Cingular - I have always had the CINGULAR PREFERRED NATION PLAN which according to a cingular customer service representative is a plan wherein I DONOT have to pay any roaming charges as long as I have Cingular Extend display on my cell phone.

Cingular - I have always had the CINGULAR PREFERRED NATION PLAN which according to a cingular customer service representative is a plan wherein I DONOT have to pay any roaming charges as long as I have Cingular Extend display on my cell phone.

cingular preferred nation plan - costs me $150 a month...!!!

Cingular has robbed me AGAIN!!!!… I have been a cingular customer since the past 14 months. My problems began a couple of months back. I have always had the CINGULAR PREFERRED NATION PLAN which according to a cingular customer service representative is a plan wherein I DONOT have to pay any roaming charges as long as I have Cingular Extend display on my cell phone. For the current billing cycle i have received a bill of $157. The phone was on Extend all through my billing cycle (7/19 thru 8/19) . I have not been anywhere outside of California in this period. My number is of texas home calling area and so I understand that I am no more using my home calling area basestations. While in California, I am using AT&T basestations as I reach AT&T error messeges when I try using *646# ; which on cingular networks gives you a summary of minutes used. As long as I am able to place calls I don’t relly care abt the feature and the network used. But anyways to my surprise I was charged roaming in this billing cycle and upon a call to the customer service I am told that these charges are placed because u used your cell phone in New mexico where we donot have any antenna. It is not my concern if cingular hasen’t yet developed its network in New mexico. I cannot control which base station my instrument reaches while I am in California. If it reaches an antenna in hawai, it will not be as per my instructions, it is under the cingular BSC control to route such a call. So it was not my fault that I was on a network which doesnot belong to cingular. A simple blocked call would have prevented me from making the so called Expensive call, or an sms saying that this roaming is not covered under preferred nation, instead of charging me for teh call without my approval. To add to the misery there is no map available for the TDMA network anymore on the cingular website. SO even if i were a geek carrying maps around to check if the area i am in is under free roaming or not, i simply wouldn't be able to do so. I have been paying over $140 since the past few billing cycles for a 39.99 plan. This is outrageously ridiculous. I consider cingular responsible for all the past billing cycle as they donot provide value for money, if all major carriers afford to give more than 400 mins for the same price why not cingular ?… I feel that I am cheated because even though I get the same service and the same features as other service providers give, I get the least minutes for the same price. Tmobile gives 600 minutes including a Nation wide roaming free and verizon gives 450 for similar plan. Only Cingular gives just 350 minutes for the same price. Anyways that's not the reason of this complaint. And the current particular billing cycle is completely unreasonable as i have not done anything else except to make calls as per cingular representative instructions, so if at all anyoe is responsible for roaming charges, it is cingular. I don’t agree to the current bill and will not pay a penny more than 39.99 + tax for the current billing cycle. -Regards-

Hitesh S

Union City, CA- 94587

Hitesh S Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: //