[Moogs]

My better half and I are about to leave cingular after our most recent two year nation-wide plan went very sour.

Over the last year, we've had two or three occasions where the minutes listed on the bill are SO far out of whack with our calling habits that we started to get suspicious. Once or twice we called in but were only able to get vague explanations and excuses why "that's just the way it is", with only one or two calls credited back.

Now, as our account is coming up to its two year minimum period we get a HUGE bill, padded of course on the minutes side to numbers we normally take and receive calls from. It's like you'll see two or three calls with a minutes range that's normal then an extra one right after that's not. Like:


08/01 - 3:30pm - Joe Shmo's number - incoming - 6 min
08/01 - 5:00pm - Joe Shmo's number - outgoing - 3 min
08/01 - 5:11pm - Joe Shmo's number - outgoing - 12min

...all over the f---ing bill from every common number.

And then this was my favorite:

08/01 - MY number here - INCOMING - 5min
08/01 - my number here - incoming - 3 min

08/02 - my number here - incoming - 2 min
08/02 - my number here - incoming - 7 min

08/04 - my number here .... you get the idea

To a tune of about 40 f---ing minutes (can you tell I'm pissed?) @ $.45 each per.

The best part is that my phone tracks the last ten calls made and received, and between two sample dates that I used to test it, there are 9 calls on my latest bill that do NOT show up on my phone, even though there are calls on my phone log the day before AND after that DO show up.

Here are the Cingular explanations:

C: "Well sir, even though the incoming call lists your number, it was somebody else's number, we just couldn't track it so we put yours in there... but trust us, you took these calls".

Me: Ohhh-k. How am I suppose to verify that I took all these incoming calls if I don't even have an area code to go by?

C: "Well sir, our system works pretty good, unfortunately there's no way for you to check, but you took those calls."

Me: So you're asking me to pay for a service I can't even verify that I used?

C: "Unfortunately sir, yes that's the way the system works."


Me: What about the calls on my bill - from just a two day sample - that do not show up anywhere on my phone even though 9 show up on the bill, not including voice mail? Not only that, I have calls both incoming and outgoing the days before AND after this two day sample, some with multiple calls of each type on the same day.

"Well sir, you can't really trust your phone to accurately track calls. The software could be bad. You can't go by what your phone says."

Me: When we bought the phones, they told us a good way to track our usage is by checking our call logs, and that the software updates itself over the network.

C: "Quite honestly sir, it's really not a good way to check your calls. You can't rely on your phone to do that."

Me: Then how am I suppose to watch my minutes and know the status of thing if I can't use the phone the way your sales rep said we could?

(and I'm not making this up)
"If you feel you're going over your minutes, check your phone each month periodically to check the totals."




So of course, after about 10 minutes of back and forth and being as polite as I could muster I very calmly said:

"I understand you don't write your billing policies and that you may need a manager's approval for certain things, so I don't mind waiting to get this straightened out. All I can tell you is, I have over a half hour's worth of incoming calls to myself that I have no way to verify. I have call logs on my phone that directly contradict your bill and you're telling me I can't use the log to get a credit because my Cingular phone software is unreliable. I have numbers I don't recognize and you're telling me I can't get a credit for those.

Why don't you go talk to someone and see what you can do for some or all of it, because if do nothing we're going to closely evaluate whether we have any reason to stay with Cingular after our two year agreement."

And of course he goes away and comes back with "I can't help you I'm sorry sir" and that was it.

So here's what Cingular does:

Cingular pads your bills with calls you can't verify.

Cingular tacks on minutes to people you commonly call.

Cingular will not credit back calls you've researched and still don't recognize.

Cingular will tell you their phones have great features to track your usage, but when you use those features to question your bill, they tell you the phone can't be trusted.

Cingular will, at the end of your service term, pad your bill heavily in all the ways above if you haven't purchased new phones, add-on services, etc. They know you're going to leave because you haven't been a good little consumer, buying all their new shit every year, so they fuck you before you go.

[geneman]

That's ridiculous. I don't know American consumer protection, but certainly there must be some organization or agency you can report this to? If it's a common problem something needs to be done...

[AsLan^]

Sprint owed me $120 for over a year... charged me a disconnection and reconnection fee for changing area codes which was *free of charge.*

I think I've seen some consumer advocacy sites around the web with similar stories as yours, Sprint was particularly bad when I lived in the States and many others thought so too.

Actually I just did a quick Google search for "cingular sucks" and I can see there are plenty of other people that think so too. Someone might have some advice on how you can recover your money...

[Kickaha]

We have some friends who had something else happen with Verizon you need to watch out for: bumping minutes to the next billing cycle to push you over your limit.

The husband travels a lot for business, and one month they had their normal bill amount, so didn't really think to check the minutes used, but the next month was something like $200 over. Turns out that something like 900 minutes hadn't shown up on the first bill, but had been pushed to the second one, even though they were used during the first cycle.

The explanation was that sometimes, 'rarely' was the word used (>75% of your minutes is not 'rarely'), off-Verizon-network providers don't send the minutes to Verizon in a timely manner, so they get bumped.

Do they go back and adjust your bill intelligently? Hell no. They just add them to your minutes for the current cycle, so even if you have two cycles that are under your plan minutes, you can get hammered on the second month.

It took them days to get it straightened out, and it had to be bumped up to a manager two tiers above the call reps, and *he* acted like he was doing them some huge freaking favor and never once apologized.

So watch your bills.

[ast3r3x]

You can put "*insert carrier* sucks" in google and you'll get tons of results. Everyone has bad stories to tell about carriers.

If I were you moogs, I'd have the person I called check their logs so they can verify or not.

[Moogs]

Thought of that but if they're not willing to trust *their own* call logs, why will they trust another carrier's log?

I think they've basically got an excuse for everything that, short of legal wrangling I won't get a cent. We're thinking Verizon since Consumer reports seems to rank them best in almost every city, even though no one aspect of their service is ever "excellent." That and my better half can get Verizon discounts from work I think. Shows you how truly awful most phone services are.

If you're leading the pack with B-/C+ performance, you know something's wrong. I think they set precedents for each other. There's no company that does things right all the time as far as fair billing practices and service quality so it's no threat to say you're leaving. Cingular and everyone else knows that chances are, you'll leave for a year or two, then come back with some promotion they run.

I already bagged AT&T the year before I went Cingular, and of course they got bought by Cingular. The only thing that improved over the two years was the dropped call performance. Everything else was truly mediocre.

[billybobsky]

WTF?

This needs a class action law suit to three to get these companies behaving properly...

[ast3r3x]

I'm just confused, why can't a company start that has cheaper and legit plans? You think their popularity and following would sky rocket, even if they had to start out small. The only thing they'd have to worry about is a hostile takeover.

[Moogs]

Originally Posted by billybobsky WTF? This needs a class action law suit to three to get these companies behaving properly...

This is exactly correct and I don't really think it would be hard to prove, but it would be hard to organize. If everyone kept a spread sheet that tracked monthly calls, tracked total minutes logged by their phone that month, and took a 10 day sample from their phone log so they could compare it to the bill....

...you'd find a shit-load of discrepancies. These guys will nickel and dime you to death, literally. Minute here, three minutes there, untrackable calls too.

[HOM]

I've had nothing but good results with Cingular, which I why I've stuck with them over 2 years since my contract expired. Verizon on the other hand, I had to get the NYS AG's office involved with issues I had on two separate occasions.

I had some issues with them provisioning my account with their unlimited data plan and went over by $300, but after a few phone calls it was all taken care of.

Don't know what to tell you except that you should call back. Having a different rep can make all the difference in the world.

[Moogs]

I will probably do that and just ask to speak with a manager right away. Give them the ole "it's your last chance" routine. Thing is I notice different carries have very different reputations depending on the city. To tell you the truth I am tempted to just not use my phone for anything but emergencies and have everyone call me at home since I dont use my cell for business much.

[kretara]

I've had nothing but positive experiences with Nextel.

I've used Cingular and ATT in the past and they suck.

My work currently uses Cingular and we have nothing but problems. Constant dropped calls and static. Another funny thing that happens on a regular basis is that the phones will go into roam or extended area mode for days at a time, despite the fact that I have not even left the city. I've tried to get us to drop cingular but the head of the company likes them.

[atomicbartbeans]

This is why I love prepaid service, a minute tank display on the phone, and a phone that keeps good call logs. That way, it's almost impossible to get scammed.

I've had Net-10 for 10 days now, and they've been great. Many people don't get Net-10 because they say "you need to spend at least $30/month to keep your account active", but when you go to activate your phone, they tell you something like: "You qualify for a special offer, where every card you buy for as long as you own your phone gets double the service time". So really, you only need spend $15 per month. I don't know why they don't advertise it.

The only problem I've had is the day I got the phone. I sent 2 text messages that I was charged for, and got 2 messages back (that I was also charged for) saying "unknown carrier: message undeliverable". I was like WTF, they first don't send your text message after charging you for it, then charge you more to tell you that it didn't work? I knew it wasn't a problem on the receiving end, because I tried 2 different numbers (whose text messaging works fine).

Feeling swindled, raped, and violated, I sent off an email. They apologized, saying that the issue was probably that my phone's activation for text messaging wasn't complete, even though I could make and receive calls. I later asked them politely to refund for those 4 unfairly-charged messages, and they sent me an extra-generous 20 message credit, along with a very nice apology by a manager, saying that he would make some calls immediately to get my text messaging working.

Sure enough, the next day, I tried sending a message and it worked fine.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Moogs Give them the ole "it's your last chance" routine.

Sad to say, I haven't found that very effective in the past with wireless companies. What's 10 times better (and really gives them the proverbial wake-up call), is when you threaten to go to the media.

Many local news stations have a "Scam Watch" segment, and they love it when people call in about stuff like this. A bad news story or two can mean double-digit drops in local market share for the offending company. Cell phone companies strive to keep an immaculate "public image", and they will go to great lengths to keep people from running to the press.

Freedom of speech is your heavy artillery when dealing with corporate America. :smokey:

[709]

Originally Posted by Moogs Thing is I notice different carriers have very different reputations depending on the city.

'Tis true. From my experience here in the Detroit/Chicago nexus, Verizon is by far the preferred carrier.

[DMBand0026]

Originally Posted by Moogs Thing is I notice different carries have very different reputations depending on the city.

Very true. I have a lot of friends here in Chicago that have Cingular, a good majority of them can't get a signal in 95% of the city. I have Verizon as do several of my other friends and we've never had a problem. A few friends have run into problems with Cingular's customer service too, which hasn't impressed me. It seems that Cingular is more about selling you a phone than giving you good service.

The US wireless industry needs to clean things up, because right now it's all crap with no incentive to fix any of it.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x I'm just confused, why can't a company start that has cheaper and legit plans? You think their popularity and following would sky rocket, even if they had to start out small. The only thing they'd have to worry about is a hostile takeover.

I've wanted to do this for a while now.

Kickass phones, good reception, and SIMPLE calling plans with no stupid nickel-and-dime add-ons.

Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

[Ryan]

I'm stuck with Sprint because they're the only carrier in my town with decent coverage, and that's only on their old phones, from around 2003. The new Sprint phones get absolutely crappy reception, but my old Sanyo 5300 (I think it might have been the first camera phone offered from Sprint, not sure though, either way it was free) gets perfect reception everywhere in town.

Of course, it took two weeks to get it that way, because they gave me a phone number that somebody else was still using.



Frickin' morons.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by HOM I've had nothing but good results with Cingular, which I why I've stuck with them over 2 years since my contract expired. Verizon on the other hand, I had to get the NYS AG's office involved with issues I had on two separate occasions. I had some issues with them provisioning my account with their unlimited data plan and went over by $300, but after a few phone calls it was all taken care of. Don't know what to tell you except that you should call back. Having a different rep can make all the difference in the world.

My wife had Verizon for a year and every single month for that entire year she had to call Verizon to fix billing errors. Every. Single. Month.

She switched to Cingular, then brought her mom and me onto her plan and we haven't had any billing issues whatsoever since.

[atomicbartbeans]

Originally Posted by BarracksSi I've wanted to do this for a while now. Kickass phones, good reception, and SIMPLE calling plans with no stupid nickel-and-dime add-ons. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

Totally.

One day, I was bored, so I wrote up an idea of the ideal "fair" cell phone company on my Powermac 6100.

It was like 3 pages long, but it went something like this...

"Instead of paying a set minimum monthly fee for a set minimum number of minutes, you pay a flat per-minute rate. For example, if calling was 8 cents/minute, and you talked for 350 minutes in a month, your bill would be $28 for that month. Text messages cost roughly half of the per-minute rate, and aren't billed as an "add-on", but instead along with your regular calls. There are no extra fees added on to your bill; operating costs for the company are included in the per-minute rate. There are no overages, because there is no set minute allowance. Night and weekend calling is treated no differently than peak-hours calling. There are no roaming fees, or reduced rates for in-network calling."

I don't remember the whole thing, but it was basically a solution to every phone company's problem.

[ast3r3x]

That Net10 looks pretty good, I might actually get a cellphone. What does it mean carryover with active service? What do you have to do to keep the service active?

[atomicbartbeans]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x That Net10 looks pretty good, I might actually get a cellphone. What does it mean carryover with active service? What do you have to do to keep the service active?

You have to buy at least one $30 card every 2 months to keep your phone active (that's $15/month).

They tell you one every month in the store, but they lie. You're told that you actually get double the time for every card, when you activate your phone (if you do it online).

[judeobscure]

File a complaint with the FCC

[ast3r3x]

If you buy more than a $30 package, does it last longer? That is how it is with T-Mobile and my parents phone. If they buy $100 packages, it will last all year.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x If you buy more than a $30 package, does it last longer? That is how it is with T-Mobile and my parents phone. If they buy $100 packages, it will last all year.

A hundred bucks? A MONTH?? For a freakin' phone?

Geezus... I'm in the wrong business! Even though I'll never pay that much, I guess enough people are willing to do so, and maybe I can finally buy that Porsche I always wanted.

[ast3r3x]

No, it's $100, 1000 minutes that don't run out for a year...as in you don't have to continue to buy packages to get the minutes to rollover. It's instead of having to buy however many small amounts every month or so to get your minutes to rollover and keep the phone active.

[atomicbartbeans]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x If you buy more than a $30 package, does it last longer? That is how it is with T-Mobile and my parents phone. If they buy $100 packages, it will last all year.

http://www.net10.com/rates.jsp?nextP...jsp&task=rates

But in actuality, the first 2 cards' service time is doubled. They just don't advertise it. Meaning, the $30 card gives you 60 days of service, and the $60 card gives you 120 days of service.

I don't know how long they'll offer that to new customers though, so don't yell at me if you get one in 3 months and you're given the advertised times.

[scratt]

Ditch the phone. Don't pay the bill.

Keep a record of the bills and your phone log.

Encourage them to take you to court.

When (if ) they finally do, send their lawyers copies of your bill and phone logs (handwritten will do).

They will back down.

If they do not, go to court and show the judge your records, and your transcript of the phone conversation you have had with the customer service monkey. They record these conversations "for training purposes" (Actually it's so they can do you if you get abusive), so invite them to bring a copy of the phone conversation to court.

They will back down before court I guarantee. They will also lose if they are retarded enought to try and take you to court.

I have been through this with mobile phone carriers in three countries. Most notably Orange in the UK, who would simply add 5 extra calls for every call I made when I was roaming abroad. Orange said it was their 'partner network'. I said I didn't give a s&^t, it's their problem as they are billing me incorrectly.

I didn't pay my bill for three months, let them cut me off, encouraged them to sue, and in the end they just wrote it off. I never heard from them.

You will win for 3 reasons....

1. If they are as shoddy as you say, they will have so many other pissed off and AWOL customers they will be swamped and not be able to take you all to court.

2. They have no way of giving you a trustoworthy itemised bill and their own bills are confusing and obviously erroneous, so a judge will throw it out.

3. Frankly. They don't give a shit so will more than likely just write it off.

But you will feel a lot better having walked away with some pride and your final payment in your packet.

Just my 2c.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x No, it's $100, 1000 minutes that don't run out for a year...as in you don't have to continue to buy packages to get the minutes to rollover. It's instead of having to buy however many small amounts every month or so to get your minutes to rollover and keep the phone active.

Wait... so, I pay 100 bucks, and I get 1000 minutes for the year? Nothing else?

[HOM]

Gotta say, scratt, that's not good advice. If you don't pay the bill, you might win in court, but they win in the end by fucking up your credit.

[scratt]

Originally Posted by HOM Gotta say, scratt, that's not good advice. If you don't pay the bill, you might win in court, but they win in the end by fucking up your credit.

I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK they might be able to do that initially with a 'default' mark or 'late payment' mark against your Cingular account, but that's all.

Assuming you have an otherwise good credit rating it will have little or no effect.

When they lose in court you can force them to reverse that. If they walk away you can then have that mark expunged.

Sometimes you have to take a few bruises to win a war. I view it from that perspective as I won't be treated like a doormat. I don't care how big the company is.

In any case that's how it works in the UK, and I am only giving advice from personal experience. Not just shooting my mouth off.*

*All advice is given as anecdotal, any actions you take are your own responcibility.