Cell site might be ok?

[mothra76]

As quoted below, I posted this message a week or so ago. To add more confusion to the story, I brought over my work cell last night to the home in question. Its a LG Tm 510 with prl 50001. The phone had verizon service no problem, even 3-4 bars, while my 4400 was searching for service, still. Confused? I really am now. Any more suggestions would be great. Thanks!

Almost a month ago I was spending the night at my girlfriend's house in the country (but near the city and highway). Typically I and herself would have about 3-4 solid bars of a 1x digital signal in her house. Well one night I woke up in the middle of the night and my phone was searching for service (we both have the lg 4400). I had my phone set to "cell only" under force mode. So I went in and put it on "cdma only", well it went to extended network, sprint that is. I let it go for a week figuring they must be working on the tower. And this happened on both our phones too. I called verizon a few weeks ago to tell them all about the issue, of course they said they were going to look into it. Well its been almost a month and I have called 4 times now and still nothing has changed. Well yesterday when I called to complain they had my update my prl, now its at 50085. When I went to my girlfriend's house last night with the new prl, right as I walked in the house, the signal dropped and I had suddenly no service at all now. So the new prl takes away the sprint tower and I have absolutley no signal at all, not even analog. Is this a bad cell site? It makes no sense to me and verizon hasn't been much of a help at all. Any suggestions? We live in the detroit area (around woodhaven michigan).

My original bad cell site ? post

[AnthroMatt]

Did the problems begin once you got the 4400 or had the 4400 worked in your gf's house before? Did you and your girlfriend purchase the phones together (at the same time)?

[bobolito]

Are you sure the LG 510 was not picking up a Sprint tower? I remember you said your 4400 used to pickup Sprint until you updated the PRL. However, if you're sure it is a Verizon tower, then in that case, it looks pretty obvious to me. Just take the phone to a store for repair/replacement. Some may suggest a PRL update, but I don't think this is the case here. PRL's only designate which system IDs your phone may or may not use, not which individual towers.

[mothra76]

My 4400 was replaced in May sometime (being the tech fried my original 4400 when she tried to update the software to v06) . It worked fine for a few weeks. My girlfriend got her 4400 in april sometime. Both worked fine, no problems with going to sprint in her house. Hers goes to sprint now, my 4400 just searches for service. The LG TM 510 got a solid verizon signal, I tested it with dialing *611, and sure enough, verizon wireless customer support, not sprint. But our issues like happened about a month ago, like over night, both phones roamed to sprint. Weirdness. Thanks guys for posting such quick responses!

[AnthroMatt]

If the phones used to work, and now they don't, take them back and have them tested. Perhaps they are defective. Still, it seems bizarre that they would be OK for a while and then not work anymore. Obviously since the 510 picked up Verizon signal you know the signal is making it into your gf's house. If you get new 4400's and those don't work either, I guess it is time to try a new model.

[bobolito]

Sometimes when you dial *611 you still get your provider's support line even though you are on a different carrier. The best way to test is by dialing a bad number like 12345 and more than often you will hear a message that will tell you for sure which towers you are using.

[AnthroMatt]

Originally posted by: bobolito
Sometimes when you dial *611 you still get your provider's support line even though you are on a different carrier. The best way to test is by dialing a bad number like 12345 and more than often you will hear a message that will tell you for sure which towers you are using.

Really? That has never happened to me! When I had Verizon I would get "USCC Roam support", Claire from Sprint, or Alltel. When I had USCC in Florida I got AT&T customer support when I roamed and now that I have Sprint, when I roamed on Verizon I got a message saying "Verizon Wireless was unable to route your call to the appropriate center." All after dialing 611. When would I get my own carrier's CS when roaming on another provider?

With Verizon, if the LG 510 was roaming off of another SID (regardless of the calling plan) you would always at least get a solid roaming indicator, even if roaming charges do not apply.

[mothra76]

Well now i will have to try to take at least my phone into the verizon store. I will see if they can swap it out for another (sigh, again). Then I will take it to my girlfriend's house and see if it warrants the same behavior, or works like a champ. I will keep you all updated, thanks again!

[AnthroMatt]

buena suerte!

[mothra76]

Ok here is the latest on this delima. I spoke to customer service on *611 yesterday to tell them of my latest update to my problem. They said I could go into the store and exchange the phone for another model, if that was what it would take to "take care of me". So I figured, they would offer me a "comparable" model to exchange for. So just incase I packed up the accessories to the phone, the box and receipt as well (I paid $229 when I bought the phone). Then I went into the store yesterday to do the transaction. Thats when the headaches began. I had to take my phone to the tech and he was trying to tell me some jive about how I need to have the phone on automatic A in order to not be on sprint, I was like ok, you are missing the point. I had to explain to him the whole story all over again. Then he said I had to talk to the customer service lady to get a different model of phone. The customer service lady was probably the rudest person I have ever dealt with. She like totally doubted my entire story, and took it as me just trying to get a new phone. She had to walk away many times to see if she could exchange my phone. Finally she said that I had to come back with the box and packaging, I said hey I have that in the car, she was annoyed. Then I brought in all of that and she said that I could only have the Vx10 or A310 samsung. I said hey, those are not comprable models and I should at least get something in color. I mentioned the samsung a530 (probably the closest in price, but not sure if I would want to deal with new headaches, but I figured hey, I should be able to at least try it and see if it works) and she was like there is no way Im going to let you have that phone, that phone is entirely new and it won't work for you, its all digital, you need analog and this phone wont work for you. Then I explained, hey, my phone doesn't even go into analog at my gf's house, it just searches. And my LG 510 gets full bars of digital. She looked confused. Then she said well you can't roam on this phone, at all, entirely different (She made it sound like it was entirely new, like GSM or something). I Then tried to explain, hey I paid 229 for this phone promo price and the other phones you want to give me are 100 or something close. She said she would credit my account for the difference. I still pushed for a color model and she looked further into my account history and found that I had a T720 ( yea what was I thinking? lol) about 7 months ago. And she asked why I returned that phone, I said it was going into analog. She then said all color phones won't work for me and I was not getting one close to my model. She even tried to say all I wanted was a new phone and made me feel like some criminal.... I said well can I at least try the kyocera then? The new model, whatever it is, 2235 or something. I asked if I could at least go and give it a try and see if it worked and if not bring it back. Well that just added more fuel to her fire. She said that once I left the store thats the phone I'd be stuck with and no returning ever again or getting back my 4400. I was shocked at all of that. She said I should just cancel my service because their service won't work for me. At that point I said cancel my transaction and I left with my original 4400 and said I would just deal with the problem.

I then decided to call customer service on *611. I told them how rude the lady was in the store and how unhelpfull she was in taking care of my month long problem. Of course, the CSR was very apologetic and was also suprised in the treatment I had. She even said I could cancel and they would waive the fee to cancel. Well I wasn't ready for that. Apparently, she was reading the notes that the lady at the store put on my account, she wrote in there that I wanted to get a loaner phone for a week and they didn't give out loaner phones. I was shocked and had to explain my whole story to her. The CSR said that the lady at the store was wrong in offering me a cheaper model and I could go back to another store and get a comparable model of phone in color if I wanted to, and she noted my account.

To sum it all up, I think I will just deal with the problem and not create new headaches with another phone, so for now, I'm just going to hold onto the 4400. Whew, long story!

[AnthroMatt]

Wow.

I see you live in Michigan. Same market as I am in here in Ohio. Why am I not surprised to hear your story. Seems like the customer service trainer must not have made it to this part of the country. Absolutely ridiculous.

If the 4400 you have now doesn't work for you, and the rep you spoke with on the phone did note your account that you may get any phone in exchange as long as you pay the difference should it be more expensive, then take advantage of that. If the other phone won't work in your gf's place you are no worse off, but you will never know if you don't try. Since your account has been noted you should have no problem getting another phone from CS at a store. If you do get trouble, whip out your phone and dial *611 right there and demand to speak to a supervisor. Worse comes to worse, you can always take them up on their offer to cancel without penalty. That's pretty much what I did (except they didn't waive my ETF, only cut each line's fee in half which amounted to one "free" termination).

Good luck.

[ehcruzan]

It's hard to understand why in this tough job market people don't value their jobs. Anyway, maybe you should have invited Ms. Impolite over to your house to see for herself what's happening. If you lean towards proving the problem to them you may have better luck. It's unfortunate that you have to deal with such incompetent reps, but you find them all over.