Cingular Wireless Consumer Reviews - Page 3

Let's see, where to begin... I'm at day 7 and counting to get my phone properly migrated from AT&T to Cingular. After bouncing around for phone orders, finally get to a guy who tells me the phone I want I can get at $50. Sweet, it's the Nokia 6280, "but I can't sell it to you, you have to call this number." Call said number, only to be told that it would be $150. Don't like that. Through my company, I can get a Nokia 6230 for $103, according to the person on the phone. Call back the next day, deciding to go with the offer. Guy tells me it's free. Sweet. But he can't hook me up with the company discount, "Call back tomorrow, give the system time." OK.

Getting hooked up w/ the discount was not a problem. Or so I thought. Monday comes, no phone. Tuesday, no phone. Realize Monday that they are shipping me the Nokia 6010. Um, no call. Talk to a kid who says, "just take it to a corporate store and exchange it." Fine, closest store is 20 mins away, not a big deal. Now it's Wednesday, still no phone. Check tracking, they had my wrong address. Lovely. Call the corporate store, ask if they have the phone I want, "yes". "Can I exchange a phone they shipped in error?" "yes". Go to FedEx, get the phone, go to store. As you've already figured out, I can't do what I want.

In addition, they can't even sell me the phone I want at the price I was quoted on the phone. Moan and complain, but the manager can't do anything. "This is the second complaint this week like this." Call 611, get dropped a few times. Finally get through, talk to a floor supervisor Paul, who tries to be helpful. Calls Cingular support for me, but the people who can "help" are gone for the day. Gives me a number to call back tomorrow.

To recap: Since ordering the phone on 2/9/05, I've talked to 12 people on the phone, two people in person, spent at LEAST 6 hours on the phone, and put 40 miles on my car that I didn't have to. I will call them tomorrow and demand the following: The free phone I was promised, overnight shipping for free, activation for free, other compensation for my hassle.

Failing to get this, I will: Cancel my migration on the spot, go to T-Mobile at lunch to pick up a new phone, cancel my AT&T account as soon as I determine new phone works, demand a waived cancellation fee, find every other site like this and post the same story. I never had a problem with AT&T's service. I lost my phone in the snow, they had a new one to me in 3 days. They weren't able to replace the model (dummy me, no insurance on it) but the customer service rep at least gave me a decent deal on a model. I hate to leave AT&T, but if my experience with Cingular is any indication, I might not regret it for too long.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- This complaint involves my two wireless numbers. This includes my bill from 04/27/06-05/26/06 and my current bill 05/27/06 through today. I am being charged for Mobile to Mobile minutes that are supposed to be included free on my family plan. I am in TX and my husband is working in GA. When my husband and I talk mobile to mobile, my number list the call as a mobile to mobile call and no charge is added, but my husband's number is being listed as a regular call and his minutes are deducted from our 1400 anytime minutes, at a daytime peak time rate.

I have called Cingular 6 different times and a supervisor finally adjusted my bill for last month and deducted $247.78 overage charges and added 1000 rollover minutes to this month, in case we go over. We have gone over as of today, 119 minutes. I have checked this month's minutes and I am still being charged for mobile to mobile minutes. So far, Cingular has charged us over 270 minutes, that should be mobile to mobile minutes and free. I have tried all the steps Cingular has told me to do, to solve the problem on my end, but it does not work.

Update: We both have unlimited mobile to mobile minutes and we verified we are both on the Cingular Towers (Network) when we talk. We are finding out now that my husband is being billed for roaming charges, instead of receiving free roaming charges, like Cingular advertises. I have finally found where the problem lies. My husband is out of town and his follow me calls are listed twice on the bill. One time the follow me call is listed Dallas time and we are not charged, but then the called is listed again at Atlanta time at a daytime rate and we are being charged for those minutes.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA -- Over the past three months, I've experienced intermittent and frequently unusable cellular service, lack of carrier/signal, dropped calls, lack of a two-way connection (one party can hear/talk, the other only hears dead space). It's not always convenient to call customer service, especially since it's no longer as convenient, like it was with Suncom's 611 service. The lack of convenience means I can't complain as much. Must mean complaints are down for the company.

The last two months, I could not even maintain the connection from my cell phone to customer service without dropping the call. Another indication that customer complaints are down. This web site has been an awesome find for me. I reviewed your complaints and based on all that I found; I have successfully minimized the impact of Cingular's lack of service and benefited from my final call to their Customer Service. With a little more conversation, I accepted this offer as an easier approach to that of putting up a fight. I think maybe Cingular may have been reading some of these posts also.

Good luck to any of you who take this approach. Through my own research, I've concluded that pay as you go plans are the way to go. Watch out though. The providers are equally as tricky in this area also. The top three plans I found were through Net10, TMobile and TracFone. In my area, TMobile has the best all around offer. For those who purchase time in blocks of $100, the minutes cost $0.10 each and do not expire for one year. There do not appear to be any other hidden fees.

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA -- I was charged over 2000 dollars when my husbands phone was stolen while he was overseas serving in Afghanistan. I called Cingular when my husband told me that he could not find his cell phone. The customer rep said that they could not do anything because they cannot suspend service if the phone is outside of the United States and that any calls that are made on the phone would have to be paid for by us. I have been fighting with their billing department for a year. Every month we are charged for services that we do not have. I am at my wits end.

I called this afternoon and the resolutions department is horrible. ** called me a liar 4 times and accused my husband of making all those calls himself and not wanting to tell me about them so he pretended his phone was stolen. Then his supervisor screamed at me and talked to me like a child, when I asked her if she treated all service members and their families this way she said I DO NOT CARE ABOUT SERVICE MEN OR THEIR FAMILIES and hung up on me.

I have contacted the Better Business Bureau, the FCC, the State Attorney General, as well as Cingular Wireless's CEO, and as of 1 hour ago I have contacted the media. Including but not limited to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, local news channels, local news papers, and many other media outlets. If the situation is still not resolved then I will be sure to find the millions and millions of other Cingular customers who are screwed and welcome them the join me in filing a lawsuit against Cingular. I already have a lawyer in place waiting for the word. Anyone else who has had a similar problem with the rudeness and ignorance of Cingular Wireless please contact me at **.

BLACKLICK, OHIO -- I had Cingular as a provider until I could not put up with there so called adequate service. I called there customer service representatives several times. I played there games for couple of months of turning the phone off and back on having upgrades sent to me and still no decent reception. Finally I switched back to my old provider I might add I did not have to go through all the above since I ported my number back on October 17th 2005.

I had written to the BBB, FCC and the Ohio Attorney General. Cingular's response was that they give adequate service and Cingular does not guarantee service at all times and in all places per their correspondences to all the above agencies. Advise to anyone if you get a new provider and if you are having any service issues most providers will give you 30 days which you can terminate or cancel your contract. This lesson cost me $450.00 to terminate three phones.

Do not be patient like I was it will not get better. I do not know what I was thinking I really thought we could solve the problem. This is no doubt a very crooked industry. It is big business. They can make their own rules and looks as though they can take advantage of the consumer with blessings of all the above agencies.

CINGULAR should get an award for the most dropped calls possible. When I had them as a provider I would have a dropped call couple times a day. With my new provider I get a dropped call once or twice in a month. Usually when I am talking to someone using Cingular, what a surprise! Cingular should be forced to change there slogan from Raising the Bar to Raising the Bar for Some. If we can not get them on their inadequate service maybe we could call them on their false advertisement.

I changed to Verizon at the end of my contract. I called Cingular three times before my end of contract date to ask EXACTLY when I could port my number, since I used it for business calls. They told me the contract expired on August 9. I ask them if I could port on that day WITHOUT a termination fee and the answer was (three times) yes, and that I MUST call to cancel on that day. I called them on the 9th, asked again for confirmation that I wouldn't be charged a termination fee, with affirmation from the service person.

I got a bill for over $407.42 for termination on two phones. When I called, they told me that I had canceled on the 9th and that actually the contract ends at twelve midnight of the 9th, so therefore I had early termination. Now, most contracts, I believe, expire as of 12:01 AM on the date named and they SAID it expired as of the 9th, not 12:01 AM of the 10th. I called with complaint and they said they would reverse the termination fees, but then I would have to pay to the "end of the billing cycle" which does not coincide with the end of the contract.

A few days ago I got a credit statement of $338.98. Since I was an "autopay" from my bank account, I checked my account and sure enough, no credit there. I called. They told me they could not credit my account as they "no longer had the information". They could, however, send me a check. I presume I will get the check, but suspect that if I had not followed up on this, the credit would never have been refunded. After the three advance calls and checking on the day of cancellation I believe the "fuzziness" of their contract expiration is deliberate.

Why I changed service: I had an AT&T contract, which included no fee extended area. Cingular charged for the extended area. When I called them, a number of times, the only answer was that I had "never" had inclusive extended area! So, if you are replacing Cingular at the end of your contract, watch out for those dates!

PS=Had I called on the 10th instead of the 9th, would they have told me I missed my end of contract date and therefore would have been charged a termination fee on the new, automatic contract or would they have charged to the end of the billing cycle? Who knows?

I canceled my Cingular Wireless service as a result of poor wireless reception and even worse customer service. While I thought that my problems would end when I canceled my contract, they had only just begun. I spent numerous days and hours on the phone calling many different numbers, being transferred and disconnected more times than I would like to count.

Who trains these people? No one knows what's going on. I returned all of my phones as Cingular requested and I never received a credit for them. I was told anything from, "it is your responsibility to get the credit yourself, by calling the number on your credit card statement" (I was told this by a manager no less, pretty scary), to "you were never charged for the phone". I paid for the phone upon applying for the service!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!

I have been transferred to the wrong department, hung up on (accidentally, yeah right), given fax numbers as phone numbers to call, lied to, all just to get me out of their hair. Well guess what, I keep calling back and I will call back on a daily basis until I get my credit! All of the customer service reps apologize and tell you that poor customer service is not their policy. WRONG! It's all they know! They are horrible!!! They say, "Yes I can help you, just hold on a minute," then they transfer you back to the beginning as if you just called in and then you have to wait 30 minutes on hold again, only to explain the whole thing all over again to the next rep! I have been on hold up to an hour at a time.

I highly recommend that you do not sign up with Cingular. Try Verizon. I have them now and I have not had one problem. T-Mobile is another good one. I had problems with Cingular from day one. I would like to say more, but I would have to use profanities. I am going to fill out a form to dispute the charges with my bank. It got to the point that I felt like one rep would put me on hold and tell the next rep to give me a hard time and not help me, but I know better, they are all just a bunch of uneducated people!

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA -- Until recently, my company used Nextel as our wireless phone provider. The service was horrible. Poor coverage area, phones not working inside many buildings, dozens of calls going directly to voicemail. At the time, I wanted to switch to another carrier as did most of my co-workers. ANYTHING would be better than Nextel, right? Wrong. I never thought I would hear the words, "This is worse than Nextel!" coming out of my own mouth, but that was before we switched to Cingular.

I reel when I see the commercials about dropped calls that Cingular/AT&T is now running! The only thing I can think when I see someone talking away and the other party not hearing them is, "They must be using Cingular..." I've never had that problem with other carriers. My personal phone is through Verizon. I've been with them for about six years, and have had exactly four dropped calls. I remember each one because they happen so infrequently. With Nextel, I often didn't have service, but it was a works-or-doesn't situation with no grey areas.

Cingular will let me place or receive a call, but drops it almost immediately. I EXPECT every call I make with Cingular to drop. I get a huge volume of calls each day, and at a conservative estimate, 70% get dropped. Granted, there are areas where my calls do not drop, but those are few and far between. These areas are also small. I have learned exact places to stand when I need to make a call...move a few feet away and the call is dropped. I also have an issue with the voicemail, which does not offer any sort of time/date stamp on the incoming messages.

It sometimes takes two to three days for a voicemail to show up on my phone, and I have no idea whatsoever when it came in! I've seen several complaints in which users state that they have been told that the dropped calls are because of the other party's phone. Well, a great majority of my calls are to other Cingular customers, so explain that away. I'd also like an explanation of why I can't make calls or drop the ones I do place when my Cingular phone shows four or more bars. I think I'd be better off with two tin cans and a piece of waxed string.

LOUISIANA -- I'm a tech rep for Cingular Wireless now the new AT&T... I will say that I have read the complaints that customers have and must say I'm tired of people saying that "My phone works in this location but not in others." We file cases to help customers in the area in need. We have a ladder if you will to follow to get things handled such as I'm a tech rep the person in the field (your home location) who works on the tower is called a radio frequency tech or field tech. The field tech you as a customer will never talk to... Why? They are not in a call center for one.

Also this one I love in my field by the way HOW MANY OF YOU ACTUALLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT USING A BLACKBERRY OR TREO? Think about this... You know the slow old man or woman driver you cuss and hate and you know if they have a car they should know how to operate the car right? Same way with a phone if you don't what to do with a phone like TURN THE THING ON don't buy the most technical phone out there then call me and expect me to stay on the phone with you without you reading the guide for the phone. To me it's like a monkey doing a math problem and I shall say this too if you can work a radio you should be able to turn on the phone.

Billing... How many actually read their bill page by page? No one hardly does! You see the amount and call all pissed off and never had read the bill. How do you think we know what charges your calling about if you never read the bill? You think we can read your minds? I say NO. If and when you pay your bill, it's not us to keep up your income of how and when you paid the bill. We are not here to baby you!

All in all you never researched the company you are signing for again as well never read your contract you just signed it right? Then because you didn't read it now after the 30 days there is an issue because you get billed MONTHLY. MOST OF THE TIME A MONTH IS 30 DAYS PEOPLE DO THE MATH... Good day.