Contract cancellation issues

I have had Cingular/AT&T for appx. 5-6 years. I always paid on time & had no issues with them once we got past the GSM transition, which made my coverage worse.

I live in rural Oklahoma & have a 12 yo daughter in rural Kansas. I recently had a job change & move & my service deteriorated. I am in the medical field & on call & the cell phone is my primary phone. I had a lot of static, dropped calls, messages showing up a day later, etc. My contract ran out & I switched to another company for better coverage.

My 12 yo daughter lives in KS. The town she lives in is covered by only one company. A divorce, change of jobs & both parties moving to a different house but still in the same area resulted in: 1. The poor coverage as explained above & 2. Daughter has zero coverage. Also confirmed by 3 visits to 3 different AT&T stores. I cannot cancel her contract without a $175 penalty.

First off, when I added a second line to my service, I feel it should have been just that. I didn't realize (and was not told) that her's was a totally separate contract. I also updated her phone appx 1 1/2 years ago & again, didn't know that a new contract went into effect & was not informed of same.

I am now on a family plan, as I should have been & thought I was all along. I am being told the contract cannot be cancelled even if there is no service because they provide service at my billing address. It doesn't matter where the phone is. Hmmmm. Something wrong here. Actually I thought they would gladly cancell because in the surrounding area, if she can get through it is not on an AT&T tower & costs them money.

I have thought of changing the billing address, but don't think I should have to do something like this to get this corrected.

I would appreciate any suggestions or information about situations like this. Thank you.

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Those @#$*@%^* should have cancelled your contract w/out paying termination fee. Its not your fault they dont have coverage were you roam.
My friend had the same problem with sprint..but she called them about 30 times to tell them that there was no signal were she lived (and if they did not believe her, to go and check it out for themselves). They literally send someone to investigate and to check if it was true, and it was. So they cancelled it with no termination fee.

I have been facing a lot of problems and I am really fed up with the
cell phone and its bounding contract. I found the best solution as to
swap the cell phone. It got rid of my contract payment fee and got a
good amount as well. Just check out the different plans in
Cellswapper.com - Get out of your cell phone contract - mobile contract - wireless contract and you will also find a perfect match.
I helped the other guy to grab a good offer as well.

When a wireless contract is agreed upon, you are bound by it after thirty days. Cancellation after that requires an early termination fee for the line involved. All postpaid wireless service is by contract unless you provide your own equipment and request no contract. A contract is required when a new member joins a FamilyTalk plan. Equipment upgrades in which the carrier offered you a phone at a reduced price requires a new contract. No carrier guarantee service at all locations at all time. The only time you can get out of a contract because of relocation is if the relocation is due to military orders of the service member only. The relocation must be to a area not serviced by your carrier..

You may be terminated involuntarily by the carrier for excessive off-net roaming. There will be no early termination fee if this happens. It only applies to the line with the excessive roaming. Here are the rules:

Off-net Usage: If your voice or messaging service usage (including unlimited services) during any two consecutive months or data service usage (including unlimited services) during any month on other carrier networks ("off-net usage") exceeds your off-net usage allowance, AT&T may, at its option, terminate your service, deny your continued use of other carriers' coverage, or change your plan to one imposing usage charges for off-net usage. Your off-net usage allowance is equal to the lesser of 750 minutes or 40% of the Anytime Minutes, the lesser of 24 MB or 20% of the MB included with your plan, or the lesser of 3000 messages or 50% of the messages included with your plan. AT&T will provide notice that it intends to take any of the above actions, and you may terminate the agreement.

A few ways to have the ETF waived.

Escalate the call to a supervisor, provide a lengthy sob store with a few curse words thrown in. If the supervisor you speak to doesn't waive the ETF, ask to speak to their supervisor..and so on.

Use the phone off AT&T's network more than you use it on their network..they'll contact you to cancel your contract and waive the ETF.

The easiest way I've found is to contact customer care and say you do not get that good of service at your address. They'll then file a trouble ticket to check the service. If they come back and say nothing was wrong, offer to exchange your phone for the same model. Then with the new phone, file another trouble ticket.

Eventually they will OFFER to waive the ETF. It takes some time though.

Originally Posted by nicknrm

The easiest way I've found is to contact customer care and say you do not get that good of service at your address. They'll then file a trouble ticket to check the service. If they come back and say nothing was wrong, offer to exchange your phone for the same model. Then with the new phone, file another trouble ticket.

Eventually they will OFFER to waive the ETF. It takes some time though.

I wouldn't waste time filing a trouble ticket for poor network quality if you've had the phone more than 30 days. Especially if you aren't trying to cancel all of your lines.

Also, exchanging devices would take a long time. Warranty does 2 exchanges for the same type of phone first. After the second exchange they allow you to choose another phone. Then there's always the chance of AT&T not receiving the "defective" phone you send back and charging you for the equipment.

FYI: Don't go to the stores unless absolutely necessary. Often I find myself having to fix mistakes they've made. I'd say your chances of having the ETF waived doubles by calling Customer Care as opposed to going to an AT&T COR store.

Originally Posted by BrianP

I wouldn't waste time filing a trouble ticket for poor network quality if you've had the phone more than 30 days. Especially if you aren't trying to cancel all of your lines.

Also, exchanging devices would take a long time. Warranty does 2 exchanges for the same type of phone first. After the second exchange they allow you to choose another phone. Then there's always the chance of AT&T not receiving the "defective" phone you send back and charging you for the equipment.

FYI: Don't go to the stores unless absolutely necessary. Often I find myself having to fix mistakes they've made. I'd say your chances of having the ETF waived doubles by calling Customer Care as opposed to going to an AT&T COR store.

Are you really an AT&T employee?

Did he ever mention he was an AT&T employee?

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Are you really an AT&T employee?

Originally Posted by nicknrm

Did he ever mention he was an AT&T employee?

Duh, it only says so in his signature block. Add to that the fact that he says he has to fix the mistakes that are made in the stores.

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Are you really an AT&T employee?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Duh, it only says so in his signature block. Add to that the fact that he says he has to fix the mistakes that are made in the stores.

Some subscribers turn off the Signature view.