news.yahoo.com — Cingular Wireless Corp. promised to provide uninterrupted service to AT&T Wireless customers when it acquired that company in 2004, but instead it nickel-and-dimed them and degraded their reception in an effort to persuade them to sign new contracts, a federal lawsuit said Thursday.
Jul 8, 2006 View in Crawl 4
sp4nkJul 9, 2006
Bulls**t. I never had problems with AT&T. My phone was cheap and my service area never dropped my calls. When Cingular took over, they constantly screwed up my billing, changed my plan without my knowledge or consent, and every single time I tried to call them to resolve the issue, NOTHING would get done. In addition, their Web site was absolutely useless for automated or online payments because it didn't support anyone who was from AT&T.I eventually shelled out the bones for the cancellation fee to drop them and be done with it.
conigliettaJul 9, 2006
This is totally true, Infact I wored for cingular and our official response was suppose to be that because we had purchased at&t the contracts that at&t had with other wireless providers for leasing their TDMA towers had gone away. Only to find out a few months later that Cingular was infact migrating at&t towers over to GSM technology and reducting the amount of operational TDMA towers to just a handful.. Just enough to keep service to customers so they could not escape their contracts through loopholes.At one point at&t before the sale / merger was making a customer grab by offering a free wireless phone upgrade every year for a contract renewal. Which would have been good but it actually turns out they were just sweetning the pot for Cingular to step in. Now when those people came to 1yr of service they were given the option to recieve a free phone. That phone usually being a TDMA phone unable to recieve decent service because of the tower switch. Or the cheapest POS GSM phone we could give them meaning singal band nokia that they could get average service on (and by that time the average was pure ____). The only catch, you have to sign up for a contract renewal with cingular and lose any promotions that you had recieved over the years of loyalty with at&t. To make matters worse Cingular was offering different rate plans to the migrations.This is the hell I went through from the customer care perspective, and you may not believe it but I felt really bad for our old at&t customers as Cingular was not even supplying vaseline.<a class="user" href="http://makebusy.blogspot.com">http://makebusy.blogspot.com</a>
tendonutJul 9, 2006
In response to the people who complain about Cingular Billing, ever get a bill for $12,000? Problem started last February where we never got a bill. Not doing the traditional "no bill, no pay" crap that people pull, I went and paid my bill for the normal price on the normal due date. The next month, I get a double bill, but still shows that I made the payment. But what is strange, is this bill says it was due one month ago. So I go to Cingular (their store is USELESS) and explain the problem, and they of course just tell me to pay the bill and be done with it. I refuse, pay the regular bill on the regular day and continue. Now I know this is not an overage, since the reason for the high bill according to the Cingular people was I went over in text messages coming from my brothers phone (we are on a family talk plan). He has NO SCREEN on his phone! It broke last year, so how did he manage to send 2000 text messages? Also, according to the bill, customer service, the kiosk and the people at the store, no one could give me the exact total I owed. Each would come up with a totally different price, all WAY over the normal bill. So I go home, and start to get angry with customer service. Finally, after trying for 3 days, I get ahold of someone and says "ooh, there appears to be a billing problem. I'll take care of it" Of course, he didn't. 3 days later, I get a 2and bill. This one for double of my double bill (bringing it up to about $500. Says that the bill was due yesterday, but I just got it today. 2 Days later, I get a bill for $1,200 that says it was due back in December. Then the next day, a $5.000 bill. I am now like crying to one of my friends who I find out has connections at Cingular and would try to take care of it. The day before the normal due date for my bill, I get a bill for $12,000. They can just kiss my ass if they think I am going to pay for this. To wrap this up, it was all eventually taken care of and my normal bill of $124.87 (4 people on a family talk plan) was returned. What the problem was, was they were billing me for the 800 minutes I paid for as if they were paid for by the minute, regardless if I used them or not, then billed me for the minutes I used out of the 800, then billed me for all texts sent (I have 200 or so I prepay for) billed me for all the rollover minutes I've accumulated over the past year, the mobile-to-mobile minutes, the night and weekend minutes, EVERYTHING. They basically charged me for every minute I used and every minute I was entitled to. And the people at the store still think I pulled a fast one to avoid paying overages when I told them what the problem REALLY was.
tendonutJul 9, 2006
Oh yes, and my text messages have been arriving a few days late. Me and my g/f would have a fight and after I stop talking to her, she continues to fight via text messages. So clearly, she gets a little pissed when I never respond because I never received them. Of course, 6 days later, my phone starts recieving texts like crazy until the phone memory fills up, and then I see why she was mad and what she was saying. Delayed text messages can hurt a relationship.
deltavikeJul 9, 2006
Does anyone remember CellularOne? They changed their name to Cingular to overcome some of the heinous things they did to customers. Same tactics with a new name but people keep lining up for the cheap services.
infornographyJul 10, 2006
Hoo Boy. Where do I start? First off. TDMA is going bye-bye. Not if. Not only Cingular. Everyone. Look it up. There are plans nationally for every carrier to dump TDMA. Most carriers who used TDMA prior have gone to CDMA because the federally set deadline is somewhere around 2008. Cingular is a GSM carrier. They don't plan to open up any new TDMA sites. Sorry. That's that. Do I believe it's fair? Sort of. It's just not profitable to open up new sites to for a dying tech. Should they be maintained? Of course. Also, on the topic of "CINGULAR SUX!!!111" All carriers have their pro's and con's. As a consumer you should realize and know that. Check your service area. You have 30 days. Use them. Where Cingular works for you. Verizon might work better and vice versa. Hell, I tell all my customers that go from Cingular to T-Mobile that T-Mobile doesn't get the best reception but if it works for them, I'm certainly glad. For the Gentleman in a prior post that stated that AT&T plans were cheap and favorable, all I have to say is: they got bought out for a reason. They were losing profits like crazy. As an old AT&T sales rep, I loved how we were payed. And when a customer came in, just give them more mins. But the company crapped out. That's life. And on the topic of, "You get what you pay for," Please. Do yourself a favor. Realize that coming into the store and stating "I want the FREE phone." and not listening otherwise will get you your free phone but don't be surprised at what you get. The LG C1300, 1500, oh what the hell almost every LG. and the Motorola V180's and V220's good lord. I'm not saying spend $300. But ask the rep what phone is durable and gets good reception. We don't make money off of your phone. We make money off your service. We could care less about what phone you get. We just want you to sign up for service, renew, and not come back unless you want to add a line or renew. Whenever I suggest a phone, even an INEXPENSIVE phone that you have to PAY for, customers become all haughty and think I'm just trying to make money. Sigh. Whatever. I digress.Also. NO ONE. and I mean NO ONE who is in a CINGULAR OWNED AND OPERATED store like 1. Independently owned AGENTS or 2. Customer Service. 1. Agents Lie and Cheat ( I got stories among stories among stories )2. Customer Service sucks for everyone. ( that includes ME and YOU )the best advice for ANY retail and Customer service situation is to be polite, understanding and patient.Customer Service tends to swing more your way that way.
Closed AccountJul 10, 2006
I recently got owned by Cingular. I wrote a blog a few days before this one showed up, pretty much accusing Cingular of theft, but for different reasons. Check out the DIGG post here:<a class="user" href="http://digg.com/tech_news/Cingular_Policy_Is_Theft">http://digg.com/tech_news/Cingular_Policy_Is_Theft</a>
vajra918Jul 10, 2006
Starting?
morhavokJul 10, 2006
Ya id have to agree about the plans. I was an AT&T customer who was taken over by cingular. I have an awesome plan like 1k minutes and free night/weekend for 35 bucks a month. I have occasionally looked at the cingular plans just for the roll over minutes, but Ive never seen a plan that even comes close to this in cingular. Besides that I never had a problem with cingular's service. I basically always have reception and its been the same or better since the transfer. So no compaints there. Only problem was it jacked up my voicemail for a week after the transfer, but the tech support helped me fix that in 10 minutes. Heck I even didnt pay my bill for 3 months and they shut it off, and I paid it, and it was back up within an hour ( Although the retard in accounting told me it would take a week, at least I made him waive the fee) In summary im a happy ATT/Cingular customer.
Closed AccountJul 10, 2006
I had ATT.... my phone broke and I couldn't get a new one because "att wasn't cingular" so cingular wouldn't give me a new phone... so finally i almost wanted to upgrade with a "new cusomter" plan...but i couldn't...because "att was cingular"...i was an ATT customer...and I was a bastard child of the cellphone industry...when it helped them i was cingular...when it helped them i was att...bastards.
footballstudOct 17, 2006
back in 2002, or whenever they offered it, i had the at&t charter plan - that's unlimited minutes anytime anywhere, and unlimited incoming SMS. all for $99 a month. i've never really had problems. in fact my phone seems to perform better than friends with Cingular phones. customer service has also been great. of course they ask me to switch, but i just say no, and they leave me alone. i've never had any problems with them.it seems, i'm in the minority here though. no mobile phone is perfect. and some will work better at different places where others won't. that's just how the wireless technology is. does anyone else have any good experiences with at&t.