Alltel - changed our number without our permission

Alltel

On Dec. 26th my husband contacted Alltel customer service to inquire about getting a second phone so I would have one and we would share the minutes. He got the information and hung up. I had just recently had knee replacement surgery and my knee starting dealing me problems that went from bad to worse. (I ended up in the ER that night). Anyway, I tried to call his cell to let him know what was going on and I got a message saying the number was invalid. About the same time, he was trying to call me to check on me and he got a message that it was a roaming call (we had the national plan) and he'd have to pay by credit card to complete the call. This all happened shortly after noon.

When he got back to town that night, he stopped by the Alltel office. After much investigating, the girl there found that he had talked with a Bradley in customer service that morning, which was correct. The next call he took, the person wanted to changed their phone number. However, he had not cleared my husband's information off the screen and changed his number instead! This new number was from someone in western Nebraska. Still not sure why his cell phone didn't work that day, even if they had changed the number. Anyway, he had to call the toll free number to Alltel. He was assured that it was done in error and he would get his old number back (we've had this for 7-8 years) in about 3-4 days. They said when they disconnect a number it goes into a pool where it sits for 6 months before it can be reissued.

Every couple of days he would call them and check on the status. They did give him another temporary number in the mean time to use. On Jan. 2nd, he called again and was told that management was working on it. He asked to talk to management but was told they don't talk to anyone on the "outside".

On Jan. 4th, he called again and was told that a supervisor would call him back. To his amazement, someone did call. He was told that he was stuck with this temporary number because when they got his old number back, someone gave it to a bank and there wasn't anything they could do about it!!

We contracted the Iowa Attorney General and the FCC on Jan. 5th and told them what happened. On Jan. 9th, my husband contacted Alltel again and said he wanted them waive the contract we had, since they broke it. The guy he talked to wanted to know "what kind of proof do you have that we broke your contract?" (Our contract is up in May and we decided we wanted to change cell phone companies after all this.) He told the guy, well, you up and changed my phone number without my permission, told me I'd get it back in 3-4 days, promised to send me a second phone for my wife at no charge, then when we get it there's an invoice in the box and when I called about that, I was told "no you'll have to pay for the phone. Then when you get my number back, you reissue it to a Bank. Now you tell me where you didn't cross any lines?" He put my husband on hold and 10 mins. later he came back with a completely different attitude. He apologized for what happened and said that he would personally handle the account, due to the errors made. So if we decided to change companies, they would waive the $200 fee for terminating early. He made sure he got the guys name and employee number too.

About 10 mins. after he hung up the phone from talking to this guy, it rang again. This time it was a lady from Alltel calling to discuss the problem we had that was filed with the FCC. She was very sorry for what all happened and said it never should have. She told him he would get his old number back in 2-3 days and she was aware that it had already been given to this bank. Now this was on Tuesday afternoon. On Thursday morning at 8:30 am, she called back to tell him he had his number back and would he please call someone from the phone and have them call him back on his old number. He called me at work. It only took her about 36 hours to get it back. The other dummies, it was a week, then they gave it to someone else and didn't want to bother the bank to tell them they goofed!

It took our complaint to the FCC to finally get things right with Alltel. This last lady he talked to assured him also that it's in our file to not charge us the $200 penalty if we leave Alltel. She wishes we'd stay with them because we have been a loyal customer! Some way to treat your loyal customers when you deal with their customer service!

Ray and Sandy

Iowa