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Cingular's One-Way Contract

consumerist.com — Cingular user received a letter from Cingular asking her to voluntarily discontinue her service because more than 50% of her calls were using competing networks and she was no longer economically feasible for Cingular. In return, Cingular would allow her to keep her numbers. No refund. No apology. No free unlocked phones.

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  • spahn, on 10/12/2007, -10/+43This is absolutely despicable on Cingular's part. She was using her service within the terms of her contract and they yanked the plug on her. F*$@ Cingular
    • MiddleGirth, on 10/12/2007, -16/+18Every time I sign a contract, my outlook for humanity lessens.
    • weirdone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+48This is actually a really common thing from cell companies and can be used to your advantage if you want. If you're in a bad contract that you want to get out of, drive out of your area a bit and hop onto another cell's network and just leave the phone on a call for like 8 hours. The company will drop your contract no questions asked.

      It can be a good or a bad thing. All depends on how you look at it.
    • h0kiez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I am under contract with Cingular and I just destroyed my phone. I went into the store and they wanted $475 for a new one. Ha! I'm going out of town this weekend and I think I may be making some calls.
    • Avengelist, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Actually, if you read the contracts closely, there is a clause that allows them to do exactly this. It's all right there, in the contract.

      If you decide to enter into a contract with anyone, it is your responsibility to read it, and understand what you are getting yourself into, before you sign.

      There is no "Yeah, but..." You signed it, you agreed to be bound by it.

      Read JC-Sharp's comment.
    • Yez70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If you want a replacement phone for a locked network - check out ebay. I bought a $250 phone for $25 there - locked to Sprint.
    • theWagsSGD, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Actually she wasn't screwed over at all because it states IN THE CONTRACT that you must be on network for at least 51% of your call times or they have the right to terminate the contract. I used to sell phones, people really dont read the contracts
  • JC-Sharp, on 10/12/2007, -7/+62I used to work for Cingular. I find this story funny because, less than a year ago there was a story here on digg about this exclaiming "How To Get Out Of Your Phone Contract At No Charge", which examined this policy.

    Spahn, actually in the contract it states that if you are found to be using unreasonable amounts of off network roaming they have the right to terminate your contract, at no cost to you. Why would there be an apology or free unlocked phones? Hell you're getting out of your contract for free, so if you got a free phone all you need to do is get it unlocked.

    Did you also know that Cingular (and every other provider in the US) states specifically in the contract that they do not guarantee service at any time? Yeah, if you get poor coverage, guess what, it's tough luck. All cell companies are the same, some of my former co-workers worked for Verizon before working for Cingular, and it's the same there.

    If people actually READ the contracts they sign then they wouldn't be suprised when this stuff happens.
    (BTW, we're up in Canada, so next time you feel like yelling at someone, be nice, cause we're 3rd party, and really don't give a crap about who's service is better. And if you're nice, you might get some credit. On my last day I gave 6 customers credits between 50 and 250 dollars)
    • petroK, on 10/12/2007, -13/+26Ah...you didn't read the 5 pages of 4 point font telling you we could shaft you a anytime, but if you want to be able to change service providers you have to pay a massive fee...
      too bad.???

      fine print== easy way to shaft the customer
    • Veamon, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31Yea, cause when I get shafted, I want it small, to help ease anal bleeding.
    • ViperDaimao, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14It's a contract that you are signing. If you didn't read it, how is that the company's fault? The customer has responsibility too, not just the company.
    • gjd131, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27What difference does it make if you read the contract if every provider has the same thing, and its not negotiable anyway? You really have no choice but to sign it and hope they don't decide to screw you.
    • Eclipse19, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Jc, I remember that story.

      I am on the other end. I work for a rural wireless service provider. Cingular pays us for every minute used by one of there customers on our network. Often, These people live in our market, where Cingular has not built out. This means that a majority of their traffic is on our network. The customers may be paying 30-40 dollars a month to Cingular, using thousands of "FREE" minutes, and Cingular gets billed up to 9 cents per minute (6 cents air,3 cents toll). Cingular is paying for that customer to have service. It's been like that since "No Roaming" became big. They do actually roam, just are not charged for it. It is a business decision. Everybody does it.
    • tadda, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Isn't there a bit of contract law (I believe common to the UK, Canada and the US) that states you can't sign away your rights even if the contract's language explicitly denies you these rights?
      With this in mind, would a contract that grossly favours one party (and effectively leaves the other party with no recourse against this under the terms of the contract) even be legally binding?
    • OswaldKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It's funny that people jumped all over the other posting lauding it as a way to screw the provider, but when the provider wants to protect its interests, it's somehow wrong.
    • makeaprettycake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I have also worked as a cingular customer service rep, and it was the most dehumanizing
      experience of my entire life. I wanted to die.
    • ViperDaimao, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yes Tadda you cannot sign away your rights. However I don't seem to remember "free roaming" nor "cellphone usage" anywhere on the Bill of Rights.
    • Snuffkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@tadda
      I think in the UK, at least, there's some part of contract law that states a contract must be 'balanced' to be enforcable, or something like that. As in, it musn't massively favour one side.
    • eatasandwich, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3With these contracts every single word is fine print. Next time I sign up for a service I'm going to sit there with a magnifying glass and read every damn word - for several hours. Most people have no idea when they're roaming.
      The cell phone industry is one of the only services I know that actually encourages you to swap providers with it's business model.
    • Azurensis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The woman may not have ever signed a Cingular contract if her company was bought out by them. There is a good chance that her original small company didn't have this clause in the contract she signed.
    • webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You know, if you take a black biro and score out the bits of the contract you don't like most of the time it will still be accepted. Try it: I altered my credit card contract so that they can't send my details to third parties. If I ever find they have I can sue their ass for breach of contract.

      Of course, they may take exception to scoring out things like having to pay back what you owe...
  • chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I've heard of this happening before and if I remember correctly its in the service contract verbage.

    It's a business
  • tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -21/+2Becky is asking for our advice.

    All together now:

    S... U.... and E... spells... you can do it..... that's right! Sue!
    • drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19She doesn't have a leg to stand on, its all spelled out in the contract.
    • SebastianMoser, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8@drlha
      You are talking to a person that presumably comes from the United States - a country where companies are sued for every ***** incident.
      In the USA you even have to tell the people that smoking is dangerous (oh no, who would have expected that?? you should listen to the green party a little more...), because else they could sue the tabacco companies for billions.

      @tazamore
      She should sue them for not having read the contract she signed, right?
    • helmsb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5In America you can sue a ham sandwich, doesn't mean that is going to go anywhere. Case would be thrown out immediately would really serve no purpose.

      I used to work for Cingular and the fact of the matter is that they write their contracts like this because people are always trying to scam them. We had people that get service then would not pay for two months and could not understand why they could not get a new free phone to replace the one they got two months ago.
    • HellifIno, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0This isn't directly related to the article, but a comment on the litigious nature of America.

      The DNA of a rapist was recently convicted of rape in order to keep the statute of limitations from running out on the case. That's right, they don't know WHO did it, but they have the DNA, so if there's ever a match made, dude will be nailed...
    • webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"The DNA of a rapist was recently convicted of rape"

      But the DNA wasn't the rapist... how the hell did they justify that? It's like convicting a car or gun.

      Look out Herby!
  • bightchee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I've heard of doing this on purpose to get out of contracts with this very same (desired) result.
  • naio21, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3That's what I call extreme CRM!
  • Gregd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Here's an idea. How about not buying into ANY cellular contract? I've been happily cell phone free for almost a year now. If I do need a cell phone, I'll probably purchase a tracfone that doesn't require a contract. Consumers have all the power. These contracts exist because people gleefully keep signing on the dotted line, then they're surprised when this ***** happens....
    • oakj423, on 10/12/2007, -17/+6how's that 28.8 connection treating you?
    • Gregd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@oakj423

      WTF does a dialup connection have to do with what I just said?
    • oakj423, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5i equated not having a cell phone with still having a dialup connection
    • Kazaki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      Have fun with that tracfone, that was my first cellphone experience too. Never wasted so much money in my life.
    • ScornForSega, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12

      I've got a cell phone with no active contract. I signed a 1-year, and when it was up, they didn't ask me to sign anything else. They just provide me with my service at the same rate that it's always been. Of course, they tried to intice me to signing again by offering a free phone (outside of the free upgrade every year), but I'm not falling for that.

      "Oh, no! My phone doesn't have a camera that takes crappy photos and play music ringtones that sound like complete ass!"

      I can call people. People can call me. Function > Form.
    • sunchild, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2@scornforsega

      Brilliant! Uh...you do realize that they can terminate your service at any time for any reason and you'd have zero recourse, right? Oh, and more than likely the terms of your contract renew automatically, just without the annual commitment and termination fee.
    • Gregd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      Have fun with that tracfone, that was my first cellphone experience too. Never wasted so much money in my life."

      But you missed the point. At least if I receive crappy service, quality, lack of a phone signal, missed calls, etc., I won't have to put up with it for 2 ***** years at $30 a month.

      Please do come back and explain to me how you "wasted so much money" on your tracfone when you weren't tied to a contract.....
    • Cronus6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd sooner get rid of my redundant land line (which I have, years ago) than my cell phone.
      I live in a major metro. area, (south Florida, population 5 mil + and it's nice and flat) never have bad service, or dropped calls (Cingular BTW).

      In fact after hurricane Wilma all the land lines in my area were down for 10 days or so, (along with the power) My cell worked fine though.
  • comcipher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is a very common thing. My friend lives in a house with 3 other people. All of them have Cingular, but their house is on a competing network so Cingular absorbs the charges for the whole nation-wide coverage thing. One of them used their phone considerably more then the others and was told he was getting dropped, while the other 2 continued to receive service.

    It's just a question of economics, sometimes it's not worth it for a cell company to continue to provide service if you rack up charges on competing towers.
  • diggitystar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If you look through the comments on the linked page, someone pulls up the actual contract language that allows them to do this. Legally, she doesn't have any recourse. She signed the damn thing.

    Sure it sucks ass-flavored balls, but so does dealing with any service provider. I call Charter at least once a month for ***** service, but their contract doesn't guarantee good service. I'm on my third Verizon phone and it's failing the same way the last two did, so now finally I should be able to change phones without waiting another 15 months.
  • HarryBauzonia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9It makes good sense.
    Cingular has to pay the competing companies for roaming, so if the their fees exceed their profit margin on her monthly bill it would be stupid to retain her as a customer. It's not cold-blooded, it's the only way Cingular's employees can continue receiving paychecks.

    To those of you who consider the practice "getting shafted" I ask you this. What's more important? Some woman's ability to gossip on her Cingular phone on other company's networks, or the financial well-being of thousands of families supported by Cingular's profits?

    She can easily get a new plan with someone else who provides service in her area so it's not like she's having her ability to use a cell phone taken away.
    • Kallius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well, HarryBauzonia, I call *****. If Cingular's profits are declining, would they (much like the majority of for-profit companies) be concerned with the welfare of their employees, or would they just make cuts rather than lowering the salaries and bonuses of the people up top? I am guessing that you might be either a corporate apologist, or top brass of a large company. When gas prices jump $0.50 a gallon, would you say, "Oh, must be a good thing because they're protecting the welfare of the thousands of people working for the oil industry"? I highly doubt it.

      I came across this sort of thing in the energy-reseller industry. The reseller will take over part of the billing for your utility (gas or electricity, for example) and you pay a higher price than the current market rate, with the "benefit" that you are supposed to be locked into that price in the event that energy prices increase. What is common about these contracts is a clause which, paraphrased, reads, "We have the right to cancel this contract at any time." So if they start losing money (even though they charged you a higher price initially), they can void the contract and start anew. You, as the consumer, do not have a similar out. But then I suppose it's okay because the company's employees are being protected.

      One-way contracts are *definitely* a way to shaft the consumer. Yes, the buyer must beware, but it doesn't mean that it's right and just for companies to try and weasel clauses into their contract and force everyone to take a course in law just to be able to understand the fine print.
  • kelopohii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5how can she sue when clearly she voided the contract by making more than 50% of her calls to non-cingular owned systems. the contract says she can't be doing that, she kept on doing it, her phone service was terminated. simple as that. what she needs to do it learn to read before she signs anything.
    • MikeVx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As far as I am concerned, Cingular has no right at all to place that condition in the contract and considerably less right to enforce it. The reason? Deception of the customer.

      GSM phones on every other carrier that I am aware of show you the carrier you are using at the moment on the idle screen. Without this, you have only maps of debateable accuracy to let you guess what carrier might be handling your calls. While Cingular does have maps that show which carriers are where, you have to be an extreme telecom geek to find them. The normal state of Cingular phones is to show Cingular on the display unless you are in Mexico or Canada.

      The upshot of this is that customers have no way of knowing when they are off the Cingular network and no way to know to adjust calling patterns if they wish to. Reading or not reading the contract is irrelevant to the argument when Cingular does not follow the standards that would make the whole issue into a non-issue. Cingular needs to enable proper Alpha Tags on the phones. At that point, the terms and the enforcement become legitimate.
  • RDurfee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't see what the problem is here. I had a friend who was on Alltel and then moved to another state. He eventually got a letter from them saying that they were going to disconnect his service because he was roaming 100% without additional fees on his part. He then switched to a carrier in his area (Cingular).
  • eLiTeGoodGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Every provider (well all the ones that I know of) has this rule. I used to work for US Cellular, it's a 50% rule if you don't use atleast 50% of your minutes in your home area after 3 billing cycles they can cancel your service. It's written on the brochure with the priceplans, (albeit in extremely small fine legal print) I know Verizon had it as of 15 months ago, Ntelos had it, Cingular, as well as sprint. While things may have changed I sold cell phones for about 9 year before switching to the IT industry 15 months ago.

    With US Cellular it wasn't too often that it happened but it did. I knew of 1 customer of mine that got disconnected out of my 3 years there
  • SweetsGreen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I've got a cingular phone. 1 out of 5 calls I receive or make has this weird problem that I cannot hear the other person, or they cannot hear me. Its not the phone, I've replaced it 3 times....Cingular has no idea what the problem is and they will not let me out of my 2yr contract, they say that service problems do not constitute a breach in contract.

    They people at cingular were alot nicer to me a few months ago when I had no contract. This is the last time I lock myself into a 2yr contract... Unlocked phones are the way to go.


  • jweinraub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2how do family plans work? is the whole plan a contract or just the number? I already left VZW for Cingular and I want out of Verizon's contract so i pay no termination fees. But I dont want to shaft my family out of the contract since they are rather happy with verizon. i am happy with cingular. so if i make a call out of network for say 8 hours, will that be to my benefit or will my parents be rather annoyed?
    • eLiTeGoodGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Usually each phone has a contract. if you have 3 phones on your plan, you bought 3 phones at the discounted rate therefor you have 3 phones under contract at the same time. If you bought all 3 on the same day the contracts will expire at the same time, but if you left a year down the road you would pay a $150-$200 early term fee 3 times.
  • cybertron3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Cingular also states in their contract that they may change the terms of it at any time for any reason without notifying the customer. That screwed me alot (I wanted to change my plan, but they they said I had to buy a new plan to do it. When I got my contract, it said in it that I could change my plan at any time without having to extend my contract. My response from Cingular... Woops.) Now I have Tmobile. They may have problems too, but nothing as bad.
  • betasp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4When I moved I became fed up with Cingular's spotty service, so I asked out of the contract. They said no, of course. I connected my phone to another network and dialed my wife's phone that was on another network and played music through the handsets every night for a month. I was canceled the following month.
  • xwas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0big deal. If allowed, the woman would want to use the same phone for another twenty years. And that may save here a few bucks, but that is spectrum inefficient and disadvantages everybody else.
  • mousky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2'Beckie' did a poor job of negotiating. She should have told Cingular to sweeten the pot, otherwise, she would post her negative experience online.
  • orielbean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Remember that no contract is a law, and every item within can be contested. Whenever contracts are put together, they are expected to make as many claims as possible, reason and logic and good business nonwithstanding. Of course as a consumer, you need to get a lawyer if you ever want to contest those points, but keep in mind that you can get a lot of what you want out of customer service by escalating and dropping lawyer names. They are very flexible as they dislike litigation.

    Request the unlock codes if you want to keep the phone.
    Make sure you keep your number - you pay for that and it's your right at this point.
    Escalate - if they are ignoring you. Send stories to local newsstations - they are dying for easy stories and the bad press always will help you. Be a thorn in their side.
  • daurkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cingular's service coverage is huge in my area. How do I know if I'm in a competitor's zone? I love this tactic to get out of contracts when I want to.
    • deckmoney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's what I would like to know, too. Can anyone give some advice, or is the only option to check on the provider's coverage map?
  • hucgreen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3just a little more back ground on cingular project "Amerillo" as its called. Some VP in Houston Texas was in Austin for a visit to a store and ran in to some customers. He asked them of their service was and they were like "Its great. We great great service up in Johnson park by the lake."
    http://onlinecare.cingular.com/coverageviewer/?_requestid=16225
    well this lake is is about 30 miles outside Austin and the partner for cingular charges $.88 cent a min, for converge there for cingular customers. well a 1400 min family plan work's out to be $1232.00 dollar for cingular to pays a month for those customer who 89.99 a month to be on a cell phone owned by cingular. I would check the map I gave a link to to see where you coverage is for cingular. The VP flip when he did the math. A study was done by cingular to see how many customers would be affected and only about 12,000 customer across the the country would be affected. Most unpopulated area area of the country were less than 10,000 people live per square mile. Most people affected are elderly people that live on a farm and only use their phone for emergency and leave it in the car or off. The other group are college kids that are affected, on a family plan with their folks that went off to school and now are roaming all the time with their phone. A customer like that, their phone would be turned off but not the entire family. Its crazy. This is also why, Cingular has back away from any real mention in ads about how big the network. They are just improving signal in the current areas. They did spend 6 billion on their next work with the 3G improvement last year and this. Were going to see a really fight over high speed data devices this holiday season.

    by the way love digg.
  • Static1337, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Will this work for T-Mobile too ? :P
    • HarryBauzonia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No.
      I used T-Mobile for a year and a half in an area where I was roaming on Cingular towers. They never said a word and tried to get me to stay a customer.

      However, they would have voided the contract if I had asked because I no longer lived in their service area.
  • cablemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow what a service...Cingular would be gracious enough to allow here to keep her phone numbers. How novel....wait isn't that called ``Local Number Portability'' aka LNP with is federally mandated by the FCC. Should you want to leave a services and get a new one you can take your numbers with you. Sounds to me that the FCC should get involved in this case...since Cingular is pulling the'ole "we're a huge faceless company and you're just a nobody costing us money that we're raping from everyone else". Boo hoo for Cingular *tear*
  • thetech207, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have a former co-worker that works for cingular now (I work for another carrier) and he informed me the other day that they do this to dozens of customers a day in HIS location only...

    Imagine that.
  • IlDuce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2As a current Cingular employee, I can assure you that this is partially false.

    I deal with these situations from time to time, and and each and every time Cingular will offer to unlock the customer's phones. I've worked in several different locations in different states, and the policy has always been the same.

    I may not especially like Cingular or the things that our company does, but it irritates me when people post lies like this. I'll happily eat my words if someone will post a letter indicating that Cingular won't unlock their phones.

    Buried for inaccurate.
  • mbabauer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Cingular has screwed me several times. Most recently, they refused to provide a subsidy code to unlock a phone that was given to me as a gift from my uncle. The phone was purchased from a Cingular retail store, but because he bought it in Charlotte, and I live in Florida and did not purchase the phone myself, I did not "meet the requirements to unlock the phone". This after 3 calls and about 8hrs of talking to various people who didn't know what they were doing. When I confronted a manager at one of my local stores, and said "I need the corporate address/number and how long before my contract(s) are up", I wasn't even asked what was wrong. I have been a Cingular customer since they were BellSouth Mobility, which is about 10yrs.

    I have another 4 months on my wife's contract with Cingular, then its goodby to crap service. I just hope my next carrier isn't so focussed on the bottom line and can provide a better user experience.
  • YouKnowMe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was reading the comments and I realized something that happened to me a several months ago. My family and I moved out of the Verizon's calling area, and they let us terminate our contract without a termination fee. I started thinking that the phone companies actually cared about their customers, and now that I think about, the only reason they let us switch was so that we didn't roam on someone else's network. Way to look out for No. 1.
  • schlik1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I hate cingular. I'm pretty sure they're a bunch of money grubbing whores.
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