Cingular Wireless

In October 2006 I purchased a CINGULAR 3125 (retail $300) and started the service with Cingular Wireless – unfortunately. I live in Miami FL, and the service was really bad where I live and where I work (both jobs). So we are talking about 3 locations around Kendal area that have almost no signal. I did not complain about the service since I am only one person (my mistake), plus the fact that they were merging with AT&T was hopes for better service. First of all, who agreed to let these 2 companies merge again? Who is the idiot that allowed that to happen? Fifty years ago people were trying to break them up and now they are back together, I don’t understand this.

In February, 2007 my new phone dies. It would not charge, turn on or anything else. I called the warranty department of cingular and they told me to go to their store so that the employees would change the battery and the charger and see if that was the problem. The problem of course was not that, so they told me to call the warranty department again. After some research I found out that many customers had the same problem I had and the phones had an average life of 5-6 months. So, I called the warranty department again and after a lot of discussion the warranty department told me that they are aware of a defect that this phone has with its charging dock, BUT (this is really hilarious) they will sent me a refurbished phone and my warranty of 1 year is going to remain the same (ending in Oct 2007).

I wonder how these people are allowed to operate. Warranty is not an individual item, it goes with the device. The warranty of the original device does not apply anymore because I don’t have the original device. Once they send me the refurbished device and it dies on Nov 1st then what am I supposed to do? So, I demanded to speak with a supervisor and I told him that, Cingular put its name on this device (after all it is called CINGULAR 3125, not HTC 3125), they are marketing the phone as if they manufactured it, but when it comes to service they wash their hands.

After I hanged up with the supervisor, I filed a complaint with the BBB and someone from the President’s office of Cingular called me the next day (wow, I thought in the beginning). This person just repeated the same things that the supervisor did the previous day. The funny thing is that when she called, she called my cell phone (a razr that I had bought as a backup) and the called dropped in the middle of our conversation, so she called me back and asked me if I could give her another number where she could call me so that she can hear me better. So she called my office and realized that the attitude that Cingular has is that of a monopoly.

To sum up, the offer me service that is almost non-existent, the sold me a defective phone, they are not extending the warranty on the phone they are replacing, they refuse to let me exchange the phone for a different model and they refuse to end my contract. I really hope that this finds it way somehow to future wireless customers and changes their mind if they were considering going with this company.