cingular sucks!

I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more. anyone else
sick of these lying crooked theives? come visit us at
http://www.boycottcingular.com

---

› See More: cingular sucks!

Sure looks like you were part of the cause of some of your problems. Your
contract expiration date was available online. There has always been a
phone upgrade fee ($10). You should have looked on the FTC web page on
porting and see that if you port the number before your contract is up, you
are responsible for the ETF.

Chris

"rage notgiven" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more. anyone else
> sick of these lying crooked theives? come visit us at
> http://www.boycottcingular.com
>
>

"rage notgiven" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more.

Obviously- you left them 2 days before your contract expired, and they
charged you an ETF. The bastards!

I looked at your site, and while I sympathize with you, I don't see
where Cingular really did anything wrong. You claim they didn't
"disclose" how porting AWAY from them worked so they should waive the
penalty.

The company you ported TO should've correctly discussed how porting
works. Every carrier warns you to insure you've completed your
contract prior to porting, because the act of porting CANCELS your
prior service.
From your website:
"First, NOWHERE on Cingular's website, in mailings to me or in my
bills does it mention that porting your number away is tantamount to
contract cancellation."

From the Cingular website porting Q&A:
"When Cingular receives full access to your number, you receive a text
message on your Cingular phone notifying you that your old service has
been disconnected and your new phone is fully functional."

Is it not at least fair to assume porting AWAY from Cingular works
much like porting TO them, but in reverse?

How much effort should Cingular expend warning customers that porting
AWAY from them prematurely might result in an ETF? Should they also
alert you when Verizon or AT&T is offering new rate plans?

> anyone else
> sick of these lying crooked theives?

Anyone else sick of people not accepting any kind of responsibility
for their mistakes?

Also from your website:

"I assumed that when you port your number, both contracts remain
active and you just receive two bills."

So it's Cingular's fault you didn't know how portability worked, and
"assumed" wrongly?

"In fact, Cingular's website even mentions that both services stay
active."

You got 'em! Their website does say "you will briefly have mixed
service that may last from three hours to one day." So, at best, if
the port went slowly, you'd have cancelled one day early instead of
two.

" Had that been made known, I most certainly would have waited the 2
days."

Made known by WHOM? Cingular can't stop the porting process- YOU
authorized it and your new carrier initiated it. Cingular is obliged
to let it happen.

Your new carrier should have explained the ramifications in detail.

"I did port away two days before for two reasons 1) it can take a day
or two for the port to go through"

So? Even after the contract expired it still takes the same amount of
time to port- you'll be in cellphone limbo for 3-24 hours from the
moment you port.

"and 2) I didnt want to go into another billing cycle with Cingular."

So, to save a small pro-rated monthly charge, you gambled $150- and
lost.

You goofed. Again, I sympathise, but you're asking Cingular to waive
an ETF that their contract _entitles_ them to, because you switched
carriers two days early in a huff. Looking at it from their
point-of-view: why should they waive it? They already know (from your
port) that they lost your business. Why bend their contract to
satisfy someone that's already "fired" them?

> come visit us at
> http://www.boycottcingular.com

I did. I expected a horror story, but instead read that you screwed
up and expect Cingular to fix it after you've essentially told them,
by porting, where they can stick their service.

Were they a little rude to you? Maybe. I've had a few rude dealings
with them in my 10 years as a Cingular customer, but the thing to
remember about customer service is that the rude rep (or three!) is
NOT the company they represent- they're just one person.

I eventually resolved my few problems over the years with them by
calmly convincing them that I was worth keeping happy due to my
longevity with them. I suspect my leverage with them would have been
a lot weaker had I just cancelled my service!

So, assuming Cingular wasn't going to waive your ETF as a going-away
present, did you consider any other ways out of this?

Have you asked your new carrier to eat the $150 for you for not
properly disclosing what happens during a port? If they refuse, will
we see a "boycott them" website next week?

Again, the new carrier initiated the port- not Cingular. To make a
bad analogy, it's kind of like blaming somebody you just shot and
killed for not properly disclosing to you that murder is illegal and
carries a stiff penalty.

Did you ask Cingular if they'd waive the fee if you ported back and
signed a new contract? You were probably in the new carrier's trial
period and could cancel w/o penalty at that point. I realize that
would stick you back with the carrier you were leaving, but perhaps
this $150 is important enough to have suffered through with Cingular
for awhile longer?

Good luck with the BBB complaint, and hopefully your story will at
least educate people to be careful with porting. I doubt you'll
convince many to steer clear of Cingular, but who knows?

On Tue, 18 May 2004 19:40:16 GMT, "rage notgiven"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more. anyone else
>sick of these lying crooked theives? come visit us at
>http://www.boycottcingular.com
>


Dude Cingular did nothing wrong at all I have been with them for
almost 3 years now in Albany ny, and I have to say I have had
outstanding service, been out of state, and no problems.

Now that was with a TDMA phone, now I have the Moto V600 GSM
and dont expect to have any problems at all and have not for the last
2 weeks,

The Can you hear me now people have allot of problems with billing and
service.

"rage notgiven" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more. anyone else
> sick of these lying crooked theives? come visit us at
> http://www.boycottcingular.com
>
>
You let your emotions get the better of you. Contracts are there for a
reason, they set the ground rules by which two parties agree to do business.
You broke the agreement and now you are upset, because Cingular are
enforcing the rules.

I changed from T-Mobile to Cingular without any problem, other than the
delay while the number was transferred. If I decide to change carriers at
some point in the future, I will do so when my contract has expired not
before.

David.

I find it interesting that people go out of their way to renew their
contract then complain when something doesn't go their way. Why do people
insist on having to be under a contract? A "free" phone? If you need a new
phone just buy one. It's cheaper than the early termination fee and a lot
less aggravation. I have the piece of mind that if I don't like something my
carrier is doing I can just switch.

"David" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "rage notgiven" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > I've been through a lot with cingular, and i can take no more. anyone
else
> > sick of these lying crooked theives? come visit us at
> > http://www.boycottcingular.com
> >
> >
> You let your emotions get the better of you. Contracts are there for a
> reason, they set the ground rules by which two parties agree to do
business.
> You broke the agreement and now you are upset, because Cingular are
> enforcing the rules.
>
> I changed from T-Mobile to Cingular without any problem, other than the
> delay while the number was transferred. If I decide to change carriers at
> some point in the future, I will do so when my contract has expired not
> before.
>
> David.
>
>

While I can understand Cingular holding its ground on contract matters, I cannot understand their Customer Service being unwilling to resolve lesser customer complaints. By blowing off legitimate customer issues by not caring enough to attempt to resolve them, Cingular makes terrible enemies for itself. It's like the old days of Ma Bell running roughshod and telling its customers to like it or lump it. It just seems terribly shortsighted for a company to spend a bundle on promotions, to develop the best coverage area, and then to throw it away by not caring whether their customers are happy. It is possible to provide good, even excellent, Customer Service: Nextel's was excellent in my experience with them. But if I had any stock in Cingular, I'd sell it.

> away by not caring whether their customers are happy. It is possible to
> provide good, even excellent, Customer Service: Nextel's was excellent
> in my experience with them. But if I had any stock in Cingular, I'd
> sell it.
>

So you can have piss-poor coverage, incoming calls go straight to voicemail
or just get a busy signal, outgoing calls disconnected frequently in areas
with good signal, sound quality/echoes terrible when you do manage to
connect a call, and that's alright as long as your name is Nextel and you
give great Customer Service, eh?

I've had to call Cingular for a few issues in the past. Their customer
service seems OK, if not overly friendly. At least the humans answering the
phone at Cingular seem to be competent enough to handle my questions in an
efficent manner. In contrast, Nextel does seem to have more friendly people
answering the phone when you call customer service. Too bad their service
sucks worse than a rusted out pinto with a blown main bearing.

I'm using my personal cingular GSM handset to handle all the calls that are
supposed to be handled with my nextel business handset. That nextel handset
is USELESS, as it is connected to ummmmm . . . nextel. If it wasn't for my
cingular gsm handset, I'd probably have lost my job by now, as I wouldn't be
able to get any work done. -Dave

"Dave C." <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> > away by not caring whether their customers are happy. It is possible to
> > provide good, even excellent, Customer Service: Nextel's was excellent
> > in my experience with them. But if I had any stock in Cingular, I'd
> > sell it.
> >
>
> So you can have piss-poor coverage, incoming calls go straight to
voicemail
> or just get a busy signal, outgoing calls disconnected frequently in areas
> with good signal, sound quality/echoes terrible when you do manage to
> connect a call, and that's alright as long as your name is Nextel and you
> give great Customer Service, eh?
>
> I've had to call Cingular for a few issues in the past. Their customer
> service seems OK, if not overly friendly. At least the humans answering
the
> phone at Cingular seem to be competent enough to handle my questions in an
> efficent manner. In contrast, Nextel does seem to have more friendly
people
> answering the phone when you call customer service. Too bad their service
> sucks worse than a rusted out pinto with a blown main bearing.

I agree Dave about their customer service, I've called a few times with
minor legitimate problems. Couldn't ask for any better service and my
problems have all been solved. Maybe got lucky, don't think so. Good
customer service.
bamp
>
> I'm using my personal cingular GSM handset to handle all the calls that
are
> supposed to be handled with my nextel business handset. That nextel
handset
> is USELESS, as it is connected to ummmmm . . . nextel. If it wasn't for
my
> cingular gsm handset, I'd probably have lost my job by now, as I wouldn't
be
> able to get any work done. -Dave
>
>

I have NOTHING good or positive to say about Cingular. They sent me a bill for over $3000 bucks and then used a nasty Collection Agency in an attempt to strongarm the money.

Pure extortion and nothing less.

You think Cingular is OK... read this and then tell me what you think---

Cingular, AT&T and Sprint are at the bottom of the pile for major problems regarding poor coverage/reception, overbilling and general billing errors, REFUSAL to correct billing errors, and overall poor customer service.

I personally became interested in this subject after having a multitude of service and billing problems with Cingular for over two years. These problems eventually led to my receiving a bill for over $3,000... when the bill should have been no more than $300.

Granted, I had experienced this problem with Cingular before... but NEVER on this scale! At first, I thought that a simple phone call would straighten everything out... But it didn't. And that's where the nightmare began. To make a long story short... Cingular ended up basically extorting over $1000 bucks from my family over this situation... and they even damaged my credit in a malicious manner.

For those of you out there that are satisfied with your Cingular service... I'm glad for you, and you should consider yourself VERY lucky because you would not believe how many people on the Internet are complaining about getting ripped-off by Cingular!

Check out the details at my site if you want, and if you have any questions feel free to email me for more info.

http://www.freewebs.com/cingularrippedmeoff/

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 10:21:17 -0500, cingular_bad
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Check out the details at my site if you want, and if you have any
>questions feel free to email me for more info.
>
>http://tinyurl.com/2arnd

I checked it out, but could find no real details. Did you hide them
somewhere?

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 10:21:17 -0500, cingular_bad
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>I have NOTHING good or positive to say about Cingular. They sent me a
>bill for over $3000 bucks and then used a nasty Collection Agency in an
>attempt to strongarm the money.
>
>Pure extortion and nothing less.
>
>You think Cingular is OK... read this and then tell me what you
>think---
>
>Cingular, AT&T and Sprint are at the bottom of the pile for major
>problems regarding poor coverage/reception, overbilling and general
>billing errors, REFUSAL to correct billing errors, and overall poor
>customer service.
>
>I personally became interested in this subject after having a multitude
>of service and billing problems with Cingular for over two years. These
>problems eventually led to my receiving a bill for over $3,000... when
>the bill should have been no more than $300.
>
>Granted, I had experienced this problem with Cingular before... but
>NEVER on this scale! At first, I thought that a simple phone call would
>straighten everything out... But it didn't. And that's where the
>nightmare began. To make a long story short... Cingular ended up
>basically extorting over $1000 bucks from my family over this
>situation... and they even damaged my credit in a malicious manner.
>
>For those of you out there that are satisfied with your Cingular
>service... I'm glad for you, and you should consider yourself VERY
>lucky because you would not believe how many people on the Internet are
>complaining about getting ripped-off by Cingular!
>
>Check out the details at my site if you want, and if you have any
>questions feel free to email me for more info.
>
>http://tinyurl.com/2arnd


I had an issue that I thought was going to turn into a real problem.
After talking to the right folks at Cingular, they handled the
situation with class and made it more than worth my while.