Complaint Review: Nextel

A free trial for a Nextel cell phone in fact spelled a nightmare of obligations, costs and hours of my time.
Nextel offered a free trial.

Luckily and smartly, I kept my phones and account that I had with Cingular at the same time, during my "free" trial.

During the trial, it turned out that there was no reception whatsoever in our area's where we spend a lot of our time. I called within 2 weeks and cancelled, wrote up a letter and sent back both phones I had on trial for my husband and me.

First, I received a bill for used minutes, connection fees, tax this and that.
In short, nothing is free about this "free" trial.

Secondly, after paying these fees, I kept receiving a bill in the hundreds of dollars for the phones that I had returned. Even me showing Nextel, the crooks, by mail my Fedex proof, namely a signature of a Nextel employee who signed for receiving the phones back, did not impress Nextel at first. I kept receiving a bill for phones that were not in my possession.

Then, finally ... after hours and hours on the phone with Nextel and saying my name, address, social etcetera tens of times in a matter of hours ... it was confirmed that they received one phone.

Ah, what happened to the other phone then that was in the same box? The very same box that the phones came to my house in?? They did not receive it, it was claimed. How does one prove that there were two cell phones in the box? I don't know but there were and I used the very same box that Nextel used and had put everything very neatly in there as I am a neat person in general.

I think they do this deliberately. The whole "free" trial thing is one big scam. The phones are deliberately claimed as "un-returned" when in fact Nextel knows full well that the phones came back from unsatisfied customers.

I had never had a collection bill in my whole life, and I am over 40, and here I received my very first bill from a collection agency over a phone that I supposedly did not return while I did.

I was fuming. What on the planet can I do with a phone that is not connected?? (One that has no connection even if it is connected). Their accusation made no sense. It was an absolute scam. I am convinced that Nextel made a few million on this scam, scamming thousands, even though it was expressed to me that my situation was an exception "and they were sorry, but they never received back the phones" ... Yeah right.

What pissed me off also, is the moment that I said I was going to record the conversation, their agents objected. This, while Nextel records every phone call under the veil of using the conversation for 'training purposes'. Well, unfortunately, I once after many, many calls in a few hours started to cuss. I lost it. I could have been working and making money, had a lot of other, more pressing things to do and on my mind -- yet just could not accept the injustice and ripoff by Nextel and wasn't having it.

I am sure Nextel recorded that one time that I lost it. Still sort of controlled though. More as to try another tactic because being polite and cooperative sure wasn't working. and would bring that to court. However, it did have an effect, I was taken more seriously. Mmmm. Maybe it is that crooks only understand certain language ...

My message to anyone: stay away from Nextel's "free" (yeah, right) trials for cell phones.

It took me almost a year to get Nextel to admit that it received the cell phones back. I still ended up paying fees for this and that. My bill went to collection. I have yet to check whether that messed up my credit. It was my first bill that went to collection ever. Nextel ended up not charging me for the "not received back" cell phone and I still paid all the other fees just to be done with it. By then, I had run out of energy to deal with that too. I don't even recall what it was for, but I never will forget Nextel's "Sorry, we did not receive the cell phones back and we will have to charge you for that" RIPOFF.

P
Silver Spring, Maryland
U.S.A.

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