Serious issues with Cingular customer service

Hello,

In Dec 2004, I purchased a Motorola V551 from a authorized Cingular reseller in San Francisco. When I asked the salesperson to show me the phone, he pulled one out of the box, inserted an AT&T sim card in it, and told me to go ahead and make some calls. I asked him why he was using an AT&T sim card, and he told me that he sells all of his phones unlocked, so I could use the phone with another carrier's sim card. This worked out great, because I went to Hong Kong for a vacation in January, and I was able to purchase a pre-paid sim card there at 7-11 for around US$10

Anyways, in Feb 2005, my phone stopped working. It displayed some kind of error message regarding the sim card. I took the phone to a Cingular branch store (not an authorized reseller) where they ran a few tests, and they told me that since it was over 30 days since I purchased it, I would have to get my replacement through Cingular's Exchange by Mail program.

I called the Exchange by Mail phone number, and the customer service rep asked me a number of questions, and had me reset the phone. After around 15-20 minutes, she determined that my phone needed to be replaced. I agreed to the terms and conditions, and a few days later, I received my replacement and sent my old one back.

The first thing I noticed was that this new phone seemed to be more responsive. I didn't realize it, but old phone occassionally acted buggy (I assumed it was just poor software). Well, I was pretty happy with the relatively painless transaction. That is, until...

Last week, I received my latest Cingular bill, which lists the line item "Beyond Economic Repair - $225" I didn't know what to make of it, so I called Customer Service, and they told me that it was because the phone I sent in was physically damaged, and they were only passing on a charge they received from the department that handles the Exchange by Mail units. They transferred me to another department, and I asked them why it was Beyond Economic Repair. They told me it was probably due to physical damage (the only damage I was aware of was a small scratch on the case from the time I accidentally put my phone in the same pocket as my keys). They tell me that they don't know what the damage is, and since I agreed to their terms and conditions, I have no choice but to pay the charge I respond by telling them that I would have never sent in the phone if I had dropped it or got it wet or abused it in any other way, as I was fully aware of their terms and conditions. I demanded to know what the damage report stated -- he told me my only choice was to write a letter to Cingular General Counsel in Georgia. I sent them the letter last week, and I am patiently awaiting their reply. Meanwhile, my bill's due date is tomorrow, with a 10 day grace period after that. Talk about a bureaucracy...

Has anyone else had any bad experiences with the Exchange by Mail program? At this point, I'm not really sure what to do. I suspect that the phone was messed up from the day I bought it, though I doubt that the reseller (mom and pop store) I purchased it from will do anything about it. Can unlocking a phone somehow mess it up? Maybe fry the firmware?

Anyways, sorry for the long post. If anyone out there has any suggestions or advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for the link zOOm. I'll be sure to start filing some complaints if things don't start going my way soon. I'm really starting to suspect that it was the store I bought it from who is at fault, but until I get some information as to what the damage consists of, I don't want to confront or question the people at the store. The worst part is it'll be totally up to me to somehow find Cingular or the reseller to be guilty. Because the store I purchased the phone from is a Cingular authorized reseller, I feel that it should be up to Cingular Customer Service to discuss issues with them, not me! After all, as a Cingular authorized reseller, isn't the store representing Cingular? The $250 is not even worth my time to pursue, but the principle of it has me so fired up that I'm ready to give them a good fight.

I sure hope they hurry up and respond -- it's been a week and a half already...

 

Thanks for the info. If that is the extent of the potential damage from unlocking a phone, then I doubt that is the cause for the "Beyond Economic Repair" charge Cingular is trying to hit me with.

 

Okay, here's the update:

I called Cingular on Thursday, and asked Customer Service if they could postpone the due date for the "Beyond Economic Damage" portion of the bill. They told me I'd need to contact their billing dept, and they should be willing to bill me for that the following month, as long as I was currently disputing the charge. I asked them if sending a letter of inquiry regarding the damage to Cingular General Counsel (see first post) qualified as a dispute, and he was kind enough to follow up for me. He kept me on hold for a few minutes and talked to the Exchange by Mail dept, and he confirmed that the only action I could take was to send the letter, as I did. Unfortunately, the billing dept was closed, so I would have to call the next day.

I called the billing dept on Friday afternoon. I explained to them that I am currently in the process of trying to dispute a bill, and I requested that I only pay for the regular portion of my bill. I explained the situation in its entirety, and she said it won't be a problem. She asked me if I'd like to pay the normal monthly charges over the phone, which I did via credit card. She gives me the transaction number, and tells me to hold on a moment so she could give me some more info. I patiently wait, and I hear her typing something on her keyboard, and then the phone call dropped!!! Because she had more information for me, I figured she'd call me right back. I look at my phone, which dispalys 6:00pm, and I decide to wait a minute or two before calling back. At 6:02, I called them back, and to my disbelief, there was a recording stating that they close at 6pm, and that I'd have to call on the next business day during their business hours!!!

I guess I'll have to call tomorrow (Monday) and follow up with the billing dept. I started to wonder about the possibility that maybe the billing dept's phones are set up to shut themselves off when they close... or maybe the customer service rep just hung up because she's off work at 6pm... or maybe it was just dumb luck that kept me hanging over the weekend...

Billing issues aside, I would love to contact the General Counsel office directly, but nobody at Cingular will give me their phone number. As of tomorrow, it will be 2 weeks since I sent the letter to them. I sure hope I receive a response soon.

Back in 1993, I signed up with GTE. In 1999, I switched to Cellular One (which became AT&T Wireless). And in Dec 2004, I decided to give Cingular a try. As you can see, I'm not one to jump from service provider to service provider. Cingular still has a chance to keep a potentially loyal customer, but if this issue doesn't resolve itself, I will definitely switch to Verizon when my contract expires in Dec. Oh well, their loss...

 

zOOm,
Thanks for those links. I'll be extremely busy the next couple of days, but hopefully, I'll get around to trying to track them down via the links you provide.

ZaphodB,
I sent my old handset back using the prepaid mailer they provided. Basically, the Exchange By Mail program sends me a bare replacement phone (no battery, battery cover, or accessories), and I send them the broken handset using the same packaging and USPS mailing label they provide. It's funny that they use USPS for the return of the phone -- they sent me the replacement via UPS.

I do have a copy of the letter I sent, but did not send it registered, which I should've done. I've checked out the CPUC website, and I'll give them a call tomorrow, as I'm sure they are already closed. It's good to know that they can order Cingular to provide me with the damage info. Even so, I'm sure that I will be the one burdened with having to prove that I was not responsible for whatever damage they found.

Thank you very much for your suggestions.

 

Blue_Tech,

Thank you very much for the leads. I called Motorola, and they said that they require the IMEI number to check the damage of any phone sent to them. Unfortunately, I didn't have a record of my the broken handset's IMEI number. They also said that Cingular usually doesn't send handsets to them for repair, and that Cingular probably sends it to an authorized Motorola repair shop, independent from Motorola. In any case, I needed the IMEI number.

So I called Cingular XBM dept, and they gave me a IMEI number associated with my account, but they couldn't confirm if it was from my old handset. Since it was a different IMEI number from my new handset, I can only assume it was the IMEI number from my old handset. Cingular XBM also said that they send phones directly to Motorola for repair.

I called Motorola back, gave them the IMEI number, and they said they had no record of that IMEI number. The Motorola website also didn't return any records for that IMEI number. What's going on here? Somebody is yanking my chain

I don't have the time or the patience to deal with this right now, so I'll call the XBM dept back tomorrow and ask them some more questions.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Here's a follow up...

After reading emorog's rant, I decided to do the same. I called PC Partners, gave them my IMEI number, and the representative told me that they did indeed receive my phone, but she could not determine what was wrong with it based on the record she had. She found it strange that the notes simply stated that the phone "could not make or receive calls," and that was all the information she had. I asked her if they still had the phone, or if they destroyed it. She said she wasn't sure, but based on the lack of ntoes, she assumed it was unrepairable. I asked her what they do with unrepairable phones, and she told me that they send it to Motorola as scrap.

After the conversation with the PC Partners representative, I thought of a few other questions to ask them, so I called them back. I spoke to a different person, who kindly looked up the record for my phone, and she was under the impression that they still had the phone. She told me that according to the notes, the phone wasn't scrapped out. I asked her to confirm that for me, and she said I should talk to someone else who could better assist me. She transferred me back to the person who I spoke with the first time, and I left her a voice mail. When she returned my call, I asked her if they notify Cingular when they find a phone to be unrepairable, and if they have a record as to when they sent it to Motorola. She managed to dodge the first question (my own fault for not following through), and told me that they do not have a record as to when they send it to Motorola. I told her how I find it strange that they don't keep a record of these things, and she told me that they receive thousands of phones and that they can't keep track of every single phone they recieve (remember, she found the lack of notes to be strange during my first conversation with her). I asked her to confirm that they did indeed send my phone to Motorola, and she responded that they do, "as scrap." I asked her again, and she hesitantly confirmed.

So now, my next step is to call Motorola to see if they do indeed receive unrepairable handsets as scrap, and if they document the the arrival of such units. And I'll call the XBM folks back and question them as to why they told me that they send the phones to Motorola, when in fact, the phones go directly to an independent repair shop. I find the lack of transparency to be very suspicious.

To top things off, I receieved my Cingular bill yesterday, and the Beyond Economic Repair charge has been pushed back, as I requested. But there's now a late fee of $3.26!!! The billing dept customer service rep I spoke with ensured me that I would not be charged a late fee. Now that's one more f**king phone call I have to make!

Another update to follow.

 

Okay, things are still not resolved.

I called Cingular the other day to ask them to remove the late charge on my bill. They tell me that they can't, and I am responsible for that fee. I tell them that I am disputing the Beyond Economic Repair charge of $225, and that I was told that I wouldn't be charged a late fee by a Cingular rep in the billing dept. He said that they don't have a record of the dispute, so there's nothing more he could do. He said that when Cingular General Counsel receives a letter of dispute, they note it on the account. In my case, they didn't. So now I have to send another letter, all for the damn late charge.

I have received more mis-information (read: LIES) from Cingular reps in various departments in dealing with this issue. Every other rep seems to contradict what the other reps state. Also, they seem to be fond of passing the buck to other departments.

At this point, with all of the trouble I've went through, I feel like I should be billing Cingular for a "Beyond Economic Disputing" fee. Really though, it would've been much cheaper for me to pay those extortionists than expend all of this time on this issue.

 

Another update...

I sent another letter to Cingular General Counsel via Certified mail, which they received a week and a half ago. A few days ago, I received a letter from Cingular stating that there is a $225 balance past due on my account, and if I do not pay it, they will suspend my account, and reactivating my account would result in additional fees So I called customer service, and explained to them that I sent another letter to Cingular General Counsel, which they signed for. I asked her if General Counsel noted a dispute on my account, and she said that they did not. I explained to her that I don't think my account should be suspended over lack of payment, because this is all a result of Cingular General Counsel's lack of action. I asked her if I would be notified by anyone once General Counsel makes a decision. She spoke with her supervisor, who told her to tell me that General Counsel can take up to 30 days to respond to a dispute. She offered to postpone any possible account suspension 30 days. I asked her if I would continue to accrue late fees, and if I would be reimbursed the last late fee charge once General Counsel notes the dispute on my account (see my last post). She said she'd be happy to waive the last late fee I was charged. "Huh? But the last customer service rep told me that late fees cannot be waived unless there is a valid dispute noted on my account."

Anyways, I was grateful that she waived the late fee. So now I have to call them yet again in a few weeks

Next step is the BBB and CPUC, and possibly small claims court.

 

First of all, sorry to resurrect such an old thread. I thought some of you might like to read the final update...

Cingular actually suspended my account after exactly 30 days since my last correspondence with them. This was actually my fault, as I miscounted the number of days (for some stupid reason, I thought the month of May had 30 days -- doh!). So I called them from my home phone, explained the situation, and the customer service rep read all of the remarks by various customer service reps about this whole ordeal. She reactivated my account, and waived the reactivation fee (gee, thanks). She also noted on my account for other customer service reps to read that basically stated that I sent a letter to General Counsel which they signed for, and to continue postponing the $225 portion of my account balance until we get word from them. She said it wouldn't be a problem, as long as I make sure to pay my normal monthly usage fees within 30 days each month, and to inform the customer service reps about the instructions she noted on my account. Fair enough.

After about 21 more days (last week), I still hadn't heard from General Counsel. So I went ahead and filed a complaint with both the Better Business Bureau (BBB)and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). I used their online forms to write a detailed by summarized series of events, and that my primary complaint was Cingular's lack of transparency, as well as repeatedly giving me false information (often contradicting). I demanded to know what the damage on my phone was, and that I shouldn't have to pay for the "Beyond Economic Repair" charge of $225, as I had serious doubts about the repair attempts made on my phone.

Well, yesterday morning, I got a call from someone from Cingular's Office of the President, who told me that he read everything relating to this situation (my account notes?), and that they will adjust my account by removing the $225 charge. He also apologized for the trouble I had to go through, and told me that he will try to determine what was actually wrong with my phone.
I asked him if he was with the General Counsel office. He said he wasn't -- he said he was with the Office of the President, and asked me to confirm that I did write a letter to them. I told him that I sent them two letters.

I was so overjoyed by this victory that I hadn't thought everything through. After I hung up with him, I thought to myself, "if he wasn't even sure if I wrote a letter to General Counsel, why did he involve himself in this? Where did the complaint come from?" I had totally forgotten about the letters I wrote to the BBB and CPUC, so maybe they contacted Cingular. I wish I had asked him. Unfortunately, he called pretty early, and I was still a bit groggy Hopefully, either the BBB or CPUC will follow-up with me, to make sure everything was resolved to my satisfaction. It would be nice to know which avenue of action resulted in this outcome.

Overall, I'm pleased. But part of me is still upset with the fact that I wasted a LOT of precious time pursuing this. Time can often times be more important than money, but if I didn't pursue it and paid the $225, I know I would get pissed off every time I thought about it. I guess in this case, justice is far more satisfying than time and money

I hope this thread can help prevent others from going through the same grief I went through.