Worldcom Wireless users - switching to Liberty Wireless? BEWARE!!

[NomDePlume]

As a former subscriber to cellular service with Worldcom Wireless, before they went bankrupt and terminated cellular service, they sent a brochure recommending the services of Liberty Wireless, guaranteeing a seamless transition with no interruption in service. I did not want to go through the hassle and expense of changing my cell number, so I opted to sign up with Liberty Wireless. What a mistake!! Following is the complete text of a letter I sent to Liberty Wireless on Sept. 5, 2002:

==============
Mr. ***:
Per our telephone conversation today, I am writing to inform Liberty Wireless of a serious service failure regarding my account.

When I transferred my cellular account from Worldcom to Liberty Wireless, I did so under the understanding that transition from my former Worldcom service would be seamless, as was told me by your representative, as well as the explicit statement in your advertising: "Keep your current mobile number and wireless phone with no interruption in service". (Please see attached advertisement.)

On Friday morning, August 30th, I attempted to make several outgoing calls from my cell phone, only to be greeted by a recording stating "Your account cannot be verified." I immediately called Worldcom, who advised me that my account had already been transferred to Liberty Wireless, and was given your customer service number to call.

The customer service representative who answered my call told me that they were experiencing "temporary technical difficulties", and that my service should be restored within 90 (ninety) minutes. As I was on my way to the airport to catch a flight, I trusted this representative, and waited two hours to attempt an outgoing call from the airport terminal. Once again, I was greeted with the same recorded announcement stating "Your account cannot be verified". At this point, I borrowed a cell phone from another passenger and called Liberty Wireless again, only to be told this time that service restoration time would be "several hours". I was assured by the customer service representative that my service would be restored by the time I reached New Orleans.

It was not! I called Liberty Wireless again on Saturday morning, only to be told this time that there was a problem transferring my account from Worldcom to Liberty Wireless, that the problem was being worked on, and that my service should be "restored shortly". By late Saturday afternoon, my service had still not been restored, so I once again called Liberty Wireless, as I knew that you would be closed Sunday, and likely again Monday due to the holiday. This time, the customer service representative informed me that my account had been "accidentally deleted" and that your technical support was working on trying to restore my account. He tried to connect me to technical support, but apparently they had all left for the long weekend.

I was left without cellular service all weekend. I was attending an important international conference, thousands of miles from home, and had to borrow the use of other attendees' cell phones during the conference, which was embarrassing and unprofessional. Furthermore, I have been informed of one individual who flew to New Orleans from Las Vegas only to not be able to attend the conference because he could not reach me via my cell phone for conference particulars! As you can imagine, this has placed me in a very bad light and I have had to repeatedly apologize and try to explain the situation.

Had your customer service staff been honest with me regarding my disruption of service, instead of telling me "ninety minutes", "several hours", "shortly", etc., I would have purchased a secondary temporary cell phone from another carrier. Instead, I was strung along by misinformation from your customer service staff like the proverbial apple dangling in front of the donkey.

Upon my return to work Tuesday morning, September 3rd, my cellular service had still not been restored. By this time, I had lost all patience. I once again called Liberty Wireless and got a woman named *** on the line. I began by explaining to her that if I sounded upset, I was upset at Liberty Wireless, and not at her personally. She became belligerent and began arguing with me that "it sure does sound like you're mad at me", at which point I became enraged and demanded to speak with her supervisor. I was transferred to a woman named ***, who was unable to offer me any explanations as to why I did not have my service restored as yet. She promised to look into the matter and call me back. After several hours, she did not return my call, so I called again, and this time got a gentleman who suggested I call your technical support department directly, and gave me their number. The technician I spoke to told me that there was a problem with Sprint and they were trying to resolve the problem (once again, an entirely different explanation than I had been previously given). Shortly after I hung up with him, *** did finally return my call, only to ask for my home telephone number as I would be leaving work soon.

That was the last I heard from anyone at Liberty Wireless. My phone apparently began to operate some time yesterday morning, Wednesday, September 4th. The only reason I found out was because I attempted to make a call from my phone and the call went through. No one from Liberty Wireless had the common decency to call me back and inform me that my service had been restored.

Mr. ***, having said all this, I want you to know that I think that the customer service provided by Liberty Wireless is deplorable. If your customer service staff cannot provide accurate information regarding the time involved in restoring interrupted service, or the reasons why service was interrupted, rather than being given made-up excuses and inaccurate information, the staff should be trained to simply say to the customer "we don't know". I feel I was lied to, and your product misrepresented to me. Furthermore, your staff needs to be better trained in the simple art of common courtesy to the customer, regardless of whether they are pleasant or irate.

Because of the ordeal which I was unnecessarily put through by Liberty Wireless, I expect your firm to give me compensation for this horrendous treatment I was given, and I do not mean a 5 day credit on my next bill for the time I was without service. I expect to receive a written reply to this communication with your compensation offer within seven (7) business days. I may be contacted as per contact information below, and look forward to your immediate reply.
=================

To date, the above letter has been completely ignored. I have already reported this incident to the FCC, and am considering retaining legal counsel for further action.

To any former Worldcom Wireless users - please THINK TWICE before switching service to Liberty!!

[Rasputin]

Never go with a company that you have not heard of. That sucks. Stick with the names you know Verizon, ATT , Sprint , Cingular.

[ZaphodB]

I'm playing devil's advocate here.

So your phone stopped working. It happens. It happens on every carrier, even the High Holy Grail that is Verizon, let alone some unknown reseller of Sprint's service. Network issues happen. It's terrible that it happened to you when you were at an "important international convention", but that's life.

Now, if your phone was out for five days and you called in every day to complain about it - and can prove that you did - you have a legal cause of action for damages totalling 5 days' worth of your monthly service plan charges, meaning 16.67% (which, on a $50 monthly plan, comes to $8.34). Those are the rules, set by the FCC and in some cases the state's public utilities board.

I can't tell you how many times the following scenario has happened: Client calls and says, "Your system is broken." I call the person responsible for the system and he looks at it and says, "Oh, it's blah blah blah, it'll take about 10 minutes to fix, tell the client it'll be an hour." Then it turns out to be something quite serious that requires a big fix. By this point the client is no longer on the phone, hence he will not know until he tries it in an hour. Then he will call back and he will find out that it may be six hours, it may be a day. That is just the nature of tech support. I would always rather have the system unavailable for six hours and know that the problem is fixed forever than have it off for half an hour, have some kludgey fix put in, have the fix break, have it down for two hours, etc.

The rational person, upon hearing this, requests a day's credit. The irrational person [you] vents his spleen at the Customer Service Rep, who can't do anything about it. If you stop and think about it, what exactly did you want the CSR to do, wave a magic wand and the system would magically be totally in order? If that were possible, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Now, on to some other points. If you do feel like you need to contest this in court (though I suspect it's just enraged, irrational yelling at this point), you will probably be limited by rules of court in your state to the amount of actual provable damage sustained ($8.34, assuming a $50 monthly plan), plus (as an average) eight times that amount in damages which includes both compensatory (goes to you) and punitive (does not go to you). That's $66.72, for a grand total of $75.06. Bear in mind that in most places the filing fee alone can be $80.00.

When you discovered that your phone was off, and you were going to lose face professionally, did you at any point go out and get a prepaid phone? That way you could have had the use of the phone, and it would have (if I remember my small-claims law rightly) increased your cause of action by the amount paid for the prepaid phone and usage.

Basically all you did was manage to get a note put on your account about your attitude. You didn't accomplish anything. Now, some suggestions:

Call Customer Service and ask for your five days' credit. If they give it to you, you're done. If not, write a letter, keep a copy, and send it registered to the customer service address (you may need to call and enquire, it's usually not the same as the address you send your bills to), stating that due to the four days' downtime, you would either like five days' credit or to be let out of your contract. You can ask for more, and you MIGHT get a month free, but more that that and you're probably wasting your time.

After you have received their response, if it is not satisfactory, contact the consumer liaison for your state's Public Utilities Board (may be called the Public Service Commission). I don't remember what state you're in, but if like 12% of Americans you live in California, it's the Public Utilities Commission, and www.cpuc.ca.gov is their website. Some states don't regulate cell phone carriers; you may need to contact the Corporations Commission, or the Bureau of Consumer Affairs. Check your state's website. Write to the FCC. Write to the Better Business Bureau. Leak it to the newspaper (without too much in the way of inflammatory remarks) if you think it affects many people (some papers will do ANYTHING to pan Worldcom).

It's for reasons like this that companies like Adelphia won't give estimated time of restored service.

Have fun.

[ZaphodB]

Also - I agree with you, Nomdeplume - signing up with Liberty Wireless was probably a mistake. Eventually, and we hope soon, wireless Local Number Portability (LNP) will be put into place in California, meaning that when you switch providers, assuming you don't switch marketing areas (SF to LA, for example), you will be able to keep your old number with the new provider, and not be limited to the crappy carrier that took over Worldcom's number pool.

I urge you to write to the CA Public Utilities Commission (505 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94102) to urge them on to this requirement.

[NomDePlume]

ZaphodB,
I appreciate your suggestions and practical advice, some of which I do plan to follow through with, but at the same time, I wonder if the tone you took with me as "Devil's Advocate" was meant in a helpful manner, or to provoke me into becoming more "irrational".

The purpose of my posting was to warn others who may have been victims of the Worldcom Wireless bankruptcy (which no one expected!) from switching to this unprofessional and worthless carrier. It was not meant as a "bleeding heart" post as you seem to think. Furthermore, I think you could have been a bit more diplomatic in your response and dispensed with referring to me as "irrational", to which I take great offense.

Am I angry about having been led down the garden path by this carrier, being told day after day that my service would be restored soon? You bet your bottom dollar I am! While I would like to receive compensation for not only the lack of service I received, but more importantly, the verbal abuse I was forced to endure at the hands of one of their so-called customer service representatives, I will gain equal satisfaction by posting a stern warning to others about this company and their practices. If they lose even only one customer because of my post, then I consider the time I took to make this warning public time well spent. What goes around comes around.

Did I think about buying a temporary cell phone? Of course I did! But, each time I called them, they assured me it was not necessary, and that my service should be restored shortly. In essence, I was tantalized with the proverbial carrot dangling in front of the mule, and it was I who was made the _______.

The only reason I decided to opt for this service in the first place was because of the expense and time involved in reprinting my business cards, as well as contacting a large number of people of a cell number change. I learned my lesson. The additional expense would have caused less embarrassment.

When these providers learn the value of being honest with their customers, even if it is to tell them "we don't know why you are having a problem and can't tell you when it's going to be fixed", then they won't have to deal with "irrational" customers like me. Furthermore, they need to discontinue advertising IN WRITING seamless service with no down time unless they are absolutely certain they can guarantee this service! That, in my humble opinion, is irrational - not the customer who gets trampled upon in the process.

[RITMarketer]

NomDe: You were driven to irrationale by anger. Don't insist that we're rational, no one is rational constantly, we all make mistakes that are simple, stupid and obvious even to ourselves quite often. You had every right to be angry, but there's little if anything you can do now.

Zaphod: Tell me about this Local Number Portability, where is it already and where is it going to?

P

[MGH]

For truely mission critical applications, go with reliable professional premium-priced service. Today, that means Verizon or ATT. The unprofessional appearence that you gave to your collegues and customers has as much to do with your choice of carriers as it does with "bottom of the barrel" providers that you have contracted with.

I mention this as a warning for others that have put their livelyhood "on the line" with their cell coverage.

If it's really critical, have more than one provider from the start. That way, if one goes down, you can change the voicemail to say "please call me at my new number, ###-###-####......" Ever notice that many of the REALLY high-minute cell phone users on this forum have more than one phone and provider?

-- MGH

[ScandaLEX]

Originally posted by: MGH
Ever notice that many of the REALLY high-minute cell phone users on this forum have <u>more than one phone and provider?</u>

-- MGH

Ummm, I am one of those "REALLY high minute cell phone users" referred to by MGH. My most recent plan with Sprint was 13,000 minutes a month and guess what.......I only had ONE provider!

Go Figure!

[ZaphodB]

Originally posted by: RITMarketer
NomDe: You were driven to irrationale by anger. Don't insist that we're rational, no one is rational constantly, we all make mistakes that are simple, stupid and obvious even to ourselves quite often. You had every right to be angry, but there's little if anything you can do now.

Zaphod: Tell me about this Local Number Portability, where is it already and where is it going to?

P

Local Number Portability (LNP) is in place in the United States. It means that when you change local phone providers on your landline phone, you can retain your original phone number. It gets botched as much as it gets done correctly. It is a rule set by the FCC to encourage competition between Local Exchange Carriers (LEC - your Ma Bell is the ILEC, Incumbent LEC, and the upstart is the CLEC, Competitive LEC).

Wireless Number Portability (WNP) is due to be in place in the United States about a year from now, in November 2003. It has been pushed back by industry insistence that they can't get their ducks in a row by the deadline. It's the same thing - when you transfer service from Cingular to Verizon, you will be able to keep your original wireless phone number.

Requires a bunch of cooperation between carriers. Since, as an example, 310-980-9XXX is 'owned' by VoiceStream USA, you would have to have an agreement between VZW and VoiceStream that VoiceStream will use their equipment to connect calls to a VZW customer.

[Mlit]

Thanks for posting, NomDePlume
Also had VERY bad customer service with Liberty Wireless - could not get a human on the line to discuss account set up error. Also rolled over from WorldCom, to keep number same and, expected, less trouble. Thought to give a smaller company a try. As MGH suggests, from now on will stay with larger companies.

[Mlit]

Found numbers for Liberty Wireless
corporate: (301)636-6141

[JayJay]

NomDePlume..
I just have one question...when you had WorldCom Wireless..where you happy with the service? If so you may want to go with SprintPCS...the reason, Because all of WorldComs network was Sprints networks....Sprint provided the systems for worldcomm customers to use...and worldcomm was nothing more then a middleman/resalers of sprint pcs services under there lable. just an fyi.

[ENGLISHTEACH]

Hey NomDePlume, I must say I wish I had found your letter before I signed up with LibertyWireless. I also read the negative feedback you have received, However,I have also found the service to be deplorable. I have had to call countless times only to be put on hold for up to an hour each time. My service has been interrupted while at the same time my bank account has been debited with the transactions showing successful. Upon finally reaching a human, I have been given all kinds of ridiculous reasons why my service was interrupted even though they had my money. I have even tried to cancel the account but rather than pay another $150 for early cancellation I am trying to wait them out. I did not switch from WorldCom but signed on to Liberty after receiving several promotional emails from them... BIG mistake........[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img]