Cingular

Yes! A Cingular hate thread!

This makes me think twice about buying an iPhone, which I had planned to do in June when it came out. It is only available through Cingular's cell service. I had hoped Cingular had improved its customer service, but this thread makes me think they brought the AT&T Wireless crew over with them.

When I switched to T-Mobile (been with them 3.5 years and never had a problem) AT&T Wireless/Cingular could not have been less helpful. They refused to turn off my service in a timely manner and refused to let me keep the old cell number I had even though the cell phone portability law had just be put in place. They turned a $26 unpaid bill amount (unpaid because I maintained I had instructed them to cancel the service but they had not due to not being able to port over my old cell #) over to a collection agency and were complete assholes about it even after I wrote complaint letters and filed an FCC complaint against them. About 50,000 of their customer's did this due to violation of the cell phone portability act and I think they ended up paying a shitload in fines.

I finally paid the disputed debt to preserve my good credit rating, but I held onto the grudge. When AT&T Wireless merged with Cingular several years back, my hatred for AT&T Wireless merged into a hatred of Cingular. I could never get a good signal and the plan I was on was shitty, too. That's why I quit in the first place.

 

I actually tried to buy a RAZR from Cingular when I got my last phone, but a friend of mine who sells phones dissuaded me because they were such pieces of junk. They're going bad all over the place.

 

I've never had a problem with Cingular, going on five years now. I can't wait for the iPhone. I plan on being an early adopter.

 

Only places I couldn't get a signal with my Cingular phone were Arizona and New Mexico. And, hell, who would I want to call out there, an antelope? "Uh, yeah, Mr. Antelope? Stay the fuck off the road, would you? I'll be rolling through at 95 in a couple of minutes. Oh, shit. There's a cop. Gotta go." Click.

 

I always got service when I was in Phoenix and using my Cingular phone. My signal is not the issue. The issue is that they weren't supposed to be sending me paper anything and doing it all by e-mail, yet because they fucked up and didn't do that, my service was disrupted for three days. I did not need my service disrupted for three days.

 

Dirk,

I got my Razr when I changed to Cingular late last December. By September, I had to get a new one because buttons had stopped working, the volume thing didn't work, and there was dirt trapped in the screen. It's hard to hold against your shoulder, the volume on the earpiece part isn't very loud, and the speakerphone sucks.

Aside from that, go for it.

 

I'm knocking on pressed cardboard right now because my RAZR has done me fine in the last four months or so. It'd better keep it up for the next 20, or however long I have until I can upgrade. Hopefully the Treo/Blackberries will be evolved enough that they have keyboards suitable for my fat, fat fingers.

 

That's almost exactly my experience with the Razr. Now I don't know what to get.

 

Zach Morris wants his phone back.

 

See, I used to have Sprint and hated it. It sucked on every level. Dropped calls galore. Horrible tack-on charges. I use cingular and have been fairly pleased.

 

I think cell phone service really depends on what area of the country you're in. Verizon may be great in some areas and not so great in others, same with Sprint and all the others.