Why Doesnt Anyone Like Cingular

I was with pac bell when it became cingular, so i've been around from the beginning. I'm VERY enlightened when it comes to cell phones. My bills have always been smaller than everyone i know.While i'm CERTAIN ur rightr about people being overcharged, i'm definitely not one of them.

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Dear Infra-

I think you've definitely got a good point... about the enlightenment part. Education about providers is really the key to this whole issue, and if I had ONLY done my homework about providers... I NEVER would have signed up with Cingular.

SO MANY people here in SC are not very happy. Believe me... I'm not alone... I'm just one of MANY very unhappy ex-customers

With hectics schedules and the everyday hustle and bustle... we all have very little time to play word games with giant corporations... and we like to trust businesses to do the right thing when we enter in a contract with them. BUT with Cingular... I NOW see the MAJOR issue re: customer DISsatisfaction is with OverBilling and TOO MANY billing errors... that remain unresolved in an accurate and fair and just manner : (

Now... of course Cingular is *covering their fanny* (as always) by claiming that people should read their contracts more carefully. Oh... OK... Then what about ALL the Cingular customers that are just now finding the monthly "text charge" that WAS NOT in the original contract? Cingular just "slipped it in" and many people are furious about this *never ordered* overcharge... and many view it as under-handed and sneaky on Cinguluars part. You can now read about this and many other deceitful billing tactics... It's ALL over the net

Personally, NO MATTER what I tried in an attempt to reach a fair and amiacable resolution with Cingular... NOTHING WORKED. I was EXTREMELY nice and respectful towards EVERYBODY that I came in contact with at Cingular... and yet... their reciprocal gestures were dishonest, disrespectful, and underhanded.

However... I am happy for you in that you have not(yet!) had a problem with Cingular overbilling you. However, I strongly advise you to *take a closer look* at your bill because research done by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in California clearly shows that a lot of folks being overbilled by Cingular don't even know about it! Funny thing about all this... when THOSE people find out they're going to be really mad because I think that a lot of those folks have come to Cingulars defense. SO... while they were fighting for Cingular... Cingular was screwing them behind their backs. Talk about ULTIMATE betrayal!

Anyway... I've read a few of your other posts and you seem like a very cool person here to help others... so please allow me to apologize again if I ruffled your feathers in my earlier post.

Thanks again-

Originally posted by Infrablue03
I was with pac bell when it became cingular, so i've been around from the beginning. I'm VERY enlightened when it comes to cell phones. My bills have always been smaller than everyone i know.While i'm CERTAIN ur rightr about people being overcharged, i'm definitely not one of them.

apology accepted.

i love cell phones, i'm just here to share my knowledge and gain from others' insight (and get some pics and tones too, sometimes)

Thanks -

I love cell phones too... I just HATE what Cingular has done to the industry. They are Literally at the bottom of the pile... and most of their troubles seem to be originating from a vicious and calculated "money grab" from many of their unwitting customers.

The truly SAD fact of the matter is ... LOTS of Cingular customers are billing overcharged EVERY month and they don't even know it!

I admit that ALL providers have their shortcomings, but after having spent the last two weeks researching these service & billing issues re: problems with cell providers (NAMELY Cingular)... I have learned that Cingular is BY FAR the VERY Worst provider in the marketplace. BY FAR... all over the net... people are angrier at this one provider than ALL other providers combined.

Luckily, I have a regular job with the flex that allowed me to spend the time it took to put the Cingular puzzle together.

Truly the one thing that amazed me the most were the sheer number of disgruntled Cingular employees that were posting all over the net. They were airing out the dirty Cingular laundry bigtime! Yet on the other hand... I don't think I saw any "rant" posts from any of the other providers' employees? Personally, that was a BIG telltale for me.

Now that I learned what I have... my primary focus is to link info. Hopefully, this will make accessing the info easier for others on a similar search... and they won't have to dig as I did.

We're going to put all the evidence in one basket so to speak, and then people can see for themselves the truth of the matter.

Originally posted by Infrablue03
apology accepted.

i love cell phones, i'm just here to share my knowledge and gain from others' insight (and get some pics and tones too, sometimes)

I love cingular

i been wit cingular fo 6 months and im feelin this yo..i got ova 2,000 rollover peak minutes cuz i dun use it in the days at all really and i have 900 for day..But im thinkin on goin to altell. Should i or stay wit cingular?

I'm getting Cingular soon, because prepaid Virgin Mobile (Sprint PCS virtual network operator) is ending up being too expensive and the call quality on my Kyocera 2119b sucks. What I don't get is how CDMA is more expensive than GSM! Oh, and could somebody tell me about this thing with EDGE, 3G, and the like? I thought 3G is only on CDMA right now--is it available on GPRS now too?

As for the person who has that problem with Cingular billing them $3,000--have you tried writing the the company president? My mom does that all the time, she can find the contact info for any company's president, and whenever she goes and writes to them, they end up fixing her problem/complaint. Write to their president/CEO, that should work. If not, have you tried getting a lawyer? You're so stupid.

Lol look who's talking. I work in a call center and sometimes idiots call with complaints and they wanna talk to the president, as if they think they're important enough. so i'm like "yeah this is super important" and u fill out a regular complaint thing. same with ur letter to the president, it doesn't actually go to the president. he has better things to do, and there are LOTS of people paid to handle complaints. but yeah that guy is pretty silly.

and cdma is so lame, it's like not even comparable to gsm. what makes me very nervous is how sprint does stuff. like when u "email" someone a picture, you're not really sending it to them. you're posting it in sprint's archive and sending a link to the person. so sprint has all ur pictures. same with their text messaging. ur inbox and stuff isn't on ur phone like a regular cell phone would have it, it's like web based email. so u have to connect via their version of gprs to access ur own stupid inbox (which doesn't work during a call, i might add). so sprint also has all ur text messages on file too. i don't like that, and i can't believe anyone would settle for that.

Originally posted by bswail123
my biggest prob with cingular is the cust service closing at 9pm. WTF every other cust care is open 24 hrs. Damn them all!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems like you haven't been looking around recently. Take a look at Verizon, Sprint and Nextel. Their CS is not 24hr. AT&T claims it is 24/7, but when you call late at night they are always updating their system and you can never go through. So that's even worse because AT&T claims to have something they don't. That's why AT&T Corp. is threatening to sue AT&T Wireless. (They are 2 different companies, FYI)

My biggest problem with Cingular is the fact that if I wish to upgrade or downgrade my plan in any manner (more or less minutes) it’s an automatic 1 year contract addition.

I don't want stinking contracts I keep trying to get out of them but they forced me to get into a "contract" when my cell phone broke and they switched to GSM. The type of plan I was then on didn't exist and they had not literature for it anymore. I was tired of calling customer service to deal with fraudulent charges and then having to bring in the service area map for my plan when they said I was wrong.

GSM ended up being a better plan in the long run but contracts kill you.

um, cingular doesn't require a contract to change your plan. i change it all the time and it's not even my name on the account.

Is this common for everyone? Because the last two times I have tried they have told me I am required to add onto my contract. The only reson i can think of that being so is becuase I have less than 6 months till I am contract free.

I've been out of a contract for almost two years. They sent me a letter trying to get me to buy a phone for my "loyalty" and sign a contract, but those phones suck. I don't know, it's been like a year since i tried to change, maybe it's different now.

I have been having nothing but trouble with Cingular and will be cancelling my service agreement with them at this time. They overcharged my account for the last 12 billing cycles and refuse to give me a credit for 9 of the over-charges. They state that their " policy " is to refund overcharges only for the most recent three months - even though the charges are a result of their own mistake.

If you cjheck your monthly statements you will find errors and overcharges on a regular basis. Cingular makes the Customer check their work - and their mistakes are always in their favor it seems. I have called their Customer Service Dept. several times and have sent them four letters in order to clear this up. They refuse to refund the charges even though I have been a customer for over 5 years.

Another big drawback is their roaming charges which are way, way too high based on what most of their competitors are charging at this point. If you travel out of your home area the calls can easily cost $3.00 to $5.00 each for a very short (2 to 3 minute) call. Another problem is that they will continue to bill you for roaming calls for two or three cycles after your make the call. And, of course, in doing so they OFTEN will bill you for the same call more than once.

Cingular just is a terrible company to do business with at this point. There are way too many other providers to chose from.

Run - don't walk - away from Cingular.

cingulr has service everywhere....except my house