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cell phone company rant

IvanMike

IvanMike

TTRPG enthusiast, Happy, Joyous, & Free.
Supporting Member
Nov 10, 2002
7,150
2,292
58
Middletown CT, USA
#1
ok here's the deal kids -

i've been a cingular customer for about 5 years - i keep renewing when i need a new phone, now they make you sign two year agreements. i have two phones , one for me one for my daughter. total bill is usually 110 a month or so.

so my phone starts dying on me-working intermittently apparently in october they changed the insurance deal so you can no longer replace the phone at the store. you have to have them ship it to you, you HAVE to be home to sign for it, and then you have to PHYSICALLY go to the post office to mail them the old one within a specified time frame or they fine you. they assured me they notified me of this change in the post script of a recent billing statement. :rolleyes:

here's what i tried to explain for one and a half hours with managers etc, all of whom looked at me like i was talking greek..............since the feds decided that you own your cell # and can take it with you, i woudl think that cell companies would be tripping over each other to keep your (my) buisiness. I wanted a new phone TODAY. i didnt want to pay for it. i was willing to extend my agreement for two years from today. no dice.

the question i asked (and got dumb looks for) was this. i'm not the type to switch companies. i dont have time for that. i'll probably be a cingular customer for the next 30 years (think 30 THOUSAND dollars+) unless i get shafted. I tald them if i didnt get a free phone today i was very likley to pay my 300 dallar early termination fee and switch to verizon -(for the next 30 AKA 30 THOUSAND dollars years). was this worth it to cingular for a phone that maybe cast them 30 dollars wholesale??

they all seemed to think that cingular would rather keep the 30 dollar phone and take the 300 dollar early termination fee instead of having the next 30 YEARS/THOUSAND DOLLARS of my buisiness.

which one of us is crazy????? :confused:

any buisinessmen here as confused as i am about this?
 
#2
When you're dealing with huge companies that have set policies you can pretty much forget about negotiating and flexibility. I'm sure Stubi19 and Ty McNeely can sympathize though...they've both been shafted by them...especially Stu. I used to be on Cingular as well but am now a Verizon customer. If you decide to switch the porting of the number is VERY easy and painless. It's also very quick.

brad cook
 
#3
it would seem to me (in light of the fact that it is easy to switch your exisiting # to another company) that the comany that offers superior customer service in situations like mine would win a huge share of the market. no?
 
#4
these companies are dumb. They can have $330 today for a one off, or about $5 today for 30 years. They look at it, use their degrees in maths. And factorise this inequality so that the $330 is bigger than $5. Nutters.
 
#6
Cingular now has over 50,000,000 customers after they acquired AT&T. They made $7,100,000,000 in the last three months of 2004. They add roughly 1,000,00+ new customers every three months.

The $30,000 they get from you over the next 30 years is nothing to them. They would rather see you pay the $300 to terminate your contract and go away. Someone else is on hold behind you ready to fork over their credit card number and sign a new two year contract.

So, now ask yourself...is it so crazy to have YOU pay THEM $300 to quit whining and go away? A smart business man who makes billions of dollars a month would gladly say goodbye to you Mike. I know...it sucks to be treated that way. I don't like it either.

-Mike
 
#7
DigMe said:
Yes... it already has..

You might find this thread interesting.

brad cook
Click to expand...
interseting, thanks brad

5150, i agree that my 30 k isn't much.
however, (and this is just speculation), if cingular were to lose 5% or 10% of its customers over the next few years due to c/s issues then it becomes a problem. In the 5 years i have had them i have seen them consistently taking steps BACKWARDS in c/s.
 
#9
IvanMike said:
.......if cingular were to lose 5% or 10% of its customers over the next few years due to c/s issues then it becomes a problem.......
Click to expand...

Yep, I agree. Until that starts happening, and they start losing billions every quarter, people like us who are unhappy will have to pay to leave.

-Mike
 
#10
here's another take on it.........

and please understand, this isn't an anti-cingular thread. more of an anti corporate stupidity thread.

i don't mind if i lose a red blood cell. heck, i don't mind if i lose a few million, my body makes a ton every day. however, it always makes sense to find out why they're being lost.

Brain bean counter: "sir we've just lost a few million red blood cells in the past second."

Brain exec: Big deal, we've got tons of the lil' guys."

BBC: "sir there's an incoming report on the recent blood cell loss."

BE: "fine, whatever, just give me the reader's digest on it."

BBC: "will do sir. hmmm, blah blah,...... request your immediate attention....., blah blah,.......something about a severed femoral artery."
 
#11
Sprint is crazy.
Their service totally blows, but they are amazing with giving me new phones. I started with the free phone (Nokia 3588i) and went through about 5 of them. They kept dropping calls/not ringing, etc.
To make me happy, they upgraded me to a Sanyo 8100 (flip camera phone, that is one of the most solid phones they have). Worked great for about 4 months, then went ape**** on me-not ringing, dropping calls, not making calls, etc.
So they replace that one with another 8100. I get home from picking up the phone at the sprint store, and try calling some friends. On every call, after 20 sec, the call would just drop, like I hit end a couple times. It was unusable.
So I call up the store, tell them they suck, and just give me a phone that works, and they upgraded me to a Samsung A740 (flip camera phone) that's been good so far.
Now, I don't know what crawled up cingular's ass, but with sprint, it's been no problem replacing phones. It is a pain in the ass though.

If I could do it all over again, I'd go with T-mobile. The service around here is insane. Full bars everywhere, even in some basements where no one else gets any service.

Plus, Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot.
 
#12
Cell phone companies suck all of them. My phone died after a few months, and verizon charged $50 for a replacement because I was missing a little piece of plastic or some rubbish like that. I offered to just have them take the plastic piece off of the new phone, but they refused. It makes no sense. They're making money off of people breaking phones, so why not just make them **** quality? The one they replaced it with hasn't died just yet, but the front screen has has a tendency to accumulate dust, you know, between the faces where it's impossible to clean off...
 
#13
Be careful about switching to Verizon. I was with them a year. Out of 12 monthly bills, 7 of them had major mistakes on them. i.e., long distance calls I didnt make, etc.

I switched to Alltel a few years ago and find the service and accuracy much better.
 
#14
cheezewiz said:
Be careful about switching to Verizon. I was with them a year. Out of 12 monthly bills, 7 of them had major mistakes on them. i.e., long distance calls I didnt make, etc.
Click to expand...

According to those FCC stats these kinds of things happen far less with Verizon than with any other company.

brad cook
 
#15
IvanMike said:
interseting, thanks brad

5150, i agree that my 30 k isn't much.
however, (and this is just speculation), if cingular were to lose 5% or 10% of its customers over the next few years due to c/s issues then it becomes a problem. In the 5 years i have had them i have seen them consistently taking steps BACKWARDS in c/s.
Click to expand...
Oh that would be a huge problem!! I work for a very popular cell phone company and in no way would a customer be allowed to hang up unsatisfied or that phone rep would be immediately fired!! We also have a QA team who frequently listen to and grade these reps. We are in the business of retaining customers! If you get no satisfaction, continually go over their heads until you speak to someone who will work hard in retaining your business!! To allow you to leave so easy is unheard of and not very good business!!
 
#16
DWBass said:
Oh that would be a huge problem!! I work for a very popular cell phone company and in no way would a customer be allowed to hang up unsatisfied or that phone rep would be immediately fired!!
Click to expand...

Are you telling me that you work customer service and if even ONE person is unsatisfied you lose your job? You've never had ONE person be unsatisfied? I find that a little hard to believe...it's darn near impossible to please EVERYONE. If it's true though I wish that was the policy at Reliant energy...and everywhere else for that matter.

brad cook
 
#17
DigMe said:
Are you telling me that you work customer service and if even ONE person is unsatisfied you lose your job? You've never had ONE person be unsatisfied? I find that a little hard to believe...it's darn near impossible to please EVERYONE. If it's true though I wish that was the policy at Reliant energy...and everywhere else for that matter.

brad cook
Click to expand...
Okay, I overstated but every customer is given some sort of concession to stay with the company. If a rep cannot get customer satisfaction, the supervisor gets on the line in an effort to retain the customer. If the supv. can't get it going, the manager gets on the line! Every effort is made to retain!! I am not a customer service phone rep, I work in the Real Estate/Facilities area but get a chance to listen to these very good phone reps everyday!!
 
#18
DigMe said:
According to those FCC stats these kinds of things happen far less with Verizon than with any other company.

brad cook
Click to expand...

That's certainly possible. It was just my personal experience, and it's been quite a while ago, but it did prevent me from considering going back to them.
 

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