My husband has had service/a contract with Alltel since 2002. We have never been fully satisfied with their service, but have continued to renew our contract. I have constantly called to have misc fees removed, I have had someone else's bill printed on my account and had to pay it and it was debited back the next month. All kinds of crazy stuff. When we purchased our new Smart phones we not advised we would have to pay a whopping $40 extra per line aside from our package price. We have 2 other lines with regular cell phones.
This story takes the cake...
We have NEVER had a prepaid phone with them. I do not know anyone that does. I am very dissatisfied with our current experience with this "Company". I have my personal bank account set for mobile alerts when X amount of money is debited from my checking account. At 3:30 yesterday I received a mobile alert that nearly a $100 debit was pending to my checking account. Since I was watching TV I knew I did not make this purchase (my mobile alerts come in right when the debit hits). I immediately looked at my online banking and saw a pending purchase for $X to Alltel Replenishment. I had no clue what this was. I immediately picked up the phone and called Alltel.
The story gets better... I PROMISE!!!
The customer service rep informed this is for prepaid services. I informed her I do not have a prepaid service thru Alltel. She transferred me to Financial Services. I went thru the whole spew with this rep. She advised me I needed to be transferred to the Replenishment Dept. And transferred me. I am hold until about 3:45 listening to the Alltel lady with the pleasant voice advising me to buy more prepaid minutes on the recording. A foreign speaking man picks up the phone and wants my prepaid wireless #. I advise him I do not have one. He does not understand and cannot seem to comprehend. I explain the situation to him and he says "Oh, you need contract customer service." I try to tell him, "No, no, no they sent me here." He says, "Ok, I transfer you now mam." I go thru this cycle once more and I am then disconnected in translation.
I go ahead and call my bank and make them aware of this. The rep gives me a series of #s and a 1-800 # and says all the info that was sent from the processing dept and that this was a manual key entry (payment by phone). She advised me the Alltel account # and confirmation # were not provided, and often are left off in the process of a speedy collection. I thank her, ask her to block my account and try to call Alltel back.
When I finally make it back to the Replenishment Dept. An agent laughs at me and says he is going to transfer me back. I hastily replied, "PLEASE, do not transfer me back, I need your supervisor." The man laughs and says, "Ok I transfer you now." I am on hold for a little bit listening to that recording again. A lady picks up and says her name is "Jacey". I inform Jacey of my situation and tell her I do not have a prepaid phone. She requests my mobile # and seems to not be able to comprehend the fact that I do not have one either. The foreign lady says, " I no believe you, how do you know it is prepaid if you do not pay for it." I kindly advised her that the people that transferred me back and forth before told me they were sending me to the prepaid department and the little jingle recording thingy offers you to buy more minutes while you are on hold. She completely acted like she did not believe me. She advised me she could pull up the transaction by my debit card and cancel it if she received a fax from my bank or talked to them on 3-way. I thanked her graciously and tried to dial on 3-way. My brand spanking new Blackberry Curve would not let me do a conference call. Ahhh... I told her and she told me to call from my husbands phone separately. I did so, I got a bank rep on the phone explained the situation and explained I was on two phones here. My back rep advises me she needs a faxed release form before 9PM or she cannot release it and we will have to dispute the charges. "Jacey" proceeds to tell me this will not work anyway because she has to be on 3-way. I apologize to the bank rep disconnect that call and ask the "Jacey" why she asked me to do it then?!? She said "I need a faxed form from your bank showing the transaction and a copy of your most recent bank statement." I told her I will not have that until next month when my statement cuts. She once again belittled me and asked how did I even know about it if I did not have my statement yet. I advised her once again of my mobile alerts and online banking. I remind her she said earlier she will delete the payment if she can locate the account. She pulls up all transactions processed from my bank account and says, "Mam, I see that you do have a history of buying Pre-paid minutes with Alltel. Are you sure this is not yours. I cannot delete this transaction because of your history." I inquire on how many times this has been done. She advised me once. I inquire when, and she says today! I said "Mam that is the transaction I am talking about. Can you please fax this release form to my bank?" She said "I really would, but we do not have a fax machine in our call center." She advised me to go to the nearest Alltel so they can see this text message and fax the form. I advise her they close at 5 and it is now 4:30. She says to go ahead. I became very frustrated and advised her I do not appreciate her insulting my intelligence during this conversation and ask her why they do not have a fax machine. She just kept repeating "Mam drive to your local Alltel (Ohhhtal is how she pronounced it) and have them fax it." She would say nothing more than that. Just like a broken record. My husband took the phone and tried to discuss the matter with her and she repeated the same thing over and over. He got so mad and cussed her out. She refused to give the direct 800# to that department, an extension or employee ID #. She just said the same thing over and over. So we stay on the phone and drive 30 mins and get there as they are locking the doors, but I shimmy my way in. I told her I was there and would get someone to talk to her. She did not respond. "Hello, hello?" My screen said call disconnected. Great!
I am in limbo once again from customer service to financial services to replenishment several times again while standing in Alltel waiting on a rep in person. This place was packed and it was already closed. I wait... On hold and in person. Transfer, transfer, transfer. I wait. Then a man comes on the line from replenishment. He laughs and says this must be Mrs. F. I never even gave him my name. He advises me all supervisors are busy and places me on hold. Until 5:30 he would pick up and say nothing then hit the hold button again. Finally he just disconnected the call.
Yay! A rep in person is finally available. My husband and I inform him of what is going on. He says, " Mam I am so sorry, but there is no reason for you to be here. We cannot do anything for you." I already knew this. He gave me the 1-800 # for the prepaid services department and apologized. He notated my personal account and advised me to use "That black phone." I called from their phone and could never get thru. I was finally disconnected again by an agent "looking for a supervisor" at 6PM. I thanked the sales associate for his time and left since all other customers were gone.
In the car I called the replenishment department and was sent back to financial and customer service and back again and the agent on the phone advised me she had to look for a supervisor. Where on earth are these supervisors? She puts me on hold and never comes back. I hear the little recording over and over with a pause in-between and then back on hold. Finally she disconnects my call.
I call back. I call back. A man answers and calls me by my name and says he will look for a supervisor. I hold. Finally he comes back and says "My supervisor said to forward you to financial services. He is standing behind me right now." I advise him not to and he laughs and says "Please hold." This is not a game people. About 10 minutes later he comes back and says "Mam there are no supervisors available at this time." I asked him what happened to the one standing behind you and he says, "Oh yeah, I did tell you that didn't I?" I advised him yes and please put him/her or some supervisor on the phone. He laughs and places me on hold until around 6:45. Or at least he thought he did. I could hear him laughing and talking the whole time. He eventually transferred me to a lady who answered and said, "Thanks you for call Alltel (No these are not typos) my name is Ann how I help you?" I say yes mam, she cuts me off starts yelling in another language and hangs up. Oh my God, I am a little more than furious right now.
My husband decides he will call. I also call on my phone. We both wait. We refuse to be transferred. The agents must have been side by side because we could hear them one another's conversations. His guy finally got a supervisor named Simone who was the sweetest person and I explained again! This horrible situation. She apologized and researched the series of #s my bank gave me and turned up nothing. No phone #, no confirmation #, finally at 8PM she asked me to try calling my bank on 3-way. I did so successfully this time, and they could only give her the same info I already had. It did absolutely no good. I gave her my debit # and she pulled up all transactions. For some reason she could not delete it from there? What? This is crazy. She said they do not have the authorization to just delete something. She said she does not know how "Jacey" could have done that because there are no notes and no account to put them on. She told me it has to go thru the fraud department. She tried to transfer me and they were closed. She apologized profusely and gave me the fraud dept # and advised me to call at 8AM my time because it is the one nearest my location in the same time zone. I thanked her for not disconnecting my call and actually helping me. It was 8:30 PM... My only day off in 7 days... A Sunday...
Today 7:30AM... I get up early and check my bank account. Transaction still pending. I call Alltel customer service on MY account and advise them my account is blocked and the payment I set up 2 weeks ago to come out this past Friday for MY REAL CONTRACT ACCOUNT has not yet debited and is not pending so it may not go thru. They lady advises me my services may be disconnected. I advise her of everything from last night.instead of telling me she cannot help me in the beginning she lets me go on and on for 30 minutes. When I am finished she tells me she cannot help me I need financial services. With a huge migraine I tell her, "No they cannot help me." She said yes they can. You have to call and tell them this on your personal account, but they do not open until 7AM. I advised her it is 8am. She tells me it is by my time but they do not open for 3 more hours. End of that call...
I call the fraud # I was given immediately. I get a voicemail message for an associate that says he will be out of the office for a week to try his mobile. I try his mobile, no answer. I call the original #. Same message. Dead end...
I call customer service. After 20 minutes of fighting to get a supervisor "Steven" on the phone I am told by the supervisor that he cannot give me a direct fraud dept # because they do not have access to that and they do not accept direct calls from the public anyway. He then tries to transfer me to them. He comes back and says they are not answering to call back later. I advise him to try again that I do not have "later" I have to go to work. He does so and same result. He then advises me I am not calling the right department anyway and transfers me to financial services before I can say anything.
This financial services associate says "Mam this here is the fraud dept # I am going to give you. I don't know why he didn't give it to you, and they do accept calls from the public." She then transfers me. During this time I though nothing of it not even being 7AM "Mountain time". And whoa, what do you know someone is answering in Financial Services. Could have handled one problem right there.
The gentleman from the fraud department advises me I have called the wrong fraud # because he is not in NC. He gives me the correct # and tells me they cannot do anything without a police report anyway. What? This is the first I have heard of filing a police report. He proceeds to speak to me in a demeaning tone, you know, like I am slow. He tells me that all of the information I have been given is incorrect. I ask him if he can pull up all transactions processed thru Alltel using my debit card. He advises me yes and requested my card #. I gave it to him and he says he sees the charge. I ask if he can give me a confirmation # or account # or phone # or something. He says no. I tell him I need the confirmation # because it was authorized on my card. He refuses to give me the information. He says he has to protect his client's information. What? I am your client. I just want the measly confirmation # used on my debit card. He advised me it has to be court ordered for that information to be released. He said to call the other fraud # because he doesn't have time to talk to someone that is not in his area. Okay, what just happened? I was nice.
I call the Sherriff's Dept and wait an hour and a half for an officer to come out. He takes my info and advises me it will be a week or so before a financial crimes investigator gets my case and will be in contact.
I call customer service back to be rerouted to financial services. I get the same guy from before that "said" he was a supervisor "Steven". Why is a supervisor answering customer service calls if they can never be found? Anyway, he transfers me to Financial Services after telling me "Oh yeah I remember you" after I went through the story AGAIN.
Financial Services advises me my service may be disconnected since my bank account is blocked due to the fraudulent activity. If they receive a returned payment it will be disconnected regardless of the situation. Thanks lady please notate my account! You have a great day too!
I then call the most recent fraud # I was given. The gentleman was very nice and the conversation lasted all of 2 minutes. He asked the nature of my call. I advised him my debit card was fraudulently used to pay on a prepaid account and I have no clue as to who it belongs to. He asked if a family member has ever used my card for this or if I had voluntarily had done so. I advised him no I do not even know anyone with a prepaid Alltel phone. He said, Oh, because all we can do is reverse payments to an account that had been accidentally debited because of information stored in the system previously. He advised me everything has to be done through my bank to call them with my police report and that Alltel can do nothing and refused to give me any information regarding the posted payment. Personal Opinion: What in the world do you need your fraud department for? Fraudulent activity means you have no knowledge of the transaction. Not just reversals for agent mistakes.
I am at a loss for words. Yes, I can dispute this with my bank. Yes, the police can investigate. NO ALLTEL IS NOT ON THE SAME PAGE AS A WHOLE.
I work for the bank my accounts are with. If this would have put me in the negative I could have lost my job. It is against the code of ethics. I work in collections and I talk to clients every single day, all day long. If you do not know what you are talking about, you find out the proper course of action and you do not just send a client on to the next person because you don't want to take the time to help them. You take care of them and help find a solution. And you NEVER deny someone to speak with a supervisor or you are putting your job on the line. Yes, you do your all to help the client to avoid getting a supervisor, but you never mock a client or just hang up. This is ridiculous and I am disgusted. I had to take a day off just to handle this bull. I hate Alltel. Yes, I know we have to wait out our contract we just renewed. Otherwise Alltel will win and we will have to pay over $800 to end our contracts early and pay for a new contract elsewhere. I am fully aware Alltel did not steal my identity, but they did nothing to help me gain it back or feel like a valued client.
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