Worst service I've ever had!!! Awful! Avoid!

Wow, what exactly is the problem your having? I see your in CA and know they have had some coverage issues there, during the integration/buildout of their network.

From what I hear, most people say Sprint or T-Mobile are your better bets in CA right now, then Verizon so I would give them a shot if someone hear can't figure out a solution to your problem.

I am suprised at the problems your having as well, I never had an issue with CS on the phone or the store.

 

1st off we are not Cingular/AT&T Customer service reps, this is a forum to of users just like you, that try to help each other with their problems.

As for your problems, it sounds like your company is the one that is the bigger problem by not getting this setup for you in advance, including the information that you can not have out of area numbers on a shared account.

That everyone for every carrier has to go thru a credit check, the only way around that is a pre-paid phone.

It does sound fustrating for sure, and I am sure the woman at the store in the beginning didn't help any, I am suprised your company didn't get you a "Change of Finacial Responsibility" for accounts being switched.

As for the 5 line max, all carriers have that rule for shared lines as well.

Again I think your company should have set this up better for everyone, has anyone else at your company had these same problems changing everything over?

 

Sounds like this user is doing some venting, and unfortunately, any carrier that we discuss has threads like this. Working with a Cell Phone company that has 50+ million subscribers will always lead to difficulty, but don't misinterpret what I say, the small ones f up too. Cingular/AT&T CS has been overloaded for quite a while now, and the transition to the AT&T name will certainly keep them slammed for a while as Customer Service Reps will generally get calls like "What's the changeover going to do for me" now.

As for the issues Corrine listed, most of them deal with the various different departments not having a clue as to what others are doing. I'm not sure why the IRS mandated the transfer of Financial Responsibility, but I can see where this creates several huge issues.
1. Transfering service from a business to an individual is just genearlly a pain.
2. The fact that your account is in one market and the business line is in another.
3. Another issue you're probably facing is that you're a longstanding customer, ie. you're probably in an antiquated billing system.

Something I'd like to touch on here, because I know I see a lot of threads about CSR's and their responses. CSR's are people just like you and I, they have their good days and their bad days; I will admit there are probably more CSR's that shouldn't be in the line of work they are in than most companies would like to believe, however, a lot of the CSR's I've worked with generally do try very very hard in a job where customers are usually hostile and unforgiving. Not to be judgemental, but from the posts I've seen, and just the sheer amount of reposting, I'm almost willing to bet that you are considered a hostile customer Corrine, next time you're forced to deal with customer support please consider the person on the other end of the line is bound by rules and policies and generally makes $10 to $12 an hour so give them at least a little dignity to walk home with. The Rep that yelled at you, I can't say, maybe he was a _____, maybe the customer he'd dealt with before you had him worked up, or perhaps you said/did some things that pushed him over, none of us will ever know. But I'll close my response with a final thought of sorts, you come here and all 5 posts you've made have been negative, instead of posting with the idea "hey look I've had a nightmare and I want to share it" your opening line is

and I take offense to that, because in the 2 years I've had Cingular I've had my issues with them but they have also provided me with excellent service and I've had customer service reps who've gone above and beyond to ensure a situation was resolved. I've experienced some nightmares with other Wireless Companies CSR's as well, so I will strongly say please keep your opinons to yourself or mark them as opinions instead of coming to a site and stating your negative opinion as fact.

 

Sometime we as customers need to do a little background work before we go off the deep end. I don't expect all departments of a company to be open on Saturday. I would think this person went to a Cingular store because her company was closed on Saturday. If I needed service from her company should I call her at home? If your local phone service, electrical service, natural gas service or any other service is in another's name , you have to get a release from that company before a CSR will converse with you. I wish you well in the future. BTW all info on family plans plainly state a max of 5.

 

I've been very happy with my Cingular service. I've had them since Y2K. For the most part I've found very friendly and knowlegeable sales reps, and only long lines in a couple of stores, but I've found other locations just as close that almost never had lines. Customer service has always been helpful and polite on the telephone, and I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes to speak to a CSR. They've even helped me by making rate plan changes retroactive so I'd avoid overage charges. I also have the added advantage that my whole family and most of my friends are on Cingular, so I use a big chunk of M2M minutes. Cingular also does not restrict usage of features like Bluetooth on phones so you get the full advantage of features you pay for.

-Jay

 

There is a departmetn that is specific for the change of responsibility and when you call them ask for the VOFr departmetn. As to the service, with something like this I can say it hapens with every provider and one needs to remember that cell companies are all in the ame league of having the worst customer service reputation as compared to the rest of the industries. No9w ifd you are talking about the AT&T land line phones at Costco, then you would need to know that those are not AT&t phone but are branded liek this as Vtech bought them out (the land line phone manufacturing side) and V tech has the right to use the AT&T brand name for a certain period of time (which I think is getting close to it end life) and I would then say that the Costco employee should have known that they are V techs in disguise.

 

Originally Posted by corinne m ( who wrote) "I am an excellent businessperson and have grown my own business from $120,000 business to a $3.5 million dollar business over the past 4 years. I know about customer service and how to handle a large system"

reply: Why bother mentioning all of this? Its too much information. Lots of us are in business and we don't post that kind of info. Respectfully, just write the basic points of concern and perhaps someone can help. I assure you that AT&T will stay in business.

 

AT&T and Cingular did not merge. That should be stated since that was said several times. SBC was majority owner of Cingular when they bought AT&T and changed the name to at&t. It's the same company, now just under full ownership.

Secondly, at&t is certainly not going out of business.

Third. A complicated transfer from business to personal is not going to be a 5 minute job, especially when the problem included miscommunication and lagging on the part of your company in getting the information to at&t. Honestly, if it made you that mad, then please find another carrier. You'll find that all carriers have their issues at times, and any time you try to do something that is more complicated you will run into issues. We'll be reading your vents on the Verizon forum before we know it.

 

Connie,
I do hope you better luck with Verizon & do hope you write that letter to Cingular/AT&T, hopefully they will listen but we all know how these large corporations can be.

My other suggestion is go to Cingular/AT&T's forums & do this complaint post, let other customers see what happened & maybe a moderator will try to help.

Their site is: Cingular Customer Forums

 

i have been with cingular since it was called bellsouth wireless,
i have been though the up's and the down's, but i must say
i think things are getting worse and have been for the last 3 yrs.
i am under no contract and and free to move my service and my number at
anytime,but there is a limit and it's getting close.my advice to
cingular,at&t,bellsouth what ever you want to call it, is to
shape up, customer service stinks, and without customer's
you either have no bussiness or less bussiness.

 

just want to reply to your 2nd example, really, i seem to remember
at&t going bankrupt a few years ago, now they have enough money
to buy bellsouth,and cingular,vary questionable.

 

AT&T has never filed for BK. SBC bought bought AT&T and many other former Bell companies. Bellsouth started to buy AT&T and dropped their offer. I believe that Whitaker and Ackerman (the CEOs) felt like the FCC would approve their eventual merger more easily if SBC bought T.

 

There use to be a BellSouth Mobility DCS and a BellSouth Mobility. I don't remember a bellsouth wireless.

 

well i still have my old bag phone and that's what it says .
maybe that's just what they called it in my area.

 

Yeah, many small regional carriers merged to form Cingular. I was a CellularONE Washington/Baltimore customer.

-Jay

 

An at&t rep told me today that I might be having MMS difficulties because my phone roams out of digital mode. He told me I can make calls when I lose my digital service, but that picture messaging doesn't work. I wasn't in the mood to edu-ma-cate the call center on GSM/GPRS/EDGE digital wireless telephony.

For those of you who haven't been following my posts, I did try Cingular in the past for a brief while. It was during the whole Cali-network overload issue we had back in 2002-04. When I would call complaining of constant dropped calls, I'll never forget what one rep told me. I remember his voice really well. He sounded like some gangsta from one of the southern states. He said: "ya'll don have dijito 'ception 'cause ya'll in the desert."

To the OP: Hang in there. I hope everything works out for you. I'm having my own bouts right now too. This forum has a lot of experienced users who will do their best to help you or at least point you in the right direction.

 

ya they always have an excuse, but none are going to tell you the truth.

 

Well I have had them for 15 years - been through the ringer multiple times.

1st they lost my number - w/out phone for 2 weeks
Then service was not up to par for the two years I was in my contract


So now...

I've ended up with two free v3i Razrs, free 200 bonus minutes on the primary line, 900 bonus rollover minutes, and monthly courtusey discounts on my bill. I love Cingular, and I am out of contract on all three lines.

 

Nice. I just got a call from a supervisor at at&t.

They said some store rep tried to modify my account to change the commission structure in his favor which led to an ETF being inadvertently placed on my account. That employee has since been removed.

Scandalous I tell you. Shady rep if I ever heard of one!

They offered me an additional 30 days to try my service without penalty of the ETF should I decide to leave as a way of starting all over again from scratch with a clean slate.

Whew. We'll see how it goes. I want the new Sammy a717 Ultra Series phone that comes out on June 4th.

Samsung A717 (Multimedia Phone) Reviews, Features, Photos,

 

At least they did research the issue, found the problem & called you about it and gave you the additional 30 days.

It stinks that employee's go to these methods for a buck & that you got caught up in it.

 

Yeah. I was surprised that he went into such great detail with me about what happened.

Anyways, I can start my 30 day trial with a clearer (less frustrated) state of mind. I'm a lot more accepting of imperfections when I'm in a good mood.