Complaint Review: Cingular - AT&T Wireless

Where to begin...

For one, I've been a customer with AT&T before it was bought out by Cingular and rebranded to AT&T again. Pretty funny story if you ask me, it just seems like they were trying to get out of the many corporate contracts they had made with high profile companies AND were in the process of remerging back into the huge company it once was.

Anyways, let me get onto the story. Now that I've merged over to Cingular or AT&t or whatever, I've never had a pleasant time. I've been one to micromanage my account a lot, and with their website being down most of the time, I'm unable to confirm what actually has happened to my account.

Now at this point, you're already wanting to stop me in my tracks. Two things that should never be in the same paragraph together are Cingular/AT&T and micromanage. Why do I say this? It is because they are the kings of over charging on anyone's bill.

Well, let me get on with the story. So, I've apparently been a problem customer. Calling in to change features often. I wouldn't be here today if I had left my account alone and asked for it to be stuck in the same way it was when it was created years ago. My first incident with Cingular was last year after my home burned down in August.

I called in just shortly after and asked to have my minutes raise, which would normally seem like no problem. I was advised not to worry about anything and to just go on with my life and take advantage of the much larger bucket of minutes. Well, they didn't advise me it took effect on the next billing cycle and I ended up with a very large bill out of it. The next rep I spoke to was sweet, took care of it, and I went on my merry way.

I'm going to stop you for one moment and tell you what my setup at the current time was:
Roughly 1400minutes a month.
1000 text messages for one of the two phone lines.
Unlimited nights and weekends starting at 7pm.
Unlimited data usage (Non-tethering: With this plan I am not allowed to connect it to a computer for data usage.)

So, at this point, I'm thinking "Wow, this company isn't so bad!" Time passed by, and soon, I get another huge bill. It's for a very large amount of text messages. So I call in, they take care of it. Apparently the previous rep failed to upgrade my text messaging package from 50 to 1000. So this rep, with a bit of doubt apologized to me and gave me credit back. It's not a big deal I thought.

Around the end of September my phone had begun to malfunction. The screen would often not show or display anything yet phone calls could be made and initiated. I called in, and one of the features I have never had removed and had since the beginning of the account. was insurance on both lines.

So I talk to the rep, and after a while, discover that I would have to buy a new phone out of contract. She finally researches, apologized to me for her actions, and advised me I could order a new phone for the discounted price. At this point, if insurance was properly attached, I would of only had to pay $50.00 for a replacement device. I told her it was not acceptable, and after a bit of negotiation, she decided not to force me to sign a new two year agreement for a mistake Cingular had made regarding my services.

I also made sure verbally that I would be required to sign for the package. She re-assured me that I would have to and it would be delivered via Fed-Ex since they have a special contract in place with that company. I normally wouldn't care about having my package signed for but I was living in a neighborhood that didn't seem to be safe and secure. Of course, having your house burned down gives you very little time to find a new place to live for a few months while it gets rebuilt.. so you have to take just about anything sadly.

Note that as each time I've needed to call in, I'm being given less and less trust as an 'honest' customer.

I've now grudgingly paid for a phone at this point, two weeks have past, and no phone. I ended up calling and they advised me it was delivered. I asked where. Their reply was "FR" which meant "Front Door." I inquired who was to deliver it.

They said DHL. Now, this doesn't make much sense really. To send via a company they didn't get some kind of special discount to. DHL also didn't ask for a signature to an address they've never delivered to before.

So, I fought with countless reps who claimed it was on my hands since the phone never made it and I would have to spend $400+ for a phone that would suit my needs. Now, this isn't going to be a fancy PDA phone. I went after the LG CU500, which was a huge downgrade from a Nokia 6600 Series smartphone. I was giving up a lot of features I needed because I would not of wanted to pay $300+ for a discounted phone price where I should of only paid $50 for a replacement via insurance.

We finally negotiated to allow me to get a phone from the local store. I arrive, and not only were I able to quickly get it taken care of, but I was required by the rep to sign a new contract. Now if I had insurance on the line (which I had added during my switchover from 'blue' to 'orange' (terms for AT&T and Cingular.)) I wouldn't of even had to renew a contract to get my phone replaced.

Now, we get home with this new device and with an upgraded feature for data tethering added to the account. I've used it for a few months without problems until one day in January, I call in to remove the feature.

After a month and a bill shows up, the feature is still on the account. So I call in, ask to have it removed. The rep apologized and had it removed. The rep refused to credit me for the time the feature was documented to be removed and had not been removed. I figured this was a small price to pay for being a Cingular customer.

March rolls around and I have friends come into town I have not seen in forever. (At least I believe it was March.) So I oblige and I come down to their hotel room where they're having a party. Late night rolls around and everyone wants to get online. The first thing we noticed was that the hotel's wi-fi was very unstable and weak.

The first thing I did was to call down to Cingular and ask them to add a data tethering plan to the account. At this point, they were closed as it were almost 10pm. I went to the lobby, added the feature onto the account via their website, and figured everything would be up and running fine. Now, you can confirm this, for anyone who has a Cingular account and has online account management, go and add anything to your account but a voice plan. The website will NOT warn you that it will take a few days to take effect or that it might be pro-rated. it ONLY gives you this warning if you were to change a voice/minute plan.

So, I get back to the hotel room, setup the wifi with my CU500, and we're both surfing and chatting and checking email. A whole month passes by and suddenly, I get a bill for way over $1000. I call in to find out why, and it was data. Apparently it took a few days for the website to add it onto the account, contradicting it's confirmation page that advised me it was already added. (Once again, I want you to test this. If you have a Cingular/ATT online managed account, try adding text messaging or data. It will not tell you it's not added yet, it'll confirm it's on your account.)

This has got to be the most startling time I've ever had with the company for now. I called in numerous times and was treated like a red-headed step child. Nobody wanted to believe me that I had actually taken the steps to make sure the plan was added.

Until I got one incredible lady in fulfillment. Her exact words were "I can't find the confirmation stating it would take a few days to add, but I know that if you add on a feature at late hours near midnight, it will advise you it would take a few days or next day to take effect." (I implore you to try adding on a cheap feature at midnight or near midnight to test this out, you will NEVER see this confirmation of feature delayment anywhere unless it is voice/minute changes.)

At this point, I have had her walk through my account, add on the feature manually several times over the website, frustrated her completely as well as myself. Her only last words were "I'm sorry, but I can not credit this, we've already given you too many credits as it is."

Take close notice that at this point, I'm now being treated as if I am a customer that is trying to fleece the company.

I finally FINALLY got a hold of a rep that was willing to listen to me over it. Eventually he got his manager on the line. He made another request to the fulfillment team and after a week or so, it got denied. About a few days later after I decided I was giving up, contacting a lawyer about my personal credit protection, etc, I get a call saying the whole overage amount was credited. I was shocked, I felt that this hopeless situation would of never ended. A company I so much treasured has gone so far over the line with me and finally fixed it's only issue I had with it.

A whole week later, I removed the data tethering feature since I didn't need it anymore.

Now, let's talk about today. it is 11am on Tuesday, July 31st.
Approximately 4 or 5 weeks ago I had spoken to a representative about adding unlimited data tethering. She seemed confused as to what I was asking for. She wanted to add unlimited medianet with a bundle. I advised her it was not acceptable per cingular TOS to tether a laptop with that bundle even though you are able to do it. Feel free to google up wap.cingular tethering. You'll find many ways you could rip off Cingular/ATT.

Unfortunately, I'm one of the few honest customers that even pay for my music and MP3s. I'd rather pay the $60 or 80 dollars a month and walk out with a clean mind than to worry about having some agent knocking on my door.

Anyways, I get a bill for over 6500.00 dollars. My jaw absolutely dropped. I couldn't believe it. Out of all the things I could of done, I felt like I did it right. Call up Cingular, add the data tethering plan, hang up, use data tethering.

It turns out the rep had added a 5MB Wifi feature instead of the unlimited. Now, with the CU500, with a download speed of 1.8mbps, it would take less than a minute to download a few megabytes. Not to mention, I do a lot of surfing on the internet and collaboration via email with artwork. I'm talking about huge 40MB photoshop documents that I've been working on.

Turns out that I've definitely exhausted the 5MB of data. I called up to get this issue resolved. The lady on their end advised me that the system showed that there were notes advising that this was a representative error and she even added the unlimited data for 80 bucks and that she would back date it to try and prevent a second wave of charges over 6000 dollars. So I hang up with piece of mind.

July 25th, I get a call, rather, I didn't get a call (Well, they said I did based on the note "Called XXX-XXX-XXXX, no answer". I looked at the incoming call ledger and even had a rep verify that it wasn't on the incoming call log on their end.) from Cingular. I called back today, 7/31/07 to figure out what was going on since I used my phone to check my balance and it was still outrageous. The rep I spoke to couldn't tell me what the notes said, but that a manager was trying to call me back to 'negotiate' something.

The rep refused to email me the account notes that regarded me.

The rep refused to explain anything other than a manager at someday and sometime will call me back on it. Her explaination was that the manager was probably in meetings. The rep would not even give me the manager's name.

Beyond that, the rep could not even explain why the manager did not leave a voicemail message or send me a text.

Note that at this point, the rep immediately saw that it was a company error but they are now trying to negotiate with me over something. I will post more info on this later, and hopefully, it will be a happy story, but for now, this is the up to date info on it.

P.S. I implore. no. I beg you to read this thoroughly. I used to be an employee at the Cingular Call Center in Bothell, and now I understand how horrified customers had felt when we wouldn't help them with their issues anymore based on our policies.

Reading the notes, we often 'saw' that just about everything was something they caused. We lacked tools to properly research the cause of issues both financially and technically. We would get crazy things where customers would get a new line of service, and suddenly they would be getting lots of charges from DirectBill mobile services because they had that phone number in their database still as chargeable.

If you are with Cingular, never NEVER make changes to your account, and if you do, make sure you go to the store and get the changes printed out in writing. I am so scared about the sheer amount of money I owe Cingular rather they claim I owe and what they are trying to get me to agree to. If there was anyone I could relate my feelings to, it would be a college student being handed a notice from the RIAA that they owe them $3000.00, except, Cingular has all my personal info.

I've been with Cingular for a long time, and it's sad to see a company that was once an amazing one that was originally known as AT&T Wireless, dump everything for Cingular's terrible policies, and then put on a mask to hide the fact that they aren't Cingular anymore,, but AT&T with Cingular policies.

Jeremy
Seattle, Washington
U.S.A.

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