Completed 2 year cingular contract, upgraded phone & renewed 2 yr contract thru AT&T.com
received new Sony-Ericsson z310a as requested. Right away I notice that the battery life is only about 2 days. (AT&T/Sony advertise 10 days)
I call #800 customer service to inquire about warranty. First they accuse me of not plugging in the charger correctly, or state that the electrical outlet that the charger was plugged into was bad. They advise me to take the phone/battery to an ATT retail store for testing.
They give me address for one near me. At the retail store I am brushed off saying the phone is too new and they dont have any phones/batteries so why waste time testing. (I now find out there are no Sony-Ericsson brand phones sold at all in ATT stores in my area - how strange?) So again I call customer service where they run thru the whole spheel about plug ins and outlets. Then they tell me that since my phone can make and receive calls that it is not technically broken, so there would be no warranty exchange.
Now I write a complaint e-mail to the office of the president (paid $9.95 online for a list of private e-mail addresses)
I get a very condescending, sympathetic call from someone at the presidents office. He tells me to call back to customer service, mention his name, that there would be notes in the file and it would be taken care of. So I call again.
Of coarse there were no notes, I asked for a supervisor and was told there were none available at the time. My home number was taken and I was promised a call back form a supervisor. No call. Next day I call again. Explain whole thing, get accused of not knowing how to plug it in again. Ask for supervisor, get denied. The associate says "I've found your problem, your phone need to be updated, I can do it over hte phone for you" He asks me to punch some #s into my phone and read to him the IDM? # or something like that back to him.
He tells me that he has sent an update and the problem should be fixed. The next morning my wife tells me that her cell phone quit working. I call customer service-AGAIN and after darn near an hour they determine that somehow HER sim card got deactivated accidentally when they thought they were doing my update. Said they could not reactivate it, they could mail a new sim card, or we could go to the retail store.
We chose store option. They said there is usually an $18 charge, but would put notes for the store to see not to charge. At the store and no notes - after a lengthy discussion with the manager he agrees to waive the fee.
My phone is still not charging at this time, and I receive a call from the office of the president of ATT checking on my problem, so he gets a 3 way conference call going with customer service, himself and I.
It is determined that ATT is out of stock on replacement batteries for my phone, so we then do a 3 way conference call to the phone manufacturer - Sony-Ericsson who agrees to send me out a battery and charge me for it, but ATT will credit my account. After waiting 12 days for the replacement battery I call ATT customer service again to check status.
Back to square one where the accuse me of dropping my phone in liquid or not knowing how to charge it right.By this time I have lost all patience and insist on a supervisor, who does come on and tells me they are out of stock on battreies and I would need to contact the manufacturer—bla bla bla... I refuse and insist on a whole new replacement phone and tell him I am not hanging up till I get one ordered. After another 30 minutes on hold she comes back on and agrees to send me a complete warranty phone - LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE ON THE FIRST PHONE CALL!
Very poor and un educated customer service - beware of using at&t products/service if you ever require help.
David
tacoma, Washington
U.S.A.
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