Nextel / cellular service - My husband and I have had Nextel for two and a half years. Until now, I have not had any complaints. I don

Nextel / cellular service - My husband and I have had Nextel for two and a half years. Until now, I have not had any complaints. I don’t complain when I have a few dropped calls, can’t dial out, or when I have bad or no service in certain areas. I know that cell phones are not 100 % reliable and that I might occasionally experience these problems.

Nextel / cellular service

My husband and I have had Nextel for two and a half years. Until now, I have not had any complaints. I don’t complain when I have a few dropped calls, can’t dial out, or when I have bad or no service in certain areas. I know that cell phones are not 100 % reliable and that I might occasionally experience these problems.

However, for the past month and a half, both my husband and I have been having strange “interference” problems with both of our phones, even though we both have different models. I say “interference” because I don’t know what to call it. I associate the sound with an alien noise like you hear on TV, and I can only compare it with a modem dialing or a fax machine - only a little more scrambled. It interrupts our incoming and outgoing calls approximately 5-6 times a day.

Since my husband sells Real Estate and I sell Insurance, most of our calls are business related. Over and over again we are forced to hang up on our clients because of the loud screeching noise (they cannot hear it), but it is unprofessional and causes a serious problem when a potential client calls in to get some information and their number is blocked, because we have no way to call them back when the “interference” starts. We can only cross our fingers and hope they call back. For the first two weeks, we dismissed it as problems resulting from the hurricanes in Florida; we live in Alabama, close to the Tennessee and Mississippi state lines. After it continued we decided to call Nextel and see if they could resolve the problem.

Our first network ticket number was put in at the end of September. That is when it started getting ugly. Regardless of giving them other contact numbers (Nextel stresses that it is better to contact you on a land line rather than the cell phone you are having problems with), we received a message on our cell phone that more information was needed. My husband called right back and was told that the ticket was closed because “more information was needed”. Even though only 15-20 minutes had passed since he first received the message, no one could tell him what information was needed, only that the ticket was closed and could not be re-opened.

He was advised to put in a second ticket. We put in a second ticket number on 10/4 and also started calling Nextel daily to give them streets and times that this was happening at. Two days later we actually received a call asking if we were still having the problem. After making sure they understood the problem (that it was not that we did not have service or were in bad areas) we hung up and waited to hear something. When we didn't’t, I called them. On 10/11, I was told that the ticket had been closed “no coverage in building”. I was outraged, what building were they referring to? I gave them various street names. One person told me that my area had poor coverage. I thought that was strange since we never had problems in the past.

Another told me that this area has good coverage. (I am still getting different answers). I was told I had to put in ANOTHER TICKET! Instead I asked to be transferred to Account Services. Chris, in A.S. told me that he would email his supervisor to get clarification on the tickets and assured me this was the next step - he told me he would call me back later in the day. The next day, after not hearing anything I called back, a woman told me that Chris had already left for the day, but told me she would email Chris asking him to call me back and let me know the status and also to make sure that he had emailed the supervisor. I still have not heard form him.

She told me I might as well put in another ticket. On 10/14, I called to check the status of the new ticket number - it was closed “cannot reach”. I never received a voice mail or call, but the rep told me that in the notes it stated that someone called my office and left a voice mail. I have never had a “disappearing voicemail” before? I told the rep that it had been 2 weeks and that nothing had been done and that we were still having the same problems. I asked what he could do for me and told him I wanted out of my contract if no one could get things strait enough to fix the problem and I didn’t think it was right to charge me the entire early termination fee. He had the nerve to accuse me of making my story up to get out of my contract.

I am very offended! I asked to be transferred and got a hold of Kim in Account Services (254) 298-7483. She promised to get things resolved and even offered us free phones. She was going to email a supervisor and told me she would call between 8 and 9 the next morning with what she found out. After leaving numerous messages, I still have not heard from her. So, on 10/15 I was told to put in ANOTHER TICKET! I did after declining a 15% discount to “deal with it until it went away” and told the rep that I would rather pay full price for a functional cell phone service. He told me that he would connect me to a Customer Care Supervisor that would help me and after waiting 10 minutes I was transferred to tech support that had no idea of what was going on.

The woman put in my new ticket and gave me a number to call the Network Engineer (the escalation line) (888) 249-2294. She advised me to call that number daily as well as tech support daily to check the status and also that she would be emailing her supervisor to track the ticket number. On 10/16 and 10/18, I left messages on that number (of course no one answers it) and no one has ever returned my calls. This is when my problem goes from ugly to uglier. On 10/19, at 8:15, someone from Nextel calls my cell phone internally, so that the phone does not ring and leaves a message asking me to call a number so that they can speak to me.

How much sense does that make? They want to speak with you so they call you internally so there is no chance of you answering. I call back at 8:20 and get another voice mail and leave a message. After not hearing anything for to hours, I call customer service to see if they can help me further or if they know anything. Guess what they tell me, ticket is closed: can’t reach. They connect me to the tech department who tell me that a supervisor will be notified and they will make sure that someone returns my call. That afternoon, “Julio” finally calls me back.

His only question was if we were still experiencing the problem and told me that we would be hearing back from them shortly. Two days pass without me hearing anything; I call tech support and am told that they do not see anything, but that I would be receiving a call sometime that day. I didn’t. I called back the next afternoon and am getting really irritated. I am told that I need to call 866-265-8311 that that is the number for the engineer - (it is actually Nextel customer care) I am told that my ticket number will be escalated to a supervisor that will call me back in 24 hours. It has been three days.

No one can tell me anything. Today I asked to be transferred to Account Services. It seems only fair to me that I should be let out of my contract. I have given them enough time to do something - anything. I am told that I can pay to get out of my contract. That is all. The woman rudely tells me that all I can continue to do is put in ticket numbers. That I have to deal with it because she does not know of any problems in my area. I ask her if she even knows what my problem is and she tells me yes. I ask her to tell me what it is - she asks for my cell phone number and name on the account. She hadn’t even bothered to look. I asked her why she would lie about knowing what my problem was. She says to me that she has no reason to lie, and after looking over my account for about 15 seconds she tells me that I am having problems with clicking noises on my phone.

Even though I have continually been patient and nice on the phone to everyone I have dealt with, she gets harsh with me and talks rudely to me telling me that that is what the notes say regarding every call I have made to Nextel. I have never said anything about “clicking noises”. Without taking a breath she continues, “I can’t do anything for you, I am connecting you to Tech support, deal with them”. I ask for her name and realize that the line has gone silent. I will never know if it was on purpose or not, but the line went dead. I was hung up on.

I will be changing cell phone services and it looks like I will have to pay for Nextel’s problems by paying my termination fees. It is obvious to me that there is a problem. My husband and I never had this happen until last month. All I wanted was for my service to go back to the way it was. Now I can’t wait to get rid of Nextel. I have never received this bad of customer service. I do not think it is fair that Nextel can “skirt” its way around every problem, without ever having to deal with it. Not when I pay them 230.00 per month.

K, Sarah Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: Email User Consumer