Cingular Wireless' deceptive practices to trap consumers

4 months ago i was passively shopping away from my then wireless carrier. i had 4 criteria that would make us leave: 1. less dropped calls, 2. easier reporting to the carrier of dropped calls for credits, 3. the ability to use my cell phone inside my house, and 4. the availability of relatively cheap replacement phones.

what can i say, my husband and i are hard on our phones. in a good year, we only need to buy 2 each. one year i had to buy 4 and he 5. insurance certainly wouldn't cover that many, so we simply bought replacements when necessary. paying $200 per phone, and that being the cheapest our then carrier had, prompted us to look around to see if we could do better.

i approached one carrier with my criteria. the sales person was honest with me and said they could not do any better than who we were with. so i moved on.

the second carrier i approached was cingular, and this is where the deception began....

to the first of my criteria, the sales person said that cingular definitely would have less dropped calls in my area. to report dropped calls for credit, all i needed to do was to write them down and call them in weekly (much easier than every single time with my other carrier). he promised the phones would work inside my house because their towers were great. finally, he offered replacement telephones less than $100. he even showed me one that another customer was purchasing.

a replacement phone for less than $100!?!?! if i cancelled my contract with my carrier and paid the total early termination fee of $350, that cost would be recouped in the first year on the savings of purchasing new phones! you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out! but to be safe, i asked how long the cheaper phones would be available. the sales person said 'always' because parents usually buy these phones for their kids.

believing not so much that cingular would have less dropped calls than i was already getting, but trusting that the reporting and crediting of dropped calls would be easier, that i could use my phone inside my house, and that i could save a lot of money on cheaper replacement phones, i cancelled my existing contract, paid the early termination fee and happily signed on with cingular. a very bad move.

4 months into the contract, this is how the sales person's promises held up:

1. dropped calls have not improved. (but, like i said, i really wasn't so sure anyway)

2. cingular does not credit for dropped calls, so there is no point in calling them in. (by the way, the customer also pays for any calls made that can not go through because the network is busy), so the reporting and handling promise was not truthful.

3. if my phone actually rings inside my house, i have to quickly run to the front porch before it goes to voice mail if i want to talk. another representation proved false.

4. there never was and never will be a cellular phone avaiable from cingular for less than $100, to anyone within their 2 year trap, i mean agreement.

i must say, i love cingular's customer service agents in canada, at least they treat customers like people. unfortunately, they can not make decisions. however, i will say one of the canadian reps did say that she hears about deceptive sales measures a lot.

i had already given up on the dropped calls and using my phone in my house, because I believed that i could still ultimately save with cingular in replacement phones. but then i walked into the store i bought the service from, not to demand a free phone, but to buy the cheap phone i was shown and told would always be available. apparently, that particular phone is available only for prepaid services, and no such phone was ever available. unless i taped the conversation between me and the sales person that i could not prove the conversation took place. that was the last straw.

3 hours on the phone with cingular (as well as earlier unpleasant conversations with the store) yielded these gracious resolution offers from cingular:

1. if i want a cheaper phone, check on ebay (i kid you not! that was what i was told)

2. this one is my favorite: if i buy 2 more lines of service, cingular will give me 2 free phones! (i do not need 2 additional lines, and i was never looking for free phones!) alas, said the representative, i do not actually have to use those additional lines, just pay for them, for a 2 year contract, so that i can get 2 free phones now! (huh?)

3. i can get a 1 time 20% discount on a replacement phone. (differing significantly from an 'always' available cheaper phone)

4. if i am so miserable, i can cancel my service, and cingular will graciously give me a $60 discount on the early termination fee.

5. if i would like, cingular would send training material to the store i dealt with to make sure that everyone is properly trained on how to act as cingular representatives.

not one of these 'solutions' offered any benefit to me whatsoever, yet the reader will note cingular will make sure it is protected.

the sales person at cingular outright lied to me. he said everything i needed to hear and what i heard was worth early termination with my other carrier. no one, except the canadians, at cingular seems to care about that.

as lectured to me, cingular has to be carefull about customers trying to get free services through frivolous complants. (i asked for nothing for free.) cingular can not act on the deceptive measures of its sales people because it would create a precident where any customer can say the sales person deceived them. (so cingular protects itself against deception at the expense of the customer?) cingular is very sorry i was lied to (by the way, do i have any proof of said discussion between me and the sales person?), but it is not its policy to intervene if the customer 'misunderstood' what was said at the point of sale.

i fully intend to fight my way out of the contract, or compel cingular to honor the promises of its sales person. but it will be a long and drawn out process, and in the meantime, i hope that my experiences can save another unsuspecting consumer from becoming victim and prisoner to cingular's deceptive sales practices and so-what corporate attitude.

kathy

cave creek, az 85331