Complaint Review: Cingular Wireless - Ocala Florida

April 21, 2005

Cingular Customer Care

PO Box 772349

Ocala FL 34477-2349

Dear Cingular Customer Care,

I am writing to you to report the recent interaction I had with Cingular's Exchange by Mail department. They provided me with this address as the last resort for me to dispute the charge applied to my account.

I hope that by bringing it to your attention you can remedy some of the shortcomings in your exchange procedures. A full exposition follows:

Cingular XBM Fiasco

I got a new cell phone when I switched my account over to Cingular from ATT Wireless back in Dec. I got a Motorola V220 camera phone, and was pretty happy with it. About a week later, the internal display went blank. Well, not completely blank, there was a white horizontal bar across it. I was miffed that my new phone died so soon, but thought maybe it was just cold, since I've had other displays get sluggish in the cold. I messed around with it for a while, turning it on and off again, and then just leaving it off for a while. When i checked it again several hours later, it worked fine. Yay. One month later - it does the same thing again. This time i just turn it off and leave it overnight. Next morning it was fine again.

Then in March, it did it again. This time however, turning it off did not help. I searched online, and found others had the same problem.

I tried contacting Motorola, but they never got back to me. So I called Cingular to see if I could exchange the phone. They tried sending some reset code to the phone and had me cycle the power a few times. When all that failed, I was directed to their eXchange By Mail (XBM) department. They cheerfully told me there was no problem sending me a replacement, as long as I agreed to the Warranty repair rules. I happily agreed, knowing full well that the phone had simply died, and that I did not drop it or hit it, or dump it in coffee or whatever. The replacement process was actually quite easy - they sent a new phone in a little box. I just had to switch over the SIM card, battery, and back cover over to the new phone and I was in business. Then carefully followed the instructions about wrapping the RMA around the phone and putting it in the bubble wrap and back in to the shipping box -- keeping in mind the dire warning about being charged for the phone if it gets damaged in transit. Wow, that was easy and painless.

Until now. I just got my March-Apr bill from Cingular, and there's a $150 charge on there for "One time charge for Beyond Economic Repair" WTF? Time to call them up:

1. Call the number on the bill (1-800-331-0500). They redirect me to the Exchange dept.

2. Exchange dept says, "We don't know anything but the code says physical damage. You need to call Motorola, they handle all the repairs."

3. Calling Motorola (1-800-331-6456). "Uh, we don't handle repairs directly from Cingular, they usually use authorized repair shops."

4. Call back the Exchange Dept (1-800-801-1101), talking to Jason this time. I explain what's happened so far, how Motorola was a dead end, and that I am positive that the phone was not physically damaged and where did this charge come from? He really honestly tries to help, and informs me that they do indeed use their own 3rd party repair shops, but is ultimately clueless about this mysterious "other dept" in charge of putting return code in the system. All he can do is repeat that I agreed to the terms of the warranty repair and that the code on his computer says "physical damage". This goes on for a while, as he repeats that there's not much he can do. He offers that maybe the screen was cracked. I explain that I doubt cracked screen can repair themselves by turning off the phone and then be fine for weeks before failing again. I finally ask for his supervisor, and he come back after a while and states that they talked it over and "There's not much I can do." He repeats that some other department was responsible for that return code and there is no way he could remove the charge even if he wanted to. I insist that somebody must know who this mysterious department is, and he's silent again. I ask for his supervisor again, and after a while, Chris comes on the line with "How can I help you?" I ask if Jason had explained my situation and he agrees. I reiterate that I dispute their claim that the phone was physically damaged. He reiterates that I agreed to the terms of the repair. I ask what the recourse is if I wanted to investigate their claim. "none. That is all handled by a different department." Well what department is that? I ask. "I don't know." Well, I sent the phone to Cingular, it must be someplace! He replies again "I don't know. Didn't you keep a copy of that?" No, I sent that off in the mail. Do you have that address? "Yes, I can give you that."

Cingular XBM

1000 Park Rd.

Chanhassen MN 55317

Do you have their phone number? "No." Thanks, good bye.

I'm infuriated, but hopeful that I can sort it out still.

So, to follow up on the address they gave me for the returned phone. Googling the address yields a Service PC Partners @ 952-448-2202. Sounds promising.

1. Call PC Partners. They do indeed handle returns for Cingular. I give them my IMEI number and they take a moment to look it up. Their records show that phone has been repaired. "Really? Cingular told me it was Beyond Economic Repair." They replied that I'd have to take that up with Cingular then because they just repair the phones there.

2. Call XBM back, finally getting through to Raymond. I explain what's been going on and he puts me on hold. A long while later Dave comes on the line, sounding flustered and annoyed that I dared to call back. He reviewed what had transpired so far. He stated, "I understand that you have contacted Motorola. And you have to understand that has no bearing at all on this matter." I agreed - I don't know why they sent me to Motorola in the first place. He went on to say that some other department was responsible for the charge and there was no way for him to remove it. I told him that I had contacted the third party who did the repairs, and that their records show the phone was in fact fixed. He replied that that didn't matter either. I asked how it was possible that they had absolutely no idea where this report came from or who was responsible for it. That there must be an error in their system. He said that with all the thousands of phones sent in for repairs, NOBODY had ever called back as I had. And then he said something about maybe only 1% of them could be in error. He was being pretty gruff at this point and I really don't know what he meant be that. I reiterated that I dispute this claim and that I want them to review it. "We can't do that." I ask who can, and he suggests calling Customer Care. Well, they just sent me to you; they don't know anything about this either. Who else? Then he gave me the address of Cingular Customer Care in Ocala Florida and repeated that once the charge was on there, they couldn't do anything about it. He said he appreciated my concern but I was stuck with their charge. I ask a few more times what depart could do something about it, and he gave me the number for the Billing Department. (866-246-4852)

3. Calling the Billing Department, Ramsey answers my call. He is actually very polite and concerned about my frustration. I gave him all the information and he calls XMB too. After a while he comes back with "Well that was almost entirely useless." At least at this point, he's sympathizing with me over the frustration of dealing with XBM. He was saddened to learn that XBM has been telling customers to go away and accept is as he'd been sending them to that department when they called with similar complaints. He was just as surprised that there was no possibility of review for this charge. And just as frustrated that XBM denied all responsibility of it, passing it on to the unknown "other department."

After verifying the phone number I gave for the repair shop, he called them as well. This time however, they wouldn't confirm for him that the phone had been repaired. Now they wanted to defer to the actual reporting office that sends the information back to Cingular. I think they were getting scared of getting in the middle of this nightmare.

Ramsey offers up three possibilities.

a) have me call XBM back and ask to elevate the inquiry. ( i tried that already and got the cold shoulder of Dave. )

b) he could request an inquiry in to this charge. But, the request may not be honored, and they may not get any further than we had already.

c) or he could remove half the charge based on our conversation. But, if accepted the half off compromise, the inquiry would likely consider the dispute settled by that compromise.

argh.

He offers to make some more calls, to see if he could find a place to even submit the inquiry request. I ask him to call me back afterward.

When Ramsey calls back, he says that XBM has informed him that there are actually three different technicians involved in the repair process, and maybe the one we called only repaired part of the phone and that's why they showed it as repaired. And that he's afraid that if he does make the case for an inquiry they would just see the code for "Beyond Economic Repair" and consider the matter closed again. Basically, there is no review process at all for their finding, and you just have to accept it, but he'd like to refund me half the charge. I'm tired of fighting and give in. At least they were kind enough to offer that.

While I wait for him to enter all of this in to my records, (to make sure an audit doesn't try to revoke my refund), we chat about how frustrating this is, and how bizarre it is that XBM has no knowledge of the findings of the repair. This "other department" enters that information in the computer and that's the end of it. I think I should have just sent the phone to Motorola in the first place for their one year warranty. He agrees that then I'd at least get an invoice back explaining the findings if they, for some reason, determined it to be "Beyond Economic Repair." It's very unsettling that Cingular's contracted repair shops don't have to supply that. Or at least Cingular wasn't willing to allow them to.

So, fine - half off the $150 extortion fee, and I only paid $75 for a phone I could have bought new for $50. Oh well. I am defeated.

James

oregon, Wisconsin
U.S.A.

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