Cell Phone Hell
 

If anyone is considering changing their carrier ar getting a cel for the first time, whatever you do, do not sign with SunCom or AT&T wireless. I was with them for a year and became very upset with my service. They charged me for time I went over on my nights and weekends plan. This was strange because I had unlimited nights and weekends. They have a hard time understanding the deffinition of UNLIMITED. Well anyway I decided to cancel my service with them and pay the early $25 cancelation fee. I told them in May that I wanted them to take my final fees out of my $150 deposit and send me the balance. The person that I spoke to said that would be fine and I should expect to get my check in around 4-7 weeks. Well it is now november and no check. I have called them at least twice a month to make sure that they are completing my request. The last person that I spoke to told my that I had never requested my balance to be sent to me. WHAT!!! That person told me that now I have requested my money that it would arrive in around 10-15 weeks. Do not do business with these people. They are out to steel your money!!!

While we're on the subject of cell phones, let me tell you about a neat li'l trick Cingular slipped into the "small print" on the back of the contract.

Night minutes start at 9 pm so I think most people would assume if you make a call at 8:55 pm and talk for an hour that Cingular will deduct five daytime and 55 nighttime minutes from your balance, right? Wrong!!!

If you start your call at 8:55 pm, you will be using day minutes for the entire duration of the call, even the time you're talking after 9 pm.

Legal? Yes, well, it's in the contract. Shady? Definitely. Do I plan to re-up when my contract expires? Not a chance in he**!

this happened to me w/voicestream my weekend minutes are supposed to start at midnight on saturday, well i made a call at 11:58..ended up talking for over about an hour and a half. yea i was pretty PO'd when i found that out

Hmmm...that was made pretty clear to me when I signed up for Cingular. I've been very happy with them so far.

I have Cingular and one night I remember looking at the clock and wondering if I could call at like 8:59 and have it switch over to night minutes at 9pm... but to be safe I waited another couple minutes; they hadn't said anything about it to me... but apparently I was right to wait! Other than things like that I've been pretty happy with Cingular *shrug* They sure ain't perfect... but then, I'd sooner build a snowman in hell than find the perfect cellular service, right?

And on AT&T or whoever from earlier... when I had been digging around for info shopping for my service it seems like I had read some fine print about the "unlimited" that said it was up until your regular minute plan--that right there pissed me off that they'd say "unlimited" yet put a limit on it--how can they call it unlimited then? :eek: That does not make any sense!:confused: I thought it seemed shady and decided to stay far away from messing with "unlimited" and go for a solid number like 3000 :D At least then I know what I'm dealing with! Geez!

Ah, well.

My post says the stipulation was spelled out in the contract; I don't dispute it. I still think it's shady.

I have Verizon Wireless, and in college had a part time job as a sales rep for United States Cellular, SunCom, and Sprint PCS. I can tell you that all of them have the same rules regarding night/weekend minutes having to start after 9 pm. But as far as I know, none of them make it very clear that the call must be placed after 9. As a sales rep, I tried to make sure I told all my customers all the between-the-lines stuff, and that's what a good sales rep should do. So I would blame whoever sold you your service because they should have told you. And I think that service providers should make it more clear to begin with.

Verizon sucks!

I was with them for almost two years and NEVER had a problem until I added long distance onto my calling plan (which was last year when Will and I started talking more seriously).

First things first...I seemed to be getting charged when Will would call me. My bill would list it as an INCOMING number yet post a charge next to it. ODD! Then I noticed when I'd check my voicemail it'd say something like TOLL CHARGE on my bill and then list a .30 charge. WTF?!?!

So I stopped paying my bill. I started disputing it last December but after I moved to Austin, they kept mailing my parents and not ME...so because they assumed I didn't want to pay up or resolve the situation they turned it over to collections.

Well that wasn't the case at all...I even wrote them a disputing letter and mailed a copy to myself.

Then when I talked to a representative finally about my bills he claimed that I was NOT charged at all for incoming long distance calls or for checking my voicemail. HOW COME IT'S LISTED THERE THEN!!!!!!

Overall I wasn't very happy. I realized that I did go over my minutes and would be happy to pay that...but I'm not certain I can trust a company that tells me I wasn't charged for something when it lists it as a charge. If I really wasn't charged then why do they have it there at all?

I have CRICKET now and I love it! I get UNLIMITED calls ALL DAY AND NIGHT! Basically, it's my home phone! I do have to pay to have caller ID, call waiting, and something else (I forget) but you get a discount if you get all three. And my phone bill is never over $50...and I can talk ALL I WANT!

Ya can't beat that!

My friends and I were talking about this at work they all have Sprint and they hate them! I heard things from charging to make payment by phone, even if there automated system is down. Losing calls in your own home, Always trying to make you sign up for another contract, not giving you the phone you want, I can go on and on. I am very happy with Verizon!

i had at&t and i didnt like it, i was always on roaming in the city and the coverage area in general isnt that good. i switched to verizon, and ive had problems with my bill, but if you go and bitch about it they take care of it without a problem. i have had problems with the phone itself, i got a new one two weeks ago for free b/c of the warranty, and now i need another one b/c my phone keeps turning itself off for no reason. but thats not service related.

If you are in a good service area for it, the Voicestream/T-mobile national plans kick a$$. No roaming, no long distance anywhere.

yeah, i think that was it, it was a horrible phone, and my faces always would break

I had SunCom and the service was *horrible* My living room was sometimes Extended area. We would call to complain and they didn't care. They finally were going to let us out of the contract, or we could wait 2 months for them to build a new tower. Well, they never built that tower. Still haven't as far as I know.

And did they ever screw up our billing...first month's bill was $900 - why? Because they didn't credit any of our package minutes, or any of the mobile-to-mobile minutes (which were unlimited)

I had a Nokia 5100 and it would sometimes turn itself off for no reason.

Now, we're with Alltel. The service has been okay. They screwed up our bill again. I got charged for roaming when I was in Baton Rouge, even though I have a national plan. And their phone selection is sucky. I got a free Nokia 3285, which is the bastard child of the 3300 and the 5100 series. Its just plain ugly.