"No roaming charges, ever!" -- Yeah,sure.

"No roaming charges, ever!", or so says the commercial for Cingular
Nation GSM plans. So instead of calling it a roaming charge, they
call it a "Roamer Admin Fee" and tack the bogus $3.50 fee onto the
bills of their Nation GSM customers, with mo mention of such a fee in
the contract.

---

› See More: "No roaming charges, ever!" -- Yeah,sure.

>"No roaming charges, ever!", or so says the commercial for Cingular
>Nation GSM plans. So instead of calling it a roaming charge, they
>call it a "Roamer Admin Fee" and tack the bogus $3.50 fee onto the
>bills of their Nation GSM customers, with mo mention of such a fee in
>the contract.

You should not be charged the Roamer Administration Fee. Call CS to get it
removed. I roam frequently and have never been charged the fee or for minutes
used.

On 14 Jul 2004 19:39:12 GMT, [email protected] (Dm4484) wrote:

>>"No roaming charges, ever!", or so says the commercial for Cingular
>>Nation GSM plans. So instead of calling it a roaming charge, they
>>call it a "Roamer Admin Fee" and tack the bogus $3.50 fee onto the
>>bills of their Nation GSM customers, with mo mention of such a fee in
>>the contract.
>
>You should not be charged the Roamer Administration Fee. Call CS to get it
>removed. I roam frequently and have never been charged the fee or for minutes
>used.

Likewise...but my contract is 4 years old, back when they were putting
out good deals.

"Bill Reynolds" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 14 Jul 2004 19:39:12 GMT, [email protected] (Dm4484) wrote:
>
> >>"No roaming charges, ever!", or so says the commercial for Cingular
> >>Nation GSM plans. So instead of calling it a roaming charge, they
> >>call it a "Roamer Admin Fee" and tack the bogus $3.50 fee onto the
> >>bills of their Nation GSM customers, with mo mention of such a fee in
> >>the contract.
> >
> >You should not be charged the Roamer Administration Fee. Call CS to get
it
> >removed. I roam frequently and have never been charged the fee or for
minutes
> >used.
>
> Likewise...but my contract is 4 years old, back when they were putting
> out good deals.
>

Likewise- But my Contract is 3 Months Old

[email protected] (Dm4484) wrote:

>You should not be charged the Roamer Administration Fee. Call CS to get it
>removed. I roam frequently and have never been charged the fee or for minutes
>used.

Yes, the Cingular FAQ confirms this. It says,

"The roamer administration fee is a fee assessed to cover the costs
for processing and billing roamer charges. This fee does not apply on
Cingular calling plans introduced after January 1, 2001. This fee only
appears on bills for accounts with those older calling plans (offered
prior to January 1, 2001) which contain roaming charges. The fee is
charged one time per billing cycle during which an eligible customer
has roamed. The charge for the roamer administration fee varies by
market."

Yet there it is on my GSM Nation bill. One wonders how many
unsuspecting customers Cingular has quietly slipped this bogus charge
in on. Cingular knows that a significant portion of their customers
would not question such a charge. When someone does question it, it
is simply explained away as a "mistake" and removed. Meanwhile, those
customers who don't question it pay the bogus $3.50 charge month after
month. Cingular could find and eliminate such bogus charges
throughout their customer base quite easily. Many companies, however,
have a de facto policy of not fixing such "mistakes" unless the
customer complains about it. Perhaps Cingular is such a company.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 05:30:35 -0400, JT <[email protected]> wrote:

>When someone does question it, it
>is simply explained away as a "mistake" and removed. Meanwhile, those
>customers who don't question it pay the bogus $3.50 charge month after
>month. Cingular could find and eliminate such bogus charges
>throughout their customer base quite easily. Many companies, however,
>have a de facto policy of not fixing such "mistakes" unless the
>customer complains about it. Perhaps Cingular is such a company.

You must live in a different world than the rest of us. Pretty much
the norm is if you come into any program and program details change it
is not the company's responsibility to alert you to every change and
to make sure that you change your plan if a new plan comes along that
*might* be better for you. The norm is for companies to offer you
what they've offered you and it's your responsibility to inquire if
there's something better for you that you should use instead. Just
because grandma Clara has been charged $3.50 per month for her old
black dial telephone that she had with Illinois Bell and then went to
AT&T when the Bell System broke up doesn't matter. You and I know
that we could go down to the nearest Kmart and get her a swell
touch-tone phone for $10 which is less than she'd spend with three
month's rental from AT&T. It's not AT&T's responsibility to remind
her that she's spending $3.50 each month to rent an old outdated piece
of equipment.

If you don't want to get "ripped off" it's a good idea to keep your
ears open to what the latest promotions are. It's hardly a company's
responsibility to keep you advised when something that's *possibly*
better comes along.

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In article <[email protected]>,
Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:

> You must live in a different world than the rest of us. Pretty much
> the norm is if you come into any program and program details change it
> is not the company's responsibility to alert you

Ahem. They MUST notify you and give you 30 days notice to decline and
cancel the contract at no penalty. Problem is notification is typically
very fine print at the bottom of page 6 f previous month's bill.

Did you call C/S to ask them why the charge appears on your bill? If you've
been a customer for a while, you may have an old billing code on your
account that is causing the charge to appear. It's also possible that if you
just changed to the GSM Nation plan, you may have had older charges that
just appeared (billing cycle before the new plan started), or your plan may
not have started till the end of a billing cycle and the roaming can lag by
as much as 45 days.

The bottom line is, call C/S and ask. Try the approach of; "I thought I
didn't pay roaming charges on my rate plan. What's this Roamer
Administrative Fee?" Try to avoid "What the hell are you crooks trying to
pull?"...You'll get more cooperation if you start with asking for help in
understanding rather than starting a fight with some poor girl that has to
defend the company without knowing what you're talking about.

Mark

"Mark W. Oots" <mark_ctc@(delete this)ameritech.net> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Did you call C/S to ask them why the charge appears on your bill? If you've
> been a customer for a while, you may have an old billing code on your
> account that is causing the charge to appear. It's also possible that if you
> just changed to the GSM Nation plan, you may have had older charges that
> just appeared (billing cycle before the new plan started), or your plan may
> not have started till the end of a billing cycle and the roaming can lag by
> as much as 45 days.
>
> The bottom line is, call C/S and ask. Try the approach of; "I thought I
> didn't pay roaming charges on my rate plan. What's this Roamer
> Administrative Fee?" Try to avoid "What the hell are you crooks trying to
> pull?"...You'll get more cooperation if you start with asking for help in
> understanding rather than starting a fight with some poor girl that has to
> defend the company without knowing what you're talking about.
>
> Mark

This approach has worked for me wonderfully. I upgraded my phones to
GSM without having to pay an upgrade fee and added a line to my plan.
The activation fee was waived for the added line. I used the "nice"
approach instead of the arrogant approach. Try it sometime.

Pete

Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:

>You must live in a different world than the rest of us.

And you must not be able to read. My GSM Nation plan contract began
in December of 2003 and, as the Cingular FAQ clearly states, the
"Roamer Admin Fee" does not apply to such an account. Cingular was in
error in charging that fee and it took the Cingular customer service
rep four minutes to figure it out and apply the correction. The
correction, as it turns out, is the addition of "Roamer Admin Fee
Exclusion" to the plan -- something that should have been on the plan
from the get-go. As I stated earlier, some companies have a de facto
policy of not fixing such revenue generating "mistakes".

The remainder of your silly reply simply isn't relevant to anything
written earlier in this thread. In that, one is left to wonder
exactly what world YOU live in...

>Pretty much
>the norm is if you come into any program and program details change it
>is not the company's responsibility to alert you to every change and
>to make sure that you change your plan if a new plan comes along that
>*might* be better for you. The norm is for companies to offer you
>what they've offered you and it's your responsibility to inquire if
>there's something better for you that you should use instead. Just
>because grandma Clara has been charged $3.50 per month for her old
>black dial telephone that she had with Illinois Bell and then went to
>AT&T when the Bell System broke up doesn't matter. You and I know
>that we could go down to the nearest Kmart and get her a swell
>touch-tone phone for $10 which is less than she'd spend with three
>month's rental from AT&T. It's not AT&T's responsibility to remind
>her that she's spending $3.50 each month to rent an old outdated piece
>of equipment.
>
>If you don't want to get "ripped off" it's a good idea to keep your
>ears open to what the latest promotions are. It's hardly a company's
>responsibility to keep you advised when something that's *possibly*

"Mark W. Oots" <mark_ctc@(delete this)ameritech.net> wrote:

>Did you call C/S to ask them why the charge appears on your bill? If you've
>been a customer for a while, you may have an old billing code on your
>account that is causing the charge to appear. It's also possible that if you
>just changed to the GSM Nation plan, you may have had older charges that
>just appeared (billing cycle before the new plan started), or your plan may
>not have started till the end of a billing cycle and the roaming can lag by
>as much as 45 days.

It has been 7 months now since I upgraded my plan to the Nation GSM
plan. It turns out that Roaming Admin Fee was indeed a "mistake" and
has been fixed by Cingular. The fix was to add a "Roaming Admin Fee
Exclusion" to my plan. Such an explicit exclusion, however, should be
automatic for anyone upgrading to a plan which includes no roaming
charges. That it isn't automatic leads me to suspect that there are
likely tens of thousands of other Cingular customers who have similar
revenue generating "mistakes" on their bills. My earlier comments
stand.

>The bottom line is, call C/S and ask. Try the approach of; "I thought I
>didn't pay roaming charges on my rate plan. What's this Roamer
>Administrative Fee?" Try to avoid "What the hell are you crooks trying to
>pull?"...You'll get more cooperation if you start with asking for help in
>understanding rather than starting a fight with some poor girl that has to
>defend the company without knowing what you're talking about.

I am always polite to such service representatives. Thanks for your
input. The problem has been solved, for me anyway.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:34:32 GMT, "Robert M." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> You must live in a different world than the rest of us. Pretty much
>> the norm is if you come into any program and program details change it
>> is not the company's responsibility to alert you
>
>Ahem. They MUST notify you and give you 30 days notice to decline and
>cancel the contract at no penalty. Problem is notification is typically
>very fine print at the bottom of page 6 f previous month's bill.

You're missing the point. It's not their responsibility to coddle you
and put in big 20 point letters that you have a choice and it's your
responsibility to know what you have and what your options are. Too
many people whine that they've been "taken advantage of" when in fact
they were given notice and often just chose to ignore it. It's not a
company's responsibility if you choose to ignore any notice that may
come with a bill or special notifications or note what their
responsibilities are in any contractual obligation they may have or
may have earlier had. It's not a bank's responsibility to alert you
that mortgage rates have gone down and would you like to re-finance
your loan. In the same way it's not any company's obligation to set
off bells under you when an option is available to you that *may* be
beneficial to you.

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On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:09:28 -0400, JT <[email protected]> wrote:

>And you must not be able to read. My GSM Nation plan contract began
>in December of 2003 and, as the Cingular FAQ clearly states, the
>"Roamer Admin Fee" does not apply to such an account. Cingular was in
>error in charging that fee and it took the Cingular customer service
>rep four minutes to figure it out and apply the correction. The
>correction, as it turns out, is the addition of "Roamer Admin Fee
>Exclusion" to the plan -- something that should have been on the plan
>from the get-go. As I stated earlier, some companies have a de facto
>policy of not fixing such revenue generating "mistakes".

Seems to me that you just like to whine. cingular fixed their
mistake. If you have some lofty ideal that all companies get things
right all the time I'm afraid you're constantly going to be
disappointed that things didn't go exactly as you think they should
have. It's very rare for any service industry to get things right
100% of the time. I think some people just like to be the "victim"
and think that the whole world is out to get them.

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In article <[email protected]>,
Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:

> Seems to me that you just like to whine. cingular fixed their
> mistake.

And what compensation did he get for his grief?

In article <[email protected]>,
Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:34:32 GMT, "Robert M." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> > Joseph <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> You must live in a different world than the rest of us. Pretty much
> >> the norm is if you come into any program and program details change it
> >> is not the company's responsibility to alert you
> >
> >Ahem. They MUST notify you and give you 30 days notice to decline and
> >cancel the contract at no penalty. Problem is notification is typically
> >very fine print at the bottom of page 6 f previous month's bill.
>
> You're missing the point. It's not their responsibility to coddle you
> and put in big 20 point letters that you have a choice and it's your
> responsibility to know what you have and what your options are. Too
> many people whine that they've been "taken advantage of" when in fact
> they were given notice and often just chose to ignore it. It's not a
> company's responsibility if you choose to ignore any notice that may
> come with a bill or special notifications or note what their
> responsibilities are in any contractual obligation they may have or
> may have earlier had. It's not a bank's responsibility to alert you
> that mortgage rates have gone down and would you like to re-finance
> your loan. In the same way it's not any company's obligation to set
> off bells under you when an option is available to you that *may* be
> beneficial to you.

They must love customers like you that think they can do no wrong.