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Getting raped
Jay Bowman wrote: Ahh you have the wonderful Smart Access account....those are always lovely Dec 28 05 01:08 am Link in case there is anyone out there left that didnt get the memo..... CINGULAR SUCKS!!!! My husband got a huge bill a few months ago because his phone was stolen and someone used it a LOT.......it took him about 45 minutes to get though to a live person, by the time a person answered he was wound pretty tight....the end result was that they split it with him and he paid half...WHAT THE HELL? why dont they just suck it up? I mean the phone was stolen.... I have Cingular because AT&T was gobbled up.....I didnt want to leave my plan because I have a very old unlimited anytime minutes, roaming, long distance....the whole package for $99.00 ...NOBODY is going to offer me that and I use about 4000 min a month...I know, thats a lot but it's the only phone I use and I have a lot of gabby friends.  we also get side tracked while talking because when CINGULAR drops the call we have to start our coversation all over again! Most of my friends are now with Verizon...they love Verison and they all talk to each other free mobil to mobil....so I am feeling very left out.  I will leave my plan March 2007 when my sentence is up Dec 28 05 01:11 am Link Alli B wrote: Is that what it's called? That sounds so much better that the title "People-who-need-to-get-a-better-handle-on-lingering-student-loans-account" that I assumed it was... Dec 28 05 01:14 am Link Jay Bowman wrote: Yup thats what it is....and smart access definition by TMobile is basically for those who kinda have bad credit and want kind of a fresh start, and on to a better road to better credit and then eventually convert to a regular postpaid account... Dec 28 05 01:17 am Link Russell Perkins wrote: So are you on THAT SAME CELL PHONE? talking to this company? I think I would find a land line first before calling them. Dec 28 05 03:10 am Link bobby sargent wrote: I own one, but what a friggin scam. I belive they got their business plan from Enron. Charged for both incoming calls and out-going calls. Ugh. /tim Dec 28 05 03:43 am Link Eric S. wrote: I had AT&T for years then after their service got shitty, dropped them for T-Mobile! I've very happy with T-Mobile and have a plan that covers all the minutes I talk on the phone at an axxeptable rate. After dealing with their customer service while getting adjusted, I must say they are good. The customer service rep really was in the USA, and she saved me money by switching a plan for me near the end of the cycle when I realized I was going to go well over my minutes. Dec 28 05 04:21 am Link Mary wrote: Tell me about it. Wish I had that vaseline when I needed it...from 2000-2002. Damn they screwed me. I hate them, and I hate nokia. Motorola all the way. Dec 28 05 04:24 am Link Alli B wrote: Well hello! As a happy T-Mobile customer, I must say that it is nice of you to introduce yourself. I do have a plan that gives me 5,000 anytime/anywhere minutes ... at's quite a perfect plan for me at about $120 a month, I can travel and use to use my phone as my exclusive and only phone. It's a bargain! Dec 28 05 04:31 am Link Patrick Walberg wrote: Pat, get back to the Audray thread.... Dec 28 05 04:33 am Link Tim Baker wrote: LOL ... but Tim! I wanna talk about the TMobile Landlords program where maybe they'll put a tower on my moms property so our reception is better! That is the only problem I have is that I live in an area that no matter who your cell phone service carrier is the calls get dropped or the reception is not the greatest. Dec 28 05 04:54 am Link Patrick Walberg wrote: Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. You Californians! Dec 28 05 05:11 am Link Patrick Walberg wrote: Hey, those are mine and Leos! Damn Californians Dec 28 05 05:13 am Link My god! Well,..... try this: http://clarkhoward.com This guy has a radio program on in my area, and he has taken several calls from Cingular Wireless customers in the past who have bitched about similar incidents.. I hope you are given some satisfaction over this,...because what happened to you, can happen to anyone of us reading this.. JP Dec 28 05 05:20 am Link I've got something for you. It's from that website link I provided above: Clark talks with Cingulare rep about FCC - March 30, 2005 Clark talked recently about the FCCâs recent study on cell providers and customer satisfaction. The research showed that Cingular had the worst rating of any company while Verizon had the best rating. In fact, Cingular had three times as many complaints as Verizon. Cingular wanted to rebuke that research, so Clark talked today with a Cingular representative on the air. He said Cingular wanted to âclarifyâ? that customers may be disappointed, in part, because of the merge between AT&T and Cingular. He said the company is coming up with ways to improve service, including bills that are easier to read, offering customers âpoint of saleâ? descriptions so people know what theyâre buying and the 30-day grace period offered. Clark discussed the problems listeners have getting any help from Cingular customer service folks. The Cingular rep encouraged people to write directly to him at company headquarters if they are getting nowhere with customer service. So, give it a try. His name is Mark Siegel, Executive Director of Media Relations. You can e-mail him at [email protected]. How about that! Well,....and look,....they even have their PR guy's e-mail address listed  JP Dec 28 05 05:29 am Link John Paul wrote: Clark Howard is GREAT! I've been listening to him for years. He has turned me into a penny pinching fool! Dec 28 05 07:13 am Link Russell Perkins wrote: Do a little digging on the federal debt collection gudielines. I had a big problem with Cingular when I lived in CA, but eventually got out of paying them because they could not not send me an itemized list of charges. Do it all in writing, and if you have or know an attorney, copy them on the letter. Dec 28 05 07:22 am Link I had a similar situation as most here - regular bill is 40 per month, then they screw it up one month and I get a bill for $650! It was absolutely their fault, but having to prove and reprove to the little idiot on the phone was a nightmare, especially when they sit there defending a company that doesn't care about them. Got the credit - now hate cingular. Dec 28 05 08:52 am Link I bought one of those Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go phones. Every few months Best Buy or Target or somebody has a sale on the top-up cards, so I've yet to pay full price for the minutes. When I don't use the phone, I don't pay anything. When I use it, doesn't matter where I am, the per-minute is always the same. If I'm someplace where the phone works at all - and I checked to make sure it works everywhere I'm likely to go - I'm in network and no long distance charges. M Dec 28 05 09:33 am Link John Jebbia wrote: Average is their off peak charge, which could be .69 per minute plus long distance (if that wasn't covered) which is about an extra $1. Dec 28 05 09:44 am Link StMarc wrote: Spokesperson. Dec 28 05 09:48 am Link I got my first cell phone due to new assignment, it requires that I have a cell phone incase something happens on the way to a client. From reading all these I am SO glad I went with TRACFONE... My first month and I used about 25 minutes... My landline on the other hand get used hard!!! Dec 28 05 10:03 am Link I started out with ATT and my service was awesome for years. Anytime I had an issue, a quick call to customer service or the store and it was taken care of. I received the vast majority of my calls at least 90%, which with wireless service is acceptable as long as the other calls got to my voicemail. Cingular bought ATT, people calling me started getting messages saying "the cingular wireless customer your trying to reach is unavailable." Now if your unavailable, shouldn't my friggin voicemail pickup. My phone should be able to be on the bottom of the ocean and I should still be able to check voicemail. On week my phone didn't ring but three times, so I assumed I only got three calls (no love) then one of my friends informed me that he called and assumed my phone had been disconnected. To this day I have no idea how many jobs I lost that week. Sprint was never wonderful with the customer service over the phone, but I come to terms with there's worse things than bad customer service and thats no service. I left cingular and quick and told them to shove their early termination fees, hell I didn't have a contract with them anyway and they violated my contract first. I hate Cingular. Shawn Dec 28 05 10:27 am Link A couple of thoughts on this one: Unless there is new "hacker technology" that I am unaware of, I don't think your number has been sold to anyone. You most likely have a digital phone and the signal is most likely encoded. In the days of analog cell phones the hackers used to be able to receive your transmissions and obtain the serial # (not your phone #) on the "brain" of the phone. Through this, they could clone your phone many times. As far as I know, this doesn't happen much these days. I think you have a case in regard to the lack of alert by Cingular about the huge spike in your phone charges. This is true both in general and in light of the fact that they have established a past practice of notifying you of variances in your bill that, in realtionship to this, are minor. While it is your responsibility to know what your contract says, I suspect you can get this bill knocked down to something that you can deal with. Be prepared for a fight, however, because if the roaming is the root of the problem, it isn't just Cingular that is involved - they will have been invoiced by all of the other carriers and those carriers will not give up easily either. I recommend that you review the bill line by line. Examine each one to determine what charges were applied - connect charges for the other carriers, roaming charges, per minute charges, etc. What I am going for here is for you to become extremely familiar with what was charged, why and if, on a stand-alone basis, each call charge is within the realm of normal roaming fees. If you find charges by the other carriers that seem out of line, you may be able to lay some of the blame on them, thereby strengthening a case for Cingular (and by extension, you) not to pay them. By becoming intimately familiar with the bill you will also be able to respond accurately to whatever lines of defense Cingular and others try to throw up. Once you have done all that, you might call your local television news stations and ask to speak with their consumer affairs reporter. My guess is that a $6,000+ phone bill would be a newsworthy item and getting them to air the story would probably put Cingular in a much more cooperative mode. Along with this, a call to the Attorney General of your state might be worthwhile. Sometimes such offices will offer help directly or will put you in touch with a state agency that is better suited to handle you specific issue. Good luck - I had a similar (but MUCH smaller) problem with AT&T before Cingular bought them. My personal view of them is that they are pretty much morons who dwell somewhere among such "delightful" sales people as used car salesmen and the like. I hope you "kick their butts." BTW - when I had my fight with AT&T it was right at the end of my contract and I had it in one of their stores in a mall - there was a Verizon kiosk right down the hall so I went there, got one of their phones, had my old # transferred to it, and then went back to the AT&T store and VERY loudly told the salesperson where to put their contract renewal! It was admittedly a totally juvenile thing for a then 49 year old guy to do but it just felt GOOD! Best wishes for a successful fight! Dec 28 05 10:38 am Link DawnElizabeth Moderator wrote: HAHAHA! Yeah really! I got screwed on that end! Dec 28 05 10:51 am Link Did they at least have the decency to give you a reach-around? lol But yea, call Clark Howard, he's BIG in Atlanta 9and abroad) and he gets results. Dec 28 05 10:54 am Link Ok, posting my $0.02. I'm with T-Mob. LOVE it. I pay about $65/mth, which is 600 anytime, free nights and weekends, free T-Mob to T-Mob, and 1000 txt messages. Covers MORE than enough for me (though it helps that all of my friends are also currently on T-Mob). However.... My b/f currently uses T-Mob for work. Unfortunately, T-Mob has been expanding its customer base without expanding the network. So there are a lot of places now that he USED to be able to make calls from that he no longer can (and same for cow-orkers...used to be able to use the cell from home, but cant anymore), and because their phones are basically their lifelines, its unacceptable. Right now he's carrying around two smartphones on his hip (a Blackberry and a Treo) while they are in the process of switching over to Cingular. I keep telling him its a bad idea, but maybe dealing with their corporate clients will be better than regular customers. Dec 28 05 11:09 am Link Russell Perkins wrote: Well I am glad you are getting things settled with them, the wireless industry is very sneaky and when I assist my customers I tell em straight how it works and try to help em save money and what not, because I am a wireless consumer myself, and some people need a break.... Dec 28 05 01:20 pm Link I have Nextel/Sprint which is pretty nice because you have free calling across the US and some parts of Canada. Free long-distance? Now that's sweet, especially in this business. Plus there are NO roaming charges. I used to be on Cingukar and got ripped on numerous bills even though I'm barely on my phone. Dec 28 05 01:29 pm Link Cingular is like the wireless mob. My sister and I have our plans on there, every month the bill is stupid high but they can't explain why. They will cut you off two days after your bill is due so that you have to keep paying that crazy ass activation fee. you know the one where you pay 40 bucks for someone to press a key on a computer. The phones they have are the shittest. Nothing but problems I am ready to say the hell with it and throw my phone in the East River. I don't care what anyone says all cell phone companies rape you. Why, because they can, I rmemebr when we didn't have cell phones and everyone was fine. Why is it now that we all have to have them plastered to the sides of our face. i know I sound like an old foggie but I am only 25. Still it all seems useless. To hell with Cingular. Can't wait till tax time, I am breaking my contract and running for the hills. Dec 28 05 01:43 pm Link Eric S. wrote: Been with them for several years. Got a GREAT plan with them, customer service has been exemplary. I started out when they were Voicestream & they screwed my bill up badly. I fought with them for months, and 2 days after T-Mobile took over it was fixed. I've been very happy with them. Dec 29 05 01:26 am Link UdoR wrote: They're offering better plans than that now. For $49.99 you get 1500 whenever minutes, free nights and weekends, no long distance and no roaming in the US. Unlimited multimedia & text messages are an additional $15 a month. (I got unlimited standard text and T-Mobile to T-Mobile calling grandfathered for $10 extra from my old plan, so $59.99+ tax for everything) Dec 29 05 01:29 am Link I think a lot of people here have no clue how the roaming thing actually works with the bill... Your carrier charges you for using another carrier's network, But that other carrier also charges you as an outsider. I had a phone that picked up some off the wall Cell tower in VA, even though my carrier was supposed to have coverage there. I got the bill next month and had the roaming charges from my carrier and charges like these from the other carrier. $.75 Call placed - Busy $1.25 Call Placed - no answer $24.75 Call to xxxx - 4 minutes. My bill was over $1000 for a 3 day trip. Needless to say my Carrier removed all the charges because their tower should have grabbed my phone first..... Dec 29 05 06:44 am Link What did you all do BEFORE mobile phones? Throw the damn things away and go back to doing it that way. I dumped the mobile [electronic leash] more than 5 years ago and never looked back. Then I returned to a land line with a fixed national tariff (no individual or metered call charges to ordinary phones anywhere in the country) and + broadband internet access at a combined FIXED monthly rate (UKP50 = ca USD75). Even Intl calls are cheep cheep cheep - e.g. 30 minutes London to Cali = UKP3.50 = ca USD6. Anyone that wants me can call and leave a message or send me an e-mail. Basically anyone I usually am doing business with outside my local call area that calls me during business hours knows to just let it ring 3 - 4 times and hang up [I can read the caller's number] and I call them right back at no cost to me or them. LOL Studio36 Dec 29 05 07:29 am Link I used to have Cingular, actually they were Southwestern Bell when I signed up. Southwestern Bell was good, but Cingular. Man, They never had my bill right. Ithen went to Nextel. I have been with them for about 4 years. I have never had a problem with them, and nobdy could beat the plan that they offered me. I was a little sad when Sprint merged with the company. I don't know if it still is but Nextel used to be the only company (at least around my area) that offered a 1 year contract agrreement, and they gave me mid range phone for 1 penny. Can't beat that!! Dec 29 05 04:47 pm Link Russell Perkins wrote: my cell bill once reached 3+ grand....I paid 1 grand off, but they kept charging interest and the morons kept turning the phone back on, and charging me reactivation fees. A bunch of tools, I tell you. Jan 06 06 02:06 am Link Lady Bronze wrote: M'Lady, I suggest you use the phone in the hotel when you come out to AZ. Jan 06 06 02:10 am Link Had Verizon (GTE) since 1985, except for the 90's when I was in Moscow. GTE and now Verizon has been really good. For what it's worth. Jan 06 06 02:19 am Link |
