Cingular Customer Service is horrible

My wife and I were planning an 11 day driving trip through Europe. Apx. 5 weeks prior to departing on the trip I called Cingular’s Customer Service and asked them what I needed to do to have cell phone service while on our trip. I was prepared to rent a phone, order a SIM card or whatever was required to ensure we had cell phone capability during this time since both our families and workmen working on our house needed to be able to contact us in addition to both our business’ were going to use my phone for contact. Cingular’s Customer Service said all I had to do was call them 3 days before departing and they would activate my service for international calling and I would have cellular service in all four countries we were visiting.

Four days prior to departure (June 13, 2005) I called Cingular’s Customer Service and requested international calling be enabled at which time the service representative suggested I sign up for their International Calling Plan that would reduce the per minute charges on my calls, which I signed up for. I was told by the service representative I could now make and receive calls while I was in Europe. When I asked about access to my voice mailbox I was told to hold the #1 key down as in the states and I would connect to my VoiceMail, no matter which country I was in.

When we arrived in Stuttgart, Germany on June 17 I powered up my phone but received a “No Service” message on my phone. I powered the phone down/up several times during the shuttle ride but continued to get the “No Service” message. After tracking down an internet connection, finding the Cingular International Service phone number, procuring an International Calling Card and locating an international payphone I got in touch with Cingular International Customer Service. When I explained my phone problems to the service rep she asked me what make/model cell phone I was using, when I told her it was a Cingular/Samsung SGH-s307 she went offline for a minute and when she came back she informed me the s307 model is not compatible with the frequencies used in Europe and my phone would not work! When I asked her why Cingular’s Customer Service did not determine that during my previous conversations she could not explain it. She would be happy to remove the International Calling Plan charges from my account though. We went through our entire trip with no cell phone capability.

When we returned to the States on June 27, 2005 I attempted to access my voice mailbox but was unable to connect so I called Cingular’s Customer Service. I was told that when I upgraded my wife’s and my calling plan (to add additional minutes) 2 weeks prior to departing on our trip Cingular’s system automatically deactivates all your calling features, including Voice Mailbox, and that the Cingular Service Rep should have reactivated those features after upgrading my calling plan but he didn’t. This had the affect of not only did I not have cell phone service but callers could not leave a voicemail when they could not contact me because Cingular had deactivated my Voice Mailbox!

When I expressed my dissatisfaction with Cingular’s Customer Service the rep offered to grant me a $25 credit to my account, when I let it be known that a $25 credit would not make up for the lousy customer service I had received from Cingular she rescinded the offer to extend me the credit. I will now get to find out how much Cingular will try to get from me when I get out of my contract.

Feel free to use this information in any way you desire, I will be posting it on any forum I can find and will be sending it myself to any government agency involved with cellular providers.

B. Wright
Landenberg, PA
June, 2005

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UPDATE: 7/8/05

I received a call from someone (Evelyn ?) who said she was from the Office of the President of Cingular, from the sounds in the background I suspect she’s a member of a small group of senior customer service reps. empowered to do a good bit more to resolve customer complaints. Nonetheless, I was glad to hear Cingular respond to the complaint I emailed to Cingular’s CEO and VP of Customer Service.

She was very courteous and again apologized for the quality of service I had received and was willing to offer me one months free service and a no charge upgrade of my phone to one capable of functioning in Europe (tri-band ?) should I go there again. I declined her offer and explained to her that what I wanted was the ability to call customer support and have my issues resolved on the first call and to be given the correct answer the first time I called, I didn’t want to have to make repeat calls and I just didn’t feel Cingular’s customer support was anywhere near that quality. I also informed her of the fact I had previously called four times to get a CallerID issue resolved on my wife’s phone but it wasn’t properly resolved until I unloaded on the CSR after I returned to the states.

Evelyn (?) said she understood and assured me that this instance of support failure was going to make it into their CSR training to show what should have been done. I did explain to her that in all my calls to Cingular the CSR’s were always very courteous and polite; unfortunately they just didn’t seem capable of resolving the issues.

I will most likely be switching carriers to Verizon, they seem to have the best customer service reputation and coverage in the areas I need.