation number that they gave me, and had four new numbers in the correct area code reserved. The lady told me that we needed to go into a Cingular store and get our new SIMM cards for free, and that there shouldn't be a problem.
There was a problem. This procedure took nearly three hours! One of the problems was that my plan no longer existed, and I had to either lose 400 minutes a month to get the same price or pay an extra $20 per month for 300 minutes extra on a plan that I didn't want in the first place. On top of this, I have to lose half of my roll over minutes which is over 3,800 minutes!
They basically said this situation was just too bad for me and that they couldn't do anything about it. That was really strange since they were able to add a phone onto the same nonexistant plan four months earlier!
So, as it turned out, they had to reprogram each phone manually which took the person time. Not the one in the Cingular store, mind you, the one on the phone that he had to call at the Relocation Center. The in-store employee was very patient and sympathetic, and I felt badly that he had to go through this process along with us too. He stayed with us even way past closing time instead of turning us away and telling us to come back.
Then there was another problem. It had something to do with my billing cycle. For two days, I would be forced to be
on the 700/month minutes plan until the 1400/month minutes plan began! So, here I am paying $20 extra a month for something I did not choose either in the beginning or this time and still getting screwed more within two days of getting relocated! This is type of service is ridiculous!
And since we are on Cingular's service, I would like to inform you, the potential buyer, about the marketing that is currently being propagated by Cingular on their advertisements. They claim they have fewer dropped calls than anyone else. This is crap. Within in the last six months, I have had more dropped calls than four years worth of Cricket service and the previous year of Cingular. What's with that? I have had people think that I have hung up on them getting them angry at me because Cingular dropped my call. I know other people on other services that are not having these high drop rates. This was happening when I was in Arkansas also,so it's not just the move to New York. So, when you hear them advertising the "fewer dropped calls" propaganda, take it with a grain of salt. You could have the dropped call service like I have been getting, and you will feel ripped off if you join the "contractual service" because of this claimed service.
Cingular has another type of plan that I probably should have looked into more such as the Pay-As-You-Go plan, but I like being billed monthly and not having to worry if I am running out of minutes. So, this plan does not work for me, and apparently, their new plans do not work for me either.
Although the people try to be helpful, their unyielding computer services equate to poor customer service. They find it okay to break their contracts with you, but you will definitely pay if you break your contract with them even if they broke it first. Beware! Be informed.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 130.00
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Epinions.com ID:
seracorde11
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Location: Rochester, NY
Reviews written: 97
Trusted by: 103 members
About Me:
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