Cingular Gets Kicked Out of the BBB
from the no-you-can't-speak-to-my-supervisor dept
Following word that US consumers' satisfaction with mobile operators continued its downward trend last year comes word that the country's biggest carrier, Cingular, has been kicked out of the Better Business Bureau in upstate New York for poorly handling customer complaints. The BBB requires members to answer all complaints, whereas Cingular had 20 outstanding as unanswered or unresolved (and 200 total) over the past three years. While the move is more symbolic than it is meaningful, it highlights the growing complaints people have with mobile carriers. The BBB says its largest segment of complaints in 2004 was against carriers, but as long as the US market and carriers' business keep growing, it seems doubtful that things will change much.
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cingular sux
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Re: cingular :(
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Re: cingular sux
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Re: cingular sux
Cingular's internal policies for its Customer Service Reps (CSR's) require the CSR's to violate every rule of ethical customer service and then Cingular takes disciplinary actions against CSR's that violate policies.
Next, they give different policies to different departments and sometimes even ambiguous policies to one department that often leaves customers in transfer-and-hold hell. When I was working there, Cingular was making monthly payments for fines to the California Public Utilities commission because Cingular's internal policies violated California law with regard to telephone services.
To top it off, I had to file a wage claim form with the state to get them to issue me my final paycheck. Furthermore, less than 1 year ago (I quit working for them 2 1/2 years ago) I received a settlement check from them that was ordered by the US Dept. of Labor to recompense me and other workers. The check was for forcing us to be at our stations five-ten minutes before our shift to read the emailed policy updates so that we could log into our phones and start taking calls the moment that our shift started.
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Re: cingular sux
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Re: cingular sux
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Heh
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Re: Heh
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Re: cingular :(
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holy crap thats local....
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Re: holy crap thats local....
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Love this quote
Why weren't they working diligently to address the concerns brought to thier attention by the customers?
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Re: holy crap thats local....
If you have an old Cingular "Blue" phone (AT&T), then the reception sucks. Should be resolved in the next few months.
Verizon IMO is the worst carrier ever. They don't give 2 ___ about their customers. Always had nothing but trouble with Verizon's support.
Cingular has been a pleasure for 3 years now.
On the cingular business side, I have had a lot of trouble because of the merge but, hope to have the worked out by October. Just hope they change their Business plan to match AT&T's. They have markets for most states and don't allow pooling of minutes outside of each market. This isn't to good for a large corporate deployment.
Basically, every carrier hires idiots to do tier 1 customer service. Just have to get past them!!!
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Cingular
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Re: Cingular
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Re: Cingular
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Re: holy crap thats local....
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Re: Cingular
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No Subject Given
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No Subject Given
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It's a mixed bag
On the plus side, Cingular does have pretty good coverage, I've had good luck with the phones, and the 2-phone family plan I was on was reasonable. When Cingular initially sent me the wrong SIM cards, the customer service rep. sent me to the local store to get the right ones, credited my account the cost of the cards, waved $70 in activation fees, and credited my account with 1000 free minutes.
On the negative side, like most carriers, Cingular has started nickel and diming perople for everything. 10 cent per text message, 1 cent per/KB, 45 cent/minute overrage, and the list goes on. They've managed to increase the overall cost of a two phone family plan, and have a terrible $9.99/month for 1MB of data Internet plan. Roll-over minutes? Better look out when they start expiring, because you'll pay through the nose.
Calling customer service always results in a minimum 5 minute wait, and then you may or may not get a compassionate rep.
I'd like to see the cell-phone market saturate in the US, so there will be pressure to start competing for customers and prices can come down. Not likely to happen any time soon...I was in the mall over the weekend, and the Cingular store was mobbed.
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Re: cingular :(
The other area Sprint needs to improve on is billing. They turned off my phone for being a day late in paying, but for 3 days I had been trying to pay online and on my phone, always getting "Sorry, we're upgrading right now." So, if you get Sprint, always pay a week or two early. At least they do turn your service back on lickity-split once you pay.
My signal is usually only 1 or 2 bars for digital, where it would normally be 3 or 4 bars for analog (5 being full). But, I've never lost a digital signal with at least 1 bar, and it's always clear. They also have great internet data rates, unless you are in the far interior of a large building, say, a central bathroom.
I can't wait until the push-to-talk 2-way functions of Nextel and Sprint work together. Everyone I know that actually uses that function has Nextel already, even though Sprint's prices for multiple-phones and unlimitted minutes was much cheaper. I used to have Nextel. If everyone I knew had push-to-talk, I'd never text message or make an actual phone call. I really miss it, even though I still have it (but nobody to 2-way to on Sprint's network).
That, and I love Sprint's picture mail where you can add voice and/or text messages. Other's may do it too, but I've never seen them in action.
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Not quite...
No. It highlights the growing power of corporations who are starting to realize that they don't have to care about the BBB anymore, this is the first of many to be kicked out. They realize people are sheep to commercials and they will make their millions no matter how badly they treat customers...its a sad state of affairs.
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All carriers sux
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Re: Re: holy crap thats local....
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VZW vs Cingular
But, tho I love the phone I am outraged that they have disabled the bluetooth and USB connectivity to only allow use of THEIR costly subscrition services!
Cingular bluetooth phones can sync with your computer and PDA via bluetooth. Pix, sounds, calendar, phonebook etc. Verizon phones will not.
USB will only allow you to transffer sounds, pix and flix from your PC that you have downloaded from thier expensive "Vcast" services. Bluetooth only allows for use of headsets or car "hands-free" kits. No connectivity to anything else at all! VZW has even had to settle a class action lawsuit over failure to disclose this to customers prior to sale.
Verizon has deliberately disabled services you could use for free to force you onto their pay services.
I think that is gouging and taking advantage of their customers. I understand there are workarounds for some of this but who needs to jump through hoops?
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CINGULAR CAN KISS MY ASS
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