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Cingular Wireless to refund CA customers $18.5 million

Discussion in 'Wireless News' started by bobolito, Mar 16, 2007.

  1. bobolito

    bobolito Diamond Senior Member
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    Cingular Wireless to refund customers $18.5 million


    By Michael Liedtke Associated Press


    SAN FRANCISCO - Cingular Wireless will refund $18.5 million to thousands of former California customers who were penalized for canceling their mobile phone service because they had trouble making and receiving calls.

    The settlement announced Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission ends a lengthy battle revolving around Cingular's treatment of dissatisfied subscribers from January 2000 through April 2002.

    About 115,000 unhappy customers who left Cingular during that time will receive average refund checks of $160 to cover the fees that they were charged for prematurely ending their contracts. The refunds include interest.

    Cingular expects to issue the refunds within 60 days, spokeswoman Lauren Garner said. An unknown number of other former customers who paid early termination fees to outside vendors who sold Cingular service will have to file claims that are reviewed by an independent claims administrator.

    Besides spelling out the size of the refunds, the truce upholds a $12.1 million fine that state regulators imposed on Cingular in September 2003. At that time, the regulators had ordered Cingular to issue refunds without specifying an amount.

    Regulators lashed out at Cingular after concluding the carrier didn't give its subscribers an adequate chance to change their minds about a service that was frequently swamped with more calling traffic than it could handle.

    The traffic on Cingular's mobile network nearly doubled to 3 million subscribers during that period, straining the system until the company completed extensive upgrades.

    Cingular, recently renamed AT&T Mobility, had been unsuccessfully fighting in court to overturn California's regulatory ruling. The company had filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court shortly before deciding to settle.

    "While we have a strong case for appeal, it is time to move forward," Cingular said in a statement. "Cingular's business practices have changed significantly since the period in question, and the company is now the industry leader in customer-friendly initiatives."

    Among other things, Cingular said it now offers all customers up to 30 days to return their phones and drop their service without penalty.

    That option wasn't available in California during 2000, 2001 and the first part of 2002, according to state regulators.

    Back then, Cingular insisted on penalizing exasperated customers even though its management knew congestion problems were causing many calls to be blocked or dropped, according to company testimony cited in the case.

    http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_5448516
     
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    #1 bobolito, Mar 16, 2007
  2. Andy

    Andy Diamond Senior Member
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    I am sorry to say this but this serves Cingular right to the last penny they have to pay.
    The network Cingular took over in NV/CA was(and in some areas still) is a joke. I wonder how much it would have cost Cingular to keep their customers on the T-Mobile network longer, until their "extensive upgrades" were at least partially done so that the network could handle the usage and people would not notice as much of a degration all at once like they did, but what did Cingular do, move all of their customers over to a network they knew could not handle it to save on roaming. The damage this did to their name in many areas in California is, in my opinion, greater than paying roaming to T-Mobile longer. This is just my opinion.
     
    #2 Andy, Mar 16, 2007
  3. Fire14

    Fire14 Easy,Cheap & Sleazy
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    I thought this fine was imposed prior to the merger & was part of Cingular's network & had nothing to do with the AT&T Wireless network.


    I also think they wanted to save court costs, since now they are suing NASCAR over not being able to put the AT&T name on the # 31 car.
     
    #3 Fire14, Mar 16, 2007
  4. dmapr

    dmapr Silver Senior Member
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    I think the initial court ruling took place in 2004 — I don't know how long it had to go on for Cingular to finally have to pay up.
     
    #4 dmapr, Mar 16, 2007
  5. jones

    jones Silver Senior Member
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    Why Not Hold a Lottery,
    give each a ticket
    and the winner gets $18.5 Million.
     
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    #5 jones, Mar 16, 2007
  6. Fire14

    Fire14 Easy,Cheap & Sleazy
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    I believe they came out with a ruling in 03, and the court upheld it in 04.

    But as you can see from the bold type, this was prior to the merger.
     
    #6 Fire14, Mar 16, 2007
  7. Andy

    Andy Diamond Senior Member
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    Oops...I jumped too far ahead in time there, he he.
     
    #7 Andy, Mar 16, 2007
  8. Fire14

    Fire14 Easy,Cheap & Sleazy
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    It's all good, we all do it at times. ;)
     
    #8 Fire14, Mar 16, 2007
  9. Andy

    Andy Diamond Senior Member
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    Lol, you guys will be able to quote me when the lawsuit about the recent network problems come up. ;)
     
    #9 Andy, Mar 16, 2007
  10. dmapr

    dmapr Silver Senior Member
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    Yes, it was all about the Pacific Bell network — but Andy has a point as they're overloading the 310-380 network now just like the overloaded the 310-170 network then (maybe not to the same degree).
     
    #10 dmapr, Mar 17, 2007
  11. Fire14

    Fire14 Easy,Cheap & Sleazy
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    I agree from the sounds of it, they aren't making the major improvements for the overloading & other issues in CA as fast as they need to.

    I hope they get things fully working right over there, like we have here in the Mid-Atlantic area.
     
    #11 Fire14, Mar 18, 2007
  12. dmapr

    dmapr Silver Senior Member
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    I hope so, too — I know they have installed a few of new sites in the Bay Area during 2005, but not nearly enough to cover all holes.
     
    #12 dmapr, Mar 18, 2007
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