I had cell service with Verizon. I had a few billing problems with them that took months to resolve but other than that, I enjoyed 5 years of great service.

Mrs. Muzikdude has had service with AT&T and never had a problem with them. The reason we have two different services is a very long story; one which I may tell in the future, but for now I want to focus on Cingular.

The plan was to let my contract with Verizon lapse so we could get a family plan with AT&T (which ended up being Cingular because the two companies merged). So on Aug 5th we went to the Cingular store and started a family plan. The reason we chose not to dump AT&T and go with Verizon was purely because my Verizon contract ran out first.

Here’s the timeline:

Aug 6:
1. Signed up for family plan and found that the $250 phone we purchased 4 months ago from AT&T won’t work with Cingular even though they are the same company. So we paid for 3 more phones and now use the old phone as a very expensive paperweight.

2. Successfully activated one of three phones before the Cingular “switch went down” precluding the company from performing activations.

3. Left store with one expensive paperweight, two expensive temporary paperweights and one working phone.

Aug 7:
1. Tried to download a ringtone to the one working phone only to find I can surf the internet but cannot download anything.

2. Called Cingular and was told I need to register with “My Account” on their site.

3. Surfed multiple pages to find the ringtone again only to realize I still can’t download.

4. Called Cingular and was told I need to register for MediaNet; a third party internet service.

5. Still didn’t work so I called back and they told me I need to register with DirectBill; yet, another third party billing service.

6. The DirectBill site wouldn’t accept my registration and continually returned error messages.

7. Called back to Cingular…they registered my number over the phone and told me it should have all happened automatically when I activated the phone.

So far, I've spent 3 hours of my time either on hold with Cingular or talking to various representatives.

Aug 8:

1. The other two phones were finally activated but Mrs. Muzikdude's would not receive calls.

2. Another phone call to Cingular and the problem was “resolved” (or so we thought).

This was the shortest phone call I've made to Cingular at 40 minutes. Every call from here on out was anywhere from 50 minutes to 3 hours.

Aug 11:

1. Tried to download a ringtone to Mrs. Muzikdude's phone only to receive a “Network Unavailable” error.

2. Cingular said I need to register her number with “My Account”, “MediaNet”, and “DirectBill”. This should have happened automatically…or so they tell me.

Aug 12:

1. Registered with all the services and still no network service.

2. Cingular reset the SIM card (after 90 minutes of going through the phones settings, turning the phone off and on, removing and replacing the battery etc...). I finally got the internet icon. I downloaded the ringtone and everything worked great. (or so I thought)

Aug 13:

1. Realized Mrs. Muzikdude's phone cannot receive incoming calls (again).

2. Cingular worked on the phone remotely. Four tech support members, 1 tech support manager and 3 hours later they reset the SIM card but now the tower no longer recognizes the phone. They programmed themselves out of the ability to access the SIM card remotely.

3. The tech manager informed me that I have a “bad SIM” and I need to go replace it.
The good news is, they aren't going to make me pay for the new SIM card.
Now that's great customer service!

Aug 14:

I realized that I had spent a substantial amount of time and money surfing through internet pages on my phones because Cingular representatives kept telling me the problems were resolved. I asked if they could reimburse the charges for all the data transfer and the minutes used while surfing. I was told there is no “credit code” to cover that type of thing.

Aug 24:

I received a bill from AT&T. Apparently, since we switched plans in the middle of a billing cycle, AT&T (which no longer exists because it’s now Cingular) prorated our included minutes, which meant we were already 203 minutes over our alotted time on the day we switched to the family plan. No one ever told us this would happen. They were just “happy” to have our business. The Cingular rep told me that they don’t have any control over what AT&T does.

Me: “But AT&T doesn’t exist anymore…it’s all Cingular”
Moron: “Well, sir, it takes a while to merge two companies as large as this”
Me: “So, let me talk to an AT&T rep”
Moron: “Well, technically, I AM an AT&T rep because their wireless division no longer exists”

Can you see how this conversation went?

I owe AT&T (or Cingular) $128 on top of the $170 Cingular bill I just received. The reason the Cingular bill is so high is because I have to pay activation fees on three phone even though it took three days to activate all of them.

Anyway, the moron, who previously couldn’t do anything to help me, found a miraculous way to credit some minutes back to me. He said he could trim $76 off the bill but I would need to pay the $128 this month and next month I would receive a credit to my account.

HOWEVER, since paying the $128 would close the old account, I would need to call them and remind them I have a credit so they can mail a check to me.

Right.

I think I will let this bill go overdue, let the credit post to the account, and pay the difference.

In the last three weeks, I have spoken with 35 Cingular representatives who are all “very sorry” that I’ve spent over 8 HOURS on the phone with them trying to resolve issues that are totally the fault of Cingular and AT&T.

So why do I have Cingular?

Because we still had a contract with AT&T and in order for us to get a family plan we were forced to go with Cingular or pay $175 to get out of the contract.

Take my advice: If you currently have AT&T or Cingular; it will be worth $175 to go with a company like Verizon or Sprint.

The last rep I spoke with told me that half the people he talks to are thrilled with their Cingular service.

I said "Dude…that’s, like, 50%. Has any company ever survived with 50% customer satisfaction?"

This one will…because they could lose half their customers and still be a consumer giant. The issue here is that I’m not sure who is the consumer and who is being consumed.

Heed my warning...avoid Cingular.

Addendum:
Muzikdude is not alone!
Others with Cingular problems are:
Alexi - Her problem is almost identical to mine. Poor Alexi doesn't realize it will only get worse.
Pradeep
Chris Pirillo
I love this one because his google ads are pushing Cingular service.
Thomas Hawke


This is what I get for not researching first. The articles are out there.