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Group Therapy
Feeling Cingular? How about feeling some Unity?
Try the new AT&T Unify Group Therapy. Experience the healing power of a community coming together. Now you can call over 100 million phones for free and commiserate. Let others know how Cingular/ATT has blown your speaker, eardrum (?), tv (?) etc.
For many customers, the anonymity of online group therapy through this unique forum provides the emotional support that we all need. Feeling Cingular hurts. We know. While Alltel has to have a legal disclaimer to have a group hug on television, we “valued” Cingular/ATT customers now have an uninhibited place to console each other anytime. Now that’s Unity.
Join the Cingular/ATT GSM RF Interference forum, others topics soon to follow.
Therapeutic Common Ground
We here at www.feelingcingular.com are still undergoing individual treatment to reconcile how Cingular/ATT says they are “driven by our customers’ feedback,” but have a history of not calling you back, remedying a problem they know exists, or alerting potential customers about known issues so that they can make an informed business decision.
Your legitimate consumer grievances deserve a responsive, caring outlet; Unify can provide this. While Unifying to exact a little positive change would feel great, you can’t expect much from a company that has decided what’s not good enough for their own call-centers is somehow good enough for their customers.
Suggest Future Topics
Please suggest additional Cingular/ATT issues that could benefit from the Unify Group Therapy process. Do not be slighted if they never see the light of day. We are still detoxing from Cingular/ATT’s unresponsive corporate practices and tend to lash out at those in need by ignoring them. While admittedly an immature and futile attempt at mimicking the increasing power dynamic between corporate protections and weak consumer rights, we promise to monitor the Raising Bar-ometric Pressure to see what active Cingular/ATT concerns should be addressed in future Unify sessions.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
My current cell phone bill is $8,677.29. I had Cingular since 2003. In November of 2006 I purchased the Cingular 8125 Pocket PC. I loved it. I had a cell phone that could access the internet and my bills were about $100 a month. After 2 months I cancelled the internet option because I wanted a smaller cell phone bill. After about 3 weeks of not having my internet I requested that they turned it back on. They did.
Now my bill went from an average monthly bill of less than $100 to $8,677.29. It had something to do with my data transfer rate. Obviously, they did not give me my original plan. Instead they gave me some $8,677.29/month plan.
I blogged the entire nightmare at myspace.com/theorangemenace
May 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
GSM RF is like nails on a chalkboard I will cing no more!
May 1st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I love Cingular. Have had them for five years. Out of contract, I just recently got two free Razr V3is that work wonderfully, the reason is because we have had such bad reception latley. And this is to make up. They laso gave us 900 bonus minutes on top of that.
Cingular really does care about their customer!
I will stay.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Cingular or ATT has gotten so much better I love them. I have been so busy lately and have been using my phone so much and my last few bills have been higher then normal. I needed to change my plan but didn’t have the time and didn’t know which would be the best. Well last week one of the ATT guys calls me up and says, their computers have spotted the overages and wanted to know if I might want to save some, money. Now, I’m on a better plan saving nearly 250 every month. Plus they also sent me out a a free case for my phone and a free year worth of NAPSTER, awesome… thanks guys you are the best!!!
May 1st, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Try shielded monster cable. Sure, its expensive, but totally worth it if you have any high-powered or high-end sound equipment.
PS: I agree that GSM interference is annoying and ridiculous. The FCC rule is that your device can cause interference but cannot cause HARMFUL [ie damaging] interference.
You might have a lawsuit on your hands.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I say screw Cingular/ATT, Verizon, and Sprint and sign up with Working Assets. That’s who I use. I’ve never had a problem with the GSM interference.
Plus my girlfriend has cingular and she always get lousy reception and dropped calls even in NYC wher we are!
So I stay with Working Assets. Plus they give a large chunk of what they earn to socially responsible organizations.
Too bad though I really would love an Apple Iphone, but not if they only work with Cingular!
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Hey Ed! Better not screw Sprint since Working Assets resells Sprint/Nextel service. While you are not using the Cingular network, you are still using a major telecommuncation company’s network. Everyone’s got something nasty to say about every wireless carrier. It’s radio people!!!! Get over it!!! Use a landline if you’re so unhappy with it.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:54 am
1. I hate the fact that it takes about 8 minutes of pressing buttons to change my personal greeting. seriously, i’ve got it down i think now. if i want to change my greeting, all i have to do is dial the message center, press 4, 1, 3, 4, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 or something like that and then VOILA and can finally check my friggin greeting.
all those menus and submenus to choose from are so obscure. who sends messages from the message center?
2. Is it cingular or AT&T? my phone says cingular on it, my screen now says AT&T when it boots up, and its grinding my gears. who cares if its the “new at&t” - it still sucks! and i have never had so many dropped calls in my life. (i was with sprint, and t-mobile in the past)
3. i thought i was cingular. but now i know that everybody hears that static crap - it is so friggin annoying - especially in the car! great site!
May 4th, 2007 at 2:06 am
did i forget to mention?
1. they rip you a new one for text messages.
2. the 2 year contract is a bitch - and i can almost swear i learned in business law that any contract over a year cannot be legally binding!
3. their phones hardly last 1 year, so renewing your 2 year contract is inevitable.
4. when my phone got stolen overseas, they said that if i even called my own number to check my messages, that i would be billed international roaming charges.
okay now i’m done whining.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:00 am
1.What voicemail/IVR have you gone through where you have to press one option and not multiple?
Welcome to the 21st century.
2.Cingular is now AT&T, DUH! Have you not seen the commercials?
3.If you use text messaging, get a friggin’ package. Nothing in life is free.
4.As far as the contract goes. Trouble passing the BAR exam or did you take business law at the YMCA?
There are no laws prohibiting multi-year contracts.
5.If your phone does not last more than a year, stop sticking it up your a$$.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:05 am
If you think you can make a better cell phone company…. go for it a$$holes
May 5th, 2007 at 1:07 am
EddieLopez this guy must be like retarded because you must have used the data so you were charged duma$$ get a dam media bundal before using those features and yoyu can add them or confirm there there online at cingular.com
May 5th, 2007 at 1:12 am
ok 1 last thing…… that bad interferince is because cingular uses GSM and gsm phones cannot be cloned but like the other companies like sprint uses CDMA tech that can be cloned using a simple frequncie scanner so the GSM RF noise is worth the it because nobody can use your accout to make calls to china for a2 weeks in a row before you realize. So just dont complain if you think you can make a better tech then go ahead
May 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
And I thought I was passionate! Go Cingulartechguy!
May 6th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Great site! More power to the consumers…especially those who wish to inform other consumers!
Be forewarned that “corporate protectors” troll the internet in an attempt to SILENCE the most vocal!
Don’t let them stop you from spreading the word, compare notes with other consumers, and taking action!
Take the case of Toyota engine oil sludge…see how information was hidden from consumers for years!
It took thousands of vocal Toyota owners to get Toyota to acknowledge the problem!
The company still says it all the customers fault…blown engines at low mileage. OK. Sure.
Let’s compare notes about what companies are doing behind the scenes to keep consumers in the dark…
cblake@erols.com
Toyota Owners Unite for Resolution
May 10th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I am very much in favor of consumer power when and where necessary.
However, I am definitely against abuse of that power for unwarranted gain.
Charlene Blake has waged a campaign against Toyota for years.
Regretfully, in doing so she used every illegitimate trick in the book to promote it.
I don’t recommend her style of consumer advocacy to anyone.
All she has done is give legitimate advocacy a bad reputation.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
hmm. . . I miss verizon.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Cellular carrier suck everywhere.
May 14th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I work for AT&T, and incase you haven’t noticed it ALL THE COMPANEYS HAVE PROBLIMS. AT&T gets reception places Vorizon doesn’t and Sprint gets reception places sprint doesn’t.
And don’t complain about your cell phone not working. If you have had it less than a year and it isn’t all beat up or bin dunked in water than GET A WARENTY PHONE. GSM has things that are better about it than CDMA and vise a versa. Hardly anyone else in the rest of the world even uses CDMA so you can’t take your phone to other most other countries.
BUT THE BIGEST THING. AT&T has more customers than anyone else. We also have a better churn rate than anyone else (Its like the net income, new subscribers subtract leaving subscriber = churn rate)
That’s my 2cents.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Hey, voicing your opinion is all well and good, but you really need to get your facts straight before
you start running off at the mouth. Cingular/AT&T’s network is by far the most robust. You can take
your Cingular phone to almost any country with GSM coverage and use it. How many companies can boast
that?
To the guy who blew his speaker - I think you’re full of shit. If that RF noise damaged your speaker then your system sucks and needs to be upgraded anyway. Every network has its high and low points, if all you have to cry about is a little rf noise through your speaker then I’d say you’re doing alright.
To the dumbass who rang up an $8000 bill, use your friggin head moron! Did you think you could use all that data for free?
To Austin - you have to hit all of those prompts to change your greeting because Cingular offers so many options to its customers. If we didn’t provide a million different options then you retards would be complaining that you weren’t getting your money’s worth.
Obviously not every carrier is going to work perfectly in every area, it’s just not geographically or financially possible to have a cell site every mile.
Now shutup and make some calls on your cell phone, my salary ddepends on it! HAHAHAHA!
May 15th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Please do not judge all AT&T (Cingular) employees by the ones commenting here. A lot of us do not buy the company propaganda (churn rate, who cares?) and many of us can even spell correctly. If you think the comments posted by “cingular rep” are misspelled, you should see some of the tickets we get in a day.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
preach on PhoneHo!
May 15th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Cingular does not care about their employees either. They layoff all of the good employees to move operations to low costing areas. They are in the process of closing the engineering dept in illinois to move to another state
May 16th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Woah! My husband and I have been wondering what the hell that feedback sound in our TV was for about a month now!
Thank you for solving the mystery and great site!
May 17th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Pretty much anyone that is technically inclined knows you don’t put a radio signal generating device near a speaker or any other sensitive electronic equipment. Your “project” would seem to indicate that you are so inclined and you did it anyway? You want to play all innocent about it and record a call where you get some customer service rep without a clue about RFI to make a statement on the behalf of the company and from this you generate this entire experience. Firstly it is intellectually dishonest (though I am certain by looking at this website that you know that and are simply a whining former AT&T customer with a vendetta). Secondly it is not worthy of a high school project, much less college. You get an “F” for being stupid (stupid = as in knowing better and doing it anyway).
You are provided a discounted phone in exchange for a commitment to a specified period of time. If you are not comfortable with committing to that length of time then you certainly have the option of purchasing your phone outright.
You are given the option of putting insurance on your phone at the time of purchase which extends beyond the 1 year warranty. If you choose not to do so, then that is on you. Whining that the warranty ends before the contract is silly and only in the cell phone business does anyone ever make such an ignorant statement. Show me any product that is covered under warranty through out a commitment period!
Your story reminds me of a lady complaining that her phone didn’t function at the XRay lab where she worked…
This website is a parody of a customer that is “Too Stupid To Own A Cellphone”.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Additionally the Customer Service Representatives are not to have their cellphones out because they are supposed to be helping the customer, not sending and receiving messages. Old reps warn new reps that you can get busted for doing it during a monitored call because it will show up on the monitor. Urban legend. Anyone with half a brain understands that a distortion on the computer monitor will not be visible elsewhere since it is the monitor that is affected and not the computer or program itself.
Study up before you repeat such ignorant statements.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I would like to know why my cingular phones have consistently, mysteriously died two days after the
warranty expires. Do they have little self-destruct chips implanted in them? And the one time I was
able to get a ‘new’ phone under warranty it was obvious that it had passed through several hands
before mine. (New contacts were saved as ‘contact #2336′, ‘contact #2337′, etc. I don’t have that
many friends.) Then, shockingly, that one died too. Of course, I was not allowed another phone and
had to…upgrade.
Although I have about 72 years left on my contract due to ‘upgrades’, I look forward to the day when I
can go to verizon without penalty and stop causing weird noises to come out of the speakers when
shopping in clothing stores because I am receiving a phonecall.
May 19th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Wow–you Cingular guys are really coming out of the woodwork! What’s so difficult about this guy’s story to understand? First the company formally known as Cingular doesn’t tell anyone about this funky noise. And then when he tried to do something about it, you dissed him. You are not attacking the message, but the messenger–how misguided. Cingular should be apologizing. These personal attacks are so lame. I guess this is just another example of how Cingular cares about their customers. Are you getting a bonus for these posts? Bravo to this guy for telling his story. I hope more people tell theirs.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:43 am
Cingular/ATT/SBC/Ameritech is a joke. The proceses they use to resolve customer complaints is ridiculous. Cingular needs to clean up its act but alas that will not happen. Why? you ask? It is simple they went with the lowestgrade network available…. GSM get a real network. No one cares if it works all over the world– MAKE IT WORK ON THE FREE WAYS IN NORTH AMERICA. Yes the feedback can torch a speaker. Tech guy is full of it. Have a nice day and go get CDMA
May 26th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
You know all of Cingular’s (at&t’s) new 3G phones don’t have this RF problem because the new 3G HSDPA network uses WCDMA technology which doesn’t interfere with electronics unlike GSM (it only interferes on the 850 GSM band).
May 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I am a CW/ATT employee and I agree the company has its low points but guess what folks, every company does. Telecommunications is the fastest growing business in the world and there will ALWAYS be issues; no company is perfect.
I have my own issues with the company, both as an employee and a customer. I am in no way condoning some of the practices nor even the way some of our customers are treated when attempting to resolve their disputes etc. However, with such a large corporation as the uhm “New at&t”, we cannot make every consumer happy. Has anyone that has posted on this site tried to make 50,000,000 people happy all at the same time? I imagine it is pretty hard to do.
I hate how I have to work my butt off to support lazy people on welfare; can I complain about that here also?
May 31st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
When it comes to Cingular, I must say that they suffer from pretty much the same vices most big companies have, only they’re more visible than most. My main problem is with what they call “customer service” (I’m not quite sure how ’service’ enters it), but that describes pretty much any large company these days.
Still, here’s my experience with them.
I became a Cingular customer despite my best judgement (I had them back when they were Pacbell, and didn’t like the experience a lot) in order to be able to consolidate several cell phone numbers in a single family account, and Cingular was the only carriers out of the 3 (Cingular, Verizon, T-mobile) which had a long list of conditions attached to number transfer, to the point that it was quite likely I’d lose the number if I transferred it away from them. To make the long story short, they managed to mess up the phone number transfer from T-mobile, and it was only T-mobile people’s understanding that saved it until the point where Cingular got its act more or less together and processed the transfer (took about 2 weeks).
The dropped calls, poor reception (in amajor metropolitan area) and being occasionally patched into other people’s conversations in the middle of your conversation are a part of life with a cell phone carrier (although I haven’t had that hard a time of it with other carriers). However, what really disgusted me was Cingular customer service and billing.
Customer service: I’m one of those people who keeps the journal of customer service calls, dated, with the name/ID of the rep (when they don’t refuse to provide it, which Cingular reps often do) and call content. Reading it is a good study in human incompetence and arrogance, normally both at the same time. The information provided is often misleading (different reps/supervisors give different, often contradicting information. My girlfriend and I often just go with statistics - so many people said this, and so many people said that, and so many people said yet another thing, so we go with the “most voiced” info, unless it makes no sense whatsoever, which is often the case, as well). Customer service reps often start with proudly declaring that it just doesn’t work this way, only to have their supervisor or another rep admit that yes, in fact, it can be done and there’s a procedure for that. The problem is that even when something like that happens, one has to call and follow up on it several times, as in my experience, one shouldn’t just trust what a Cingular rep says will be done. That’s not mentioning the amount of red tape I experienced with Cingular (didn’t have that with T-mobile, Nextel, or Verizon, did have quite a lot of it with Sprint). For example, I needed to unlock my HP Ipaq hw6515, so I can travel overseas with it. I called right after I got it (and the Cingular contract), and was told that I have to wait 30 days (one version) or 45 days (another version) after the start of the contract before this can be done. Well, since it wasn’t urgent, it was easier to just wait rather than finding the 3rd, 4th, 5th opinion (that’s what we call what Cingular and other companies’ CS reps tell us, as it can’t be anything else, given how different those statements are). Well, I called after a couple of months, and asked to have my phone unlocked. After a few transfers between the people who didn’t seem to know what this meant, or said that Cingular doesn’t do this, or weren’t sure who handles it, but knew that it’s done, etc., you get the picture, I was connected to someone who knew both what unlocking means and how Cingular does it. She submitted the required forms (or so I was told), and told me that I’ll get the unlocking code via email within 10 days. Sure enough, it didn’t materialize within the next 2 weeks (can’t be a deliverability problem, as Cingular ads materialized in my inbox twice during that period, and many times thereafter. That was the first time I gave them my email address, specifically asking not to send promotions to it). Well, to make the long story short (again), subsequent calls, during which I was told that it’d take 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 business days, were as useless. it’s been almost a year, the phone is still locked, and I’ll probably just buy the unlocking software or service on Ebay. Given how much time I’ve spend on it times my hourly rate, I should’ve bought it from the start, it’d pay off within one missing customer service call. Needless to say, about 2/3 of my other calls to Cingular customer service (billing issues, plan changes, etc.) were of the same tune.
Billing: one thing I noticed about CIngular billing right away was that, while at T-mobile a $59.99 family plan resulted in about $62 monthly bill, with Cingular a $79.99 family plan (same usage, more plan minutes at Cingular, no overage minutes in either) resulted in a $87 monthly bill, with various taxes, surcharges, etc. Looks like where T-mobile chooses not to pass those on to the consumer (it’s up to the carrier), Cingular chooses otherwise. I wonder what T-mobile’s like where it’s a local monopoly, like AT&T. Germans do complain about Deutsche Telecom, after all. But I digress. So, that’s the “legitimate” part of Cingular billing that I don’t like. There’re other parts, too. One is constant “extra” calls added to the bill. After I began seeing the numbers I haven’t called, I began recording the contents of my phone’s call log every day for a month. Sure enough, when I got the Cingular bill, it was “inflated” by about 120 night and weekends minutes and about 170 regular minutes on a usage of about 2200 minutes. Which is nothing compared to what my brother gets overcharged for, but still annoying. It’s one of those “too small to be seriously caught, sued for, and burned” things big companies constantly do, which is a disgusting ideology, in my opinion. Anyway, calling Cingular was a usual pain, but the minutes got credited back to my account and added to the rollover minutes. A great concept, those rollover minutes, but looks like Cingular makes up for the cost by inflating the bills. Speaking of rollover minutes, another interesting policy has surfaced recently. When I saw that my usage is considerably below my plan, and given that I’ve accumulated enough rollover minutes (which do expire, by the way, even though I paid for them), I decided to switch to a smaller and cheaper plan. That one actually went fine (the switch itself, and the call wasn’t too long). However, in the next bill I noticed that the number of rollover minutes I had was cut more or less in half. The first call to Cingular revealed that apparently that’s what they do when a customer downgrades to a smaller plan, they adjust the rollover minuted already accumulated in proportion. Even though I’ve already paid for the previous plan (which price difference, surprise surprise, isn’t being refunded “in proportion”). So that’ll be another call and more waste of time. And if time isn’t wasted, they just get away with those “too small to be sued over” things, which riles me.
Needless to say, the moment my contract with Cingular is over, I’m moving to T-mobile, it being the only other GSM provider in the area. Moreover, even though CIngular posted terms (they don’t exactly advertize customer service, billing, other problems, naturally) are better than T-mobile’s and many others, and probably will be so in the future, I don’t think I’ll ever have an account with that company again, unless it becomes the only company in the area (with this rush of acquisitions, you never know). Then again, my ground line is from AT&T, too, but that one works
Oh, and about RFI, it does happen, you can see it when the phone is too close to the monitor when it rings, for example, or when you use indoor TV antenna and the phone rings anywhere within 20-25 ft from it.Happened with T-mobile phones, too, I believe. Annoying, but that’s why one shouldn’t use it close to sensitive equipment.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
you guys are all crazy i love cingular good phones very good service and i was getting feed back from my tv but its just some thing you have to deal with if you want a good phone company i uesd to have sprint,butt they keeped ofer charging us for the basics. if you dont like cingular just dont use them im going to stay because they are the best i have had.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Well, that’s precisely what I’m trying to accomplish, once the small matter of the contract is taken care of
June 6th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
This is a customer care reps call to the customer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I understand the fustration that some people have for Cingular the new AT&T. I currently work as a customer service rep for the company. Now I pride myself for the service I provide and i know there are customer service reps who work there just for the pay and have no business working for the company, but sad to say you will find people like that in any customer service position even with the other guys (T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, Alltell) cause people need jobs to support themselves and most everyday people dont want to be yelled at all day and be the one who is there to solve other peoples cell phone problems for 40 hours a week. So of course everyone you hire is not going to do the job perfectly but because we are union there has to be a process before someone who sucks can just get fired. I have to admit the interference does suck but being able to pretty much call anyone at anytime and anywhere your at makes up for it in my mind. The one thing I hate the most is that the customer never can take responsibility for anything that they do especially what there kids do. Also this is a business, we are here to make money that how business stay running( seem like were doing a pretty good job and we do have over 50 MILLION subscribers), and in return we provide the best cellular service that any company can and soon we will be the best in the data game as well(to prove this let me remind u we have 50 MILLION customer which is #1). Now im not saying that our service is for you, we do not have the best coverage everywhere but no cell company can make the claim they do because its not possible. ALL cell phone companies depend on each other(roaming agreements) to even provide the coverage that they do. If want to get the best assistance when it comes to customer service then dont be an @$$ to the person who you are asking for help from. Why do people always say that they didnt use all those minutes, because they do. We go as far to print the detail on your bills, give it to you online (even before your calls get billed too) so that we can show you exactly who you called so that we can prove that you really used the service. But no i get calls from people who tell me that its wrong when they havent even seen the bill, they just seen there balance of the bill, now if you say that right for you to do that than you really need another company. We have several plans that even goes as high as 6000 minutes so there should never be a reason why you go over your minutes, you should start ouit with a higher plan than you think we do let you change your price plan to a different one without a new contract(within the first half of your commitment if you want a promotion element ex. unlim mobile 2 mobile). We provide service for yoru cell phone, we also provide a discount on the phone to join our service or to stay with our service, no company just gives out phones, if your phone cant last more than a year then buy a case and keep it out of any situation where water can get in it(even in the shower it called moisture and that can build up in your phone). if you dont want to do that then get insurnace that why we have it for those situations that u just dont know will happen. If your phone breaks and you dont have any option but buying at full retail cost then im sad to say you could have prevented with insurance. If your TV breaks after the warrenty runs out and it was no fault of your own is your cable or satillite company going to replace it, No they would probably laugh in your face if u did, it works the same way for cell phone but they are even better cuz u can get insurance when u upgrade or activate service(30 days) and u can get another phone before your contract ends. For the good customers they get upgrades all the time, because they put money into the company by paying there bills on time, so dont expect to be getting discounted phones if you dont pay your bill on time and get suspended for non payment. We are not perfect, no company is perfect, no person is perfect, no electronic or computer system is perfect, radio waves are not perfect, the weather is not perfect, building materials are not perfect, your contract even states that the service is not guranteed due to all these imperfect things. The best thing about our service that only Verizon(which just started doing this) can match is that we have a 30 days period where you can exchange that so called crappy phone you got or even return it and not have to keep the commitment. To any customer who reads im sorry for being so blunt and i know and want you to know that this does not apply to all our customers. I actually like working and helping you that why ive worked there for 3+ years. This was just my oppertunity to be able to the venting for a change…
June 7th, 2007 at 12:02 am
By the was its a damn speaker.. who said life was fair..welcome to the real world..why does one little thing have to go wrong in someones life to where they blow it way out of proportion.. you need a hobby and i hope its not being the webmaster of a site dedicated to crapping on a company because you were so dumb that you turned your speaker loud of enough that the interference would blow it. I would have hoped your mother would have taught you to take care of your things and anyone knows if a speaker gets too loud it can blow…
June 7th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I had T-Mobile on prepaid minutes before, never had any problem except possibly poor coverage in remote areas, which I could live with. However, most of my friends use Cingular, and in January of this year I thought, well, I should probably sign a contract with them to take advantage of that Mobile to Mobile.
Big mistake.
Cingular has got to be the singularly worst service provider I’ve ever come across. I’ve had endless, endless troubles with their customer service and sales rep departments, which may or may not be populated by mentally deficient chipmunks. You have to love the way their representatives lie and improvise and generally contradict one another in an attempt to con you out of your money.
I was originally on a personal plan, but recently decided to switch to FamilyTalk in order to add another line for my mother. Their website wouldn’t let me do this online, so I called up their sales department in May. Since upgrade = more money, there wasn’t any problem, though the woman on the phone did say that I’d have to wait a month until the next billing cycle begins before the new plan would kick in. She assured me that at that time, I would be able to add a line, no hassle. And no extra deposit.
Turned out, that wasn’t so. The next billing cycle came in, my rate plan changed, and I went to a dealership personally to get my additional line. The rep was almost ecstatic to inform me that in order to do just that, I would have to pay an additional $500 deposit, on top of the deposit that I’d already coughed up at the beginning of the contract. This was news to me, considering what I’d been promised before. Why, I asked, and the guy actually had the gall to say that it was because I had had a Connecticut number transferred (my old T-Mobile number), and since the new line’s number would be a New York one, they needed to charge a deposit. If that isn’t bullshit, I don’t know what is. The rep then proceeded to offer me an *alternative* option, which is to sign up for a *brand new contract* for 7 months, at which point they’d merge the two lines. Needless to say, this sent all sorts of terrible alarms going off in my head, so I got out of there as quick as humanly possible.
I ended up calling their sales rep department, wanting a satisfactory explanation. The nervous stuttering guy on the phone actually took me through all the process of adding a line, ignored all my questions regarding the deposit — “Uh, we’re not up to that yet, still on Features ma’m.” — despite my repeatedly saying that I didn’t want any goddamn features, just a few answers. Once we hit the $500 deposit, I believe his exact words were, “I don’t really know what these deposits are about — they just are, y’know.” I asked a few more questions about credit history, but knew I wasn’t getting anything else out of this person, who by this point sounded as though he’d go into cardiac arrest if he didn’t get off the phone — in his defense, he truly seemed like someone who “didn’t know what these things are about.” and didn’t try to sell me the CT/NY numbers scenario. Still, you’d think he’d have offered to transfer me to some department that had the information I needed…
I made yet another call, in the same day, and this time got a woman who didn’t sound like she was greener than fresh produce. This time around, the explanation was that I’d have to wait until I was one year into my contract — at which point I’d get my initial deposit back — if I wanted to add a line for zero deposit. Again, no mention of numbers from different states affecting deposit rates. I argued my end for a while, and finally she agreed to check with their ‘credit department’. After I had been on hold for something like a geologic era, the woman came back on, saying that their credit department had confirmed that if I called back in two weeks — at which point I would be 6 months into the contract — they would be able to add another line with zero deposit. I got her first name and extension, will be calling again and I want the last conversation on record. Still fishy as hell, but for the moment I’m willing to wait — though if one more of their reps gives me a contradictory response, my patience will truly have run out.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:04 am
This goes out to mia. All credit evaluations go through equifax.. some how some way your credit is bad enough that you require a deposit. if you keep your service for 6 months with no interruptions for non payment we will then base your credit on your history with cingular. if all what your saing is true then the part about being a different area is why ur getting charged is not true. your beef is not with cingular your beef should be that you have some bad credit out there and need to get that fixed. call equifax and they will tell why u came back with a 500 deposit.
June 7th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I don’t think you’re getting the most salient point here, helpful customer rep. See, I’d always assumed that my high deposit had to do with a bad credit history; hence, I paid up without fuss the first time around. Now, my beef with Cingular, to phrase it in your own words, has to do with the fact that two (three, if you count the rep who okayed my upgrade promising no deposit) of your company’s representatives failed to bring this point up in two separate discussions regarding a deposit for a new line, and none of them would even consider transferring me over to the credit department despite my repeated request to discuss credit. One even gave me a reason that you yourself admitted was erroneous. If worst comes to worst, I would pay the deposit anyway — I pay my bills, that’s money I’m going to get back. It’s not so much the company’s policy as the gross incompetence in its employees that I’m so disgusted with, this being only one incident in many.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:35 am
As you state you were promised an UPGRADE with no deposit not a new line. If you moved to a different area that means you change markets and so in the new market you move to the account history does not matter since its a new account. You were told correct with upgrades there are no deposit required since you allready had service. Then when you wanted to add a line then that when you credit info was put through equifax and came back with 500 dollar deposit. You are not allowed to speak with our credit department because of the fact deposits are based on equifax and that deparment is an internal department not for customers. Mis information might have played a small part but some of the stuff your complaing about not being true is true. Im sorry thing are not working out exactly the way you want but based on what you statedmost of that info is true, it probably just wasnt delivered correctly or maybe it was a fact that the rep did not understand everything..and yes i will even admit it could have been incopetence but dot burn Cingular at the stake for a few peoples errors.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Did you specifically skim over the part where I wrote that the person who processed my upgrade promised I would be able to *add a line* without a new deposit? Which would make it negligence if not outright lying on the rep’s part, don’t you think? Then how about when I said that it took me one, two, three rounds of song and dance with your so-called customer service before the word ‘credit history’ even came into play. Sure, it could just be a few people’s mistakes, but as far as the customers are concerned, customer service and sales rep are the face of Cingular — since they’re the only ones we actually have some sort of basic human contact with. I’m not sure burning at the stake describes it, but yes, I am disappointed as well as frustrated that instead of being informed and competent, the impression your general staff has left me with is more along the lines of ignorant, pigheaded, and ridiculously defensive. No, I agree with this website, you deserve all the bad press you get.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Mia get over it. If your you soooo unhappy go somewhere else.. Well were still the #1 wireless company and the bad press u mention is only because people hate large companies like AT&T not because we have bad service. There seems to be over 50 million other people who dont have an issue with the company.. to be honest we will be fine without your business… PS we will still be happy to take your business back once you find out all the competition really does suck compared to us..
June 7th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Possibly you will be fine without my business, and possibly I care too much, but seriously? Thanks for making all my points regarding the rockstars employed by the country’s #1 wireless company — in name if not in actual quality.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
You can’t please everyone,obviously,but nobody forced you to sign up for this service. Do a little research, read sited like this one, all the cell companies have them. Make an informed decision. If it isn’t all you thought it would be, then suck it up as a bad experience and move on…it’s only 2 years not a lifetime.
What really jacks-my-jaw, as a customer service rep, is the people that want credit for everything. Especially 3rd party downloads. If one more mom tells me her little angel would never download porn or games etc… because she/he is a straight A student and wouldn’t lie or couldn’t possibly send 1500 text messages because she told her/him not to I will go nuts. I even had one guy tell me he sleeps with his phone and must have rolled on it in his sleep and accessed the internet! Right, and he did $1,000.00 in downloads in his sleep, on “accident”. Or the parents that tell me they asked little Susie/Johnny and she/he said they didn’t know how to use their phone for this…uh huh. Or claim they don’t have internet on their phone, so couldn’t possibly accessed it, but 6 months of billing history show they did it every billing cycle. I could go on and on. People! Stop LYING, you CAN NOT accidently do hundreds not even 10.00 in downloads by accident. Do you think WE are stupid? You get at least 3 chances to choose Yes or No to the download, it CLEARLT asks several times if you are sure and tells you if it is a subscription service too. I personally hate giving these morons one dime in credit, but I have to. Then, these are the same people who will refuse purchase blockers on their accounts.
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June 15th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I guess, I didn’t make it clear. My main problem with Cingular isn’t with dropped calls (although I had two in the two years than I was with T-mobile, and my girlfriend had none for 2.5 years with them. With Cingular, I had probably over 100 by now in less than a year that I’ve been with them. And my phone has a more powerful than usual radio, too). My problem is with what I perceive as the company’s attitude towards its customers, of which I still am one (until the contract expires, of course). It’s shown in consistently erroneous billing for a small amount each time, so most people consider it not worth their time, much less the time of their lawyers, which to me is a disgusting trend that quite a few big companies has adopted, as their settlements with class-action lawsuits are still smaller than the profit from those “small amounts” (times 50 million customers for this proud #1 carrier). I’d have less of a problem with that, if when calling Cingular I’d just be told “sorry for that, our bad, we’ll refund it and won’t do it again” (and it wouldn’t be done again). As it is, it takes hours and often several calls for someone at Cingular to even admit that, in fact, it was a mistake, then a few more calls for the money to be refunded or the credit applied, and then the same thing will happen in the next month’s bill, which leads me to conclude that it’s not, in fact, “a mistake”, but a consistent policy of fraud. Yes, as pointed out by the Cingular rep (or PR person, companies do have people working on their reputation online these days), Cingular is a business, and is in it to make money. However, when the money is made by small-time overcharging (times 50 million), it’s not called a legitimate business, it’s called fraud. Not sure how one can be proud of being a part of something like that.
Cingular’s attitude towards its customers is also shown in the amount of red tape in its policies and quite useless dspute resolution process (which centers around taking as much of the customer’s time as possible, thus solving most disputes by the customer simply abandoning the dispute). It’s a small wonder that Cingular has the 2-year contracts, unlike other carriers. They need it. If they were even half-decent in their business, they wouldn’t need it, as they’d outcompete other carriers just by that (as most of the other carriers aren’t that great, either). But their customer retention policy seems to be centered around 2-year contracts and a fancy phone to make someone sign up for the next 2 years.
The whole cituation with Cingular reminds me of that of our auto industry. GM, Ford, Chrysler, and American MOtors (still remember American Motors?) had been virtual monopolies (and state-protected ones, too) for so long that they took their dominance for granted and forgot how to compete. Well, Japanese and European companies outcompeted them, even with all the government protection piled up and all the PR campaigns, by being of better quality, cheaper (not anymore, but the quality still stands), more technologically advanced, and having a vision for the future (beyond reviving the same model for 50 years). Oh, and treating their employees better, rather than laying them off, hiring them back on, laying them off again, hiring them back on again, and so on, and then wondering why the top 5% of the graduates don’t want to work for them and why they mostly get the bottom 20%. I hope, something like this is going to happen to Cingular, as well. T-Mobile’s here already, NTT DoKoMo is looking for an entry to the US market, too. Competition only works when it’s present, and that’s barely the case in the mobile market anymore. Yeah, there’re several of them, but they offer pretty much the same poor service, the same prices, and the same crappy customer experience, which keeps them all afloat (some things tend to float, you know). T-mobile, in my opinion, is the more decent of the lot, mainly because it’s not a local monopoly (it sucks quite a lot in Germany, where it is one, or so I heard). More players like that, and either the local carriers will have to change their ways (unlikely, given the inertia in the huge bureaucratic machines they are), or go down. Personally, after dealing with them for the past 15 years or so, I prefer the latter. After all, one pillars of justice is revenge
June 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Now, let’s look at these arguments…
“Mia get over it. If your you soooo unhappy go somewhere else..”
A personal hit (always works when the arguments run low) and an invitation to take her business elsewhere (hmm, isn’t that precisely what a 2-year contract is there to prevent?). Doesn’t seem like a viable solution, but then, that’s Cingular customer service - no viable solutions.
“Well were still the #1 wireless company and the bad press u mention is only because people hate large companies like AT&T not because we have bad service”
#1, yes. IN size, that is, after a bunch of acquisitions. WHich made a lot of people their customers whether they wanted it or not. And yes, since the others suck as much or close, it sounds like a viable business model (when everybody around sucks, a sucky company can thrive. Especially if it puts up cheesy commercials about how great it is). And yeah, people hate big companies like AT&T. I wonder why. COuld it be bad service? You know, people used to respect big companies. That kind of respect in itself creates an inertia which is hard to change. So why did it change? Hmm, just a thought, could it be bad service?
“There seems to be over 50 million other people who dont have an issue with the company..”
Or they’re locked in a contract, or they don’t see many alternatives out there, or… The list can be long. You know, during the time of civil rights movements only a small percentage of the people affected spoke up. Does this mean that the rest were content with the situation? By this logic, so it’d seem.
“to be honest we will be fine without your business…”
Of course, they will be. Unless and until too many of such businesses move away. Could this be another reason why people don’t like big companies like AT&T? The attitude like that, that is.
“PS we will still be happy to take your business back once you find out all the competition really does suck compared to us..”
I thought, Cingular would be just fine without Mia’s business. And yes, it is quite possible, although Cingular sets a high bar to compete with when it comes to bad service. It’s an interesting business model though - “we suck, but you’ll be back, because everyone else sucks, too”
June 15th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
you guys are a bunch of whiney bitches…seriously…3 seconds of a noise coming from electronics is really that big of a deal to where you’d switch carriers? are you fucking kidding me? props to the people on here who said they were staying with cingular and the noise isn’t that big of a deal..atleast they are smart enough to realize what a good company is…go ahead and change over to sprint…but you better learn arabic if you ever want to call up to customer care…or how about you go to t-mobile…deal with one of their endless amounts of indirect dealers who will lie to you and screw you over in a second…and then there’s verizon…the cockiest peice of shit company in america. seriously…stop being a bunch of whiney bitches…its a fucking noise. who gives a flying monkey shit if it makes your electronics buzz for 3 seconds. everyone here is acting like there are perfect cell phone companies…NO COMPANY IS PERFECT INCLUDING CINGULAR. every company has issues. if you don’t get service at your house…switch to a company that does…if you don’t like one companys customer care…switch to one with better customer care…but what kind of autistic fanny fucking jack ass does it take to switch because theres a fucking noise coming out of your computer?!
any of you people reading this and thinking of posting something as dumb as the last 50 or 60 people did…go fuck yourself. please…please…please switch off of whatever cell phone company you have currently…because nobody deserves to deal with your dumb ass when you call up or go into a store.
fuck you and good night
June 15th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
well guys, i think everybody agrees that cingular/att(same thing or same problem) does not care about costumers. i used to work with sprint and also were bad, but now i think they are getting better, at least better than cingular. however t-mobile, eventougth they have a no 3g network, its service is great and they tread you like you are the owner. so, if you dont want to complain more, change to t-mobile
June 15th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Cingular’s problem with interference is 850MHz band, not 1900MHz. Here’s my test:
T-Mobile, which operates in US at 1900 and cingular, which by default operates at 850MHz. Same phone (Cingular 8125, unlocked). Put t-mobile SIM, make a call, same distance from speakers, very little noise. Put Cingular SIM, make a call, noise is 3-5 times higher.
Nobody but Cingular uses 850MHz band, as far as I know.
Shielding wires doesn’t help - I had same wires and different speakers and noise was semi-ok, but these new speakers ($1500 monitors) just have wiring in them which picks up way too much.
I actually can have phone 5 feet away and still hear cell noise.
And of course cingular puts out SIMs which are forcing phone to use 850 (I’ve modified phone’s registry to allow me to select network, then it’s all back to same 850 after reboot).
Sucks, but what can you do…
Dami
June 15th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
you’re a moron.
Saying GSM sucks because of RFi, is like saying cars suck because they make noise. GSM is the best way to transport our conversations, noise or not. maybe you should spend some money on your cables just like your uber expensive “$100 computer speakers” or get a 2 cups and some string and stop your bitching. By the way, you should be bitching to your speaker manufacturer, not Cingular, as my $20 alarm clock can handle RFi, so there was obviously a problem with your poundin’ sound system.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Now I am not biased to any cell phone company, but it seems to me that the supporters of Cingular/ATT&T have the worst English. I am not going to assume anything, but if you are going to debate a subject and can’t use proper English, you sound very uneducated and your point is lost. Even the “customer service representative” can’t form complete sentences or spell correctly. In my experiences uneducated people are very ignorant and judging by the responses I can’t be far off. Also in my experiences the company you work for is always the best, so of course you are going to defend it. First off, stop being brain washed by corporate America and repeating what was said to you at some Cingular/ATT&T training seminar. Secondly, this is a site for people to vent there frustrations, so I’m pretty sure your sales pitch about “the best cellular company” are falling on deaf ears. On a side note, calling someone stupid for not liking the same company you do is completely ignorant and makes you look like a jackass for not having a valid response. Judging by what I have read and my experiences with Cingular/ATT&T I would have to agree with this site and the people who have responded on this site.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
T-Mobile and PS3 are BEST! Better than all competition! iPhone, unfortunately on Cingular!
June 15th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Hey Dami,
Some things are wrong here Ill mark them with a *** so you know whats wrong and right…
# Dami Says:
June 15th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Cingular’s problem with interference is 850MHz band, not 1900MHz. *** Interference is on BOTH frequencies.***
Here’s my test:
T-Mobile, which operates in US at 1900 and cingular, which by default operates at 850MHz. ***Cingular by default operates at BOTH. Primarily west coast 1900, east coast 850Mhz***
Same phone (Cingular 8125, unlocked). Put t-mobile SIM, make a call, same distance from speakers, very little noise. Put Cingular SIM, make a call, noise is 3-5 times higher.
Nobody but Cingular uses 850MHz band ***Verizon, Alltel, and many others use 800Mhz, but in GSM, they call it 850Mhz, its the same thing as 800.***
, as far as I know.
Shielding wires doesn’t help - I had same wires and different speakers and noise was semi-ok, but these new speakers ($1500 monitors) just have wiring in them which picks up way too much.
I actually can have phone 5 feet away and still hear cell noise.
And of course cingular puts out SIMs which are forcing phone to use 850 (I’ve modified phone’s registry to allow me to select network, then it’s all back to same 850 after reboot).*** Cingular doenst put out SIMS that force anything, other then showing CINGULAR or AT&T as their network, even while roaming. Speaking of roaming, they dont allow MANUAL roaming. But by no means does Cingular force 850 over 1900Mhz.**8
Sucks, but what can you do…
Dami
June 15th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
One more thing, we are on the topic of iPhone…
MAJORITY of T-Mobile users would WANT the iPhone, if it was on T-Mobile but that same majority would not LEAVE T-Mobile for Cingular/AT&T for the iPhone.
Statistically, there are more then 2:1 T-Mobile users who want iPhone but not willing to leave for Cingular. Verizon has less users who want it then even Cingular, and Sprint users only 3% of their users even care about it. Meaning that the iPhone will only be successful on T-Mobile (logically speaking the best network GSM wise for it).
June 15th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
dtx:
first off you idiot, all cells makes RFi noise, not just GSM. 850MHz in particular is nosier in my tests than 1900.
I disconnected signal cables from speakers and they still get interference. See expensive monitors are not made to be used near a cell phone, but that’s not the point - the point was that 850 band makes more noise than 1900.
rwaldorf:
Of course there’s interference on Both frequences. I said 850 has MORE than 1900, i didn’t say 1900 doesn’t have it at all.
I didn’t know that west coast uses 1900. I’m in Chicago and it’s 850 all over here.
According to this forum, Cingular supposedly DOES lock your phone by defaulting 850 in chicago and locking manual selection.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-284201.html
June 16th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Just wanted to point out that Verizon is actually number one in customer base, and growing everyday…. i get more people switching from cingular everyday complaining about the new at&t’s customer service.
CDMA phones might be black sheep in a global sense, but in North America (75% of US citizens never leave the country in their lifetime) CDMA seems to be a little more under control.
At this point, everyone is right, but only because everyones phones are the same in one way or another whether one is global or one is faster, it all averages out to about the same experience with any carrier. Where Verizon (and many others) succeed is that we take pride in our customer service and make sure that we help out our customer.
For the record, if this kids speakers blew up cause of Verizon, (wouldnt have happened in the first place i know) we would have comp’ed the kid for new speakers and probably given him a credit on his next bill or two. Just shows you how far a little customer service can take a company.
June 16th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Verizon Rep Says:
June 16th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Just wanted to point out that Verizon is actually number one in customer base, and growing everyday…. i get more people switching from cingular everyday complaining about the new at&t’s customer service.
Correction–VZW has more postpaid users than anyone else, however Cingular/ATT/Whoever they are this week has more overall customers since they have a much larger prepay and reseller(Tracfone) customer base. Cingular does blow however, one of my best friends is a major sales Director in ATT landline and has to use their cell service, all I ever here is “I’m gettin another Verizon Phone” Funny thing was that he got caught by someone in the top of the organization a year and a half ago using his private VZW line and got his butt chewed out, so now he is afraid of losing his six figure salary and doing nothing but bitching about his Cingular Crackberry aka the dropomatic 5000.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Hmmmm…lets see. Cingular/AT&T has 62.2 million customers up 1.2 million by end of 1st quarter
of 2007.
To all that doesnt understand business, that means the company added 1.2 million customers from
Jan. 1st 2007 to March 31. It seems as though quite alot of people are coming over to the new AT&T
eventhough the so-called “bad customer service”.
Average monthly subscriber churn for AT&T’s postpaid wireless customer base was a best-ever 1.3
percent in the first quarter, down from 1.6 percent in the year-earlier quarter and 1.5 percent in
the fourth quarter of 2006. Total churn was 1.7 percent, down from 1.9 percent in the year-earlier
first quarter and 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006.
It seems as though many US customers do not share the same feeling as the people in this forum.
GO AT&T!!!!!!
June 17th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Quit your bitching… seriously, this is lame.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
This website (and this particular forum) has been an “interesting” read, so far. I have worked for Customer Service (AT&T Wireless then Cingular Wireless) and currently work in front-line sales for the New AT&T. I am disturbed that some individuals have identified themselves as employees of the New AT&T and then proceeded to use “vulgar” language to “attack” people that have identified themselves as customers. I understand your frustration with having to deal with the wrath of customers everyday and what seems to be like every call, but this website, nor anywhere else, is the place to identify yourself as an employee of the New AT&T when your language leans foul. By doing so, you tarnish the reputation of your employer and co-workers by feeding more negative “perceived official” comments to the discussion. It is perfectly acceptable to “root for” your employer, but don’t make the other 67,000 employees of the wireless division look bad, because you’ve decided to stoop to “vulgar” language to answer other posts. Be better than that.
Everyone that has dealt with Cingular Wireless/New AT&T Customer Service has confronted a major problem that affects other major industries in the United States. That problem is … unions. Every call-center (Customer Care, Credit & Activations, Receivables Management, Fraud, Telesales , etc) that the New AT&T has … is unionized. There are some additional centers in Canada, which are part of an out-sourcing strategy to control some costs. The New AT&T (Cingular Wireless) should be commended for reversing a policy that AT&T Wireless (the old wireless carrier that was bought for $41 billion over three years ago) put into place almost five years ago. The CIO of AT&T Wireless (Christopher Corrado) at the time (and a former WiPro executive) got the company to outsource “non-essential” call-center duties (e.g., Exchange By Mail) to call-centers in Western India. It was an amazing business blunder which lead to other problems, finally pushing the old AT&T Wireless into auction. Today’s management (of the wireless division) quickly instituted an “A