Nextel - my Nextel horror story

Nextel - my Nextel horror story

Nextel Service and Support - NOT

Below is a letter that I am sending to Nextel's Corporate Office....

Marvin A. M

June 4, 2004

Nextel Communications (Please Read this entire letter)

Corporate Office

2001 Edmund Halley Dr.

Reston, Virginia 22066

703-433-4000

Dear Sir or Madam:

I would like to take this opportunity to express my feelings about your company. Up until April, I had nothing but good things to say about your company. The phone service was great and repairs/replacements were made in a timely and professional manner.

But my opinion has dramatically changed. I usually keep good notes of business conversations. I will be as precise as I can with details, but know that some of the dates, names and times may not be exactly correct. …And now my “Nextel horror story” I was about to leave town to work in Dallas Texas. On Friday, April 16th, I called to disconnect my service (727-423-8902). I was directed to Pam Carter in Virginia. I expressed to her my desire to disconnect my phone when my contract expired (June 2004). She asked why I wanted to change. I told her that there were better plans available with other Wireless companies. Pam encouraged me to stay with Nextel, assuring me that she would do her best to match the competitor’s offers. I asked for the best ‘Free Incoming Offer’ that she could give, since your company could not come close to other offers. She agreed to the following;

1) $69.00 Free Incoming package for $59.00 (600 outgoing min plus unlimited Direct Connect.)

2) 200 additional out-going minutes per month for the first year

3) A 2nd acct - My wife’s new acct (727-235-4874) …. There were no problems with this acct.

4) The new Motorola I730 for the advertised price of $149 (with a 2 yr contract extension). Pam stated that she would give me a 1-time $15 credit on the next month’s bill.

5) Pam also agreed to ship the new phone to my new location in Texas.

6) After I asked when this new acct would be active, she stated that since I was 1 day into the new billing cycle, it would happen immediately!!!!! I reconfirmed that I would have free incoming calls that same day! She said YES!!!!! Up to this point, I had nothing but Good Things to say about Nextel’s Customer service… It was wonderfully handled… 2 days later I convinced my sister and brother-in-law in Atlanta to switch to Nextel. Their New numbers are (Nataline Matthews-Woods) 678-520-6287 (SWITCHED FROM YOUR COMPETITOR) and her husband, Michael’s number 770-912-3582. I was never even rewarded for bringing customers to you - Yes, I asked at least 4 reps. I arrive in Texas a week later and ….NO PHONE… I called the Retention dept back and asked for someone to help me get this new phone. Here were your numerous responses;

1) I see all that Pam promised, but she needs to follow thru with this.

2) YOU (Mr. Matthews) did not finish the process. Your phone has not even

shipped.

3) Later by another rep, “PAM did not finish the process, let’s delete her

entries and start over”. I am going to give you a $50 credit on your next bill and a car adapter & headset for $1 each for all of your problems. All seemed OK until I found that the unit was shipped to my Home address in Florida. I called back and…

4) …. Another Rep gave me the tracking number and had me call FedEx to cancel the delivery - which I did. Before we could complete the new information, we were disconnected.

5) I called back and there was no record of the call that I made just moments before. This young lady quickly became rude to me. She could do NOTHING since she had no proof of the previous phone call. She hung up in my face !!!!! Needless to say, I was very frustrated by now.

6) I call “customer care” to express my frustration. He apologizes, admits that he cannot correct the issue, and transfers me back to the Retention dept.

7) I’m now given Pam’s direct extension (757-223-3544). I called her daily leaving my cell phone number and (very courteously) asking her to call me back so that she can help me straighten this out. After 2-3 weeks of her not ever returning my call, I went on-line to see if I could look at my account. Now I discover that I am still on the old plan and am 800+minutes over. Now I am really frustrated.

8) I finally call Retention back and ask for a supervisor. The Rep does not want to give me to a supervisor until she hears my issue. 10 minutes later after going through this mess, she gets a supervisor. Now I have to explain it again!!!!! The supervisor reduces the phones to $99 per phone and aggresses that Pam needs to fix this.

9) I call Pam continuously and only get her voicemail. I called others in

Retention and spend another week being bounce from Retention to Sales

support to Customer Care. All to No Avail. I eventually discover (after

another young man is Rude) that there are 2 different support divisions and I have been constantly sent to the wrong one. Once I got to the correct support we find that 3 phones have been sent to me (2 to Florida and 1 to Texas). He has the intelligence to simply look at FedEx’s web site with the tracking number that I have been given and sees that one of the phones has been sent back.

10) “We only ship to the home address on the acct” (this is NOT true). I

finally rec’d it here in TX

**** At this point I started to take notes so that I can identify ‘names’ and ‘attitudes’ and ‘promises’ April 13, I speak with Daria (No one is willing to give out last names) in Acct Services. She attempts to get Pam on the phone. During the transfer, I hear someone (I presume to be Pam) say “thanks for calling Next…” and then I am disconnected…. Frustration sets in again…… I call back and Retention sends me to Supervisor in Customer Care (MARC working from workstation #142)…. He gets enough info from the Retention Rep that he can change the plan to the $69.00 Free incoming calls. He says that Pam or someone else in Retention will have to figure out the $10/month credit to make it $59/month. I ask him to conference in someone from the Retention dept, so that we can get to the bottom of this. He states that he doesn’t have the ability to Conference so he transfers me to Chanelle in Retention.

He also makes enough notes in my ticket to where all will see what has transpired. Chanelle promises me that she will get to the bottom of this. It’s close to closing time (10pm EST) and she promises to call me the next day. She calls and states that she cannot make the acct Retroactive to the previous month. I ask her to do whatever it takes to keep me from paying the overages that are now over 1000 minutes. She speaks with her supervisor, gives me the following phone number (Andrina Watson - 757-223-2536 -apparently not the right number as I have dialed it) and they agree to make the appropriate credits to my acct. There is one day left in my billing cycle (this is Friday, May 14th), So she states that she will take care of this issue Monday Afternoon when she returns to work at 1pm.

This way she will see all of the minutes from Friday evening and make sure that the credit is accurate… This never happened!!!!! I call back on Thursday, June 4th and get Crystal. Crystal starts out very polite and attempts to get to the bottom of this. She attempts to transfer me to Chanelle, but Chanelle is on the phone. I asked Crystal not to send me to voicemail… I’ve had enough of Nextel Retention Reps voicemail… It’s a BLACK HOLE… She waits on Chanelle to get off of the phone and speaks with her and the supervisor. Now, they are denying that they ever made this promise to me…. Lies…. As God is my witness, this is an outright LIE….

Now Crystal is starting to lose patience as I questioned as to whether or not she can see all of the original promises that Pam made to me. I’ve become suspicious that entries to the database(s) have been manipulated so that much of this cannot be proved. I feel as though the Retention dept. has betrayed me & other departments are ignorant of how your company, as a whole, works. I asked Crystal to disable the phone service to my phone as well as my wife’s phone immediately. She claims that she would and threatened the $200 charge to my account for early termination. In my opinion, your company voided my contract when they did not take care of the agreed on issues.

As of June 14, my original contract will expire. I will happily pay for the proper charges incurred. We will package the phones, AC power adapter and belt cradle and return them to you. Please forward the proper address for the units. I will send a copy of this letter to the Better Business Bureau, All major Credit Bureaus, My attorney, as well as your online e-mail link! !! I know it’s my word against theirs, but you all need to know how your customer service is being handled. I may not ever see the proper resolution to my personal issue, but I hope this will make your different departments more accountable to the corporate office. Hopefully, it will help the next person. Verizon allows me to call between cells for free. That way I can get a better rate plan and communicate with my wife while we are in 2 different cities…. It is a shame that I am being forced to leave you as a customer… If I ultimately lose my cell numbers, then so be it. The only real difference in Wireless competition is “Service and Support”.

You all offer great deals and you already know that the GSM and walkie-talkie feature will be duplicated by your competition in the future. As a last note, I am a very calm individual who never curses or provokes anger from others. When your reps became rude, I simply reported them to a supervisor or the next individual that I came in contact with. I am the one who had reason to be angry. You would have thought that it was the other way around, judging from the unprofessional “Customer Service Reps” that I encountered… (Still NO call from Pam Carter after calling her 50+ times - I stopped leaving voicemails after the first 2 weeks.

At 1st, I thought that she may have been on vacation) Oh, did I mention that my wife and I have both been in Customer service for appr 12 years each? NO ONE would take ownership of my dilemma and see it through to resolution. Most of them ‘passed the buck’ (Marc & the 1st Retention supervisor were great).

Honestly & Sincerely, Marvin A. M

Marvin A. M

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Comment On This

I too have had tremendous billing and customer service problems with Nextel. In my case my problems started directly after the Sprint/Nextel merger. I have been over-billed since Nov. of 2007, in addition to the many service options that I have on my phone. I am being charged to use my phone at 7pm, yet I have been paying the $5/mo. to have the service. Also credits have been promised that I haven't received yet. Instead, Sprint wants me to pay the bill and sort things out later, but I haven't been receiving a bill since January 2008. Who pays a bill without seeing it?

Comment On This

I agree with you 100%. I have also had problems since April 2007. I am currently on the phone over 1 hour, and no answers. Even though notes are in the system for a correct plan, they will not change it. They just want to take things away that are already promised. I too am in customer service, and can't believe the attitudes that are given on the phone.

Comment On This

I to have a horror story that I can't get resolved. I've been calling since MAY 10,2007 just to get them to block everything on my teenagers phone but the phone and text messaging. Meanwhile the bills keep adding up no one will help me. They say " we've blocked it " well they didn't and up until today Oct. 30,2007 still haven't. And they do NOT wish to issue credits. I've never seen a company so large that can afford to pay there employees for doing nothing. On Sept. 28 finally they told me that I would have to go online and block it myself. I was fuming. I stayed on the phone line for 35 minutes with a customer service person he told me ok hold while i make sure it's done properly and issue you some credits. And of all things he transferred me to another person which in turn told me there is nothing she can do and the gentleman didn't make any notes no credits nothing so basically I was back to were I started at.But they made sure to tell me if I have my service disconnected I would be billed for concealing my contract on both phones.I thought that was very nice of them.

Got any suggestions on how I can get help, please contact me at 678-571-1298.

Cheryl Cummings