Hi all,
I've been following Abatis'
horrible experience with Sprint, and I've got my own tale to tell about Cingular/ATT. There's already been some griping about their lack of consistency dealing with data plans, see
here for that discussion. I had to fight to get my cheap data plan, but I got it finally.
So, now for my NEW gripe: our contract recently ended, so I upgraded my phone to the Blackjack. I absolutely
adore the phone and the 3G data service... customer service is another story entirely. My wife, who loves her MPx220, decided to upgrade to the HTC Wizard/ Cingular 8125. She is a chef, so she wanted the ability to use pocket Excel for inventory, etc. and Word for recipes. We ordered the phone online, refurbished, for 89 dollars. Great deal, right? Well, the phone was defective, no surprise with a refurb, so I called cust service for a RMA return label. They told me to return the phone to a Cingular store, so I did. I had been meaning to check out the new ATT/Cing super flagship store here in Houston.
I walk in the door with my return and my coffee and the little 20-something sorority girl at the door tells me, all snotty, "no food or drink, you have to take that outside." OK, no problem. I dump the coffee, then she tells me to get on the waiting list...again, no problem. Really though, you guys should see all these little bimbos scurrying around with their cingular 8525's. "Wow, like they're like totally, like high tech, you know, they have like an automated network for take-a-number" I'm not sure if my sarcasm is coming through, if not, I'm being sarcastic. Ha ha. So, the lady at the counter tells me that online phone returns are NOT done through the store, and further, they don't
deal with refurb phones. Again, an sorority type with attitude...but she takes pity on me, I think she could see the steam coming out of my ears, and returns the phone and credits back to my Amex. The girl assured me that I would be able to upgrade my wife's phone again online.
So I go to the web, which says I'm not elegible for an upgrade till sometime in 2008. I call customer service, they tell me they'll take care of it. Next day, same thing. I call back, the guy says he'll take care of it for sure this time, but will take a few days to update our account. I look online, it says we can upgrade on May 3. So I wait the week out, then yesterday (5/3) I go back again to upgrade. Guess what?? "This line is not elegible for an upgrade." I call again, a bit irate to say the least, and the cust service guy tells me that I cannot upgrade the phone online because of the return but that he can do it for me. I tell him I want a BlackJack (my wife decided against the PPC touch screen) and he says he'll Fedex it to me, no shipping charge.
This morning, Fedex shows up at my door, with, guess what? A brand new Blackberry Pearl!! Just what I didn't want!! I called again today, almost in tears from frustration, and I get a guy who tells me this: they'll send a return label, when they receive the phone back, they'll credit my account. They will also CHARGE me for another phone (hopefully a Blackjack this time) and send it out today. I told him that it is hardly fair to charge me for a second phone when my time has been wasted by a series of incompetent morons and my wife has been stuck with no phone for a month now (she's been using my old SMT5600, but hey, I was full of self righteous indignation, so I didn't tell him that). I asked for a supervisor, and HE REFUSED! He told me that the policy was non-negotiable and that I DIDN'T NEED TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR!!! Can you believe that s**t? I needed the phone, and I had to be at a meeting, and I had already been on the line with him for 30 minutes, so I just gave in and told them to bill me for the new phone. Am I being unreasonable, am I crazy, or is this ridiculous?? I have worked in the service industry (restaurants) for over 10 years, and I've never heard of this type of treatment....
Oh, at the end of my customer DISservice call this morning, the guy said, "thanks for your business, have a nice day." Goodbye Cingular ATT, and hello T-Mobile. I may even break my contract, and I've been with them since before the last ATT Cingular merger....whew sorry, at least I feel better now that I've vented.
Sorry Runningtiger, I know you already heard some of this rant before and I know you've been lucky with CingATT...I just hope you don't have to go through this type of thing.
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May 4 2007, 08:49 PM
