I went to the Alltel store (located on Two Notch Drive in Northeast Columbia, SC) in Nov '01 to purchase new cell service. My husband and I were both active duty military and I asked my salesman, Shawn, if Alltel had a policy of releasing service members from their contracts if they received orders to move away from the service area. We had previously had to provide copies of military orders to another company to avoid cancellation charges when moving out of their coverage area. Shawn assured me that this was common to all cell companies in the area.
In July 03 (4 month before completion of the contract), my husband recieved orders to Greece. Knowing that Alltel did not service the place we were moving, I hand-carried a copy of the military orders to the same store where the phones were purchased. I gave the orders and my forwarding address to the representative at Alltel and requested that my service be disconnected as of early August.
In October 03, I received a bill from Alltel for $555.61. This bill was not itemized, however, I knew I had not run up the bill nearly that much. I immediately e-mailed Alltel to find out why the bill was so high.
Within a couple of days, I received a response from J Dryer in customer service saying that the issue was being researched and that I would be contacted soon. Two days later, I received an email saying that because I had now contacted Alltel again, the matter was considered to be resolved. That was the last email response I received dispite numerous attempts at resolution.
My next step was to call Alltel from Greece. After waiting in the eternal que, I spoke to Mike who informed me that I had been charged cancellation fees. He said Alltel had changed their policy because of all of the soldiers being deployed. Rather than releasing soldiers from their contracts, service was to be suspended until the soldier returned from deployment. I told him that was not the case when I purchased the phones and therefore I should not accountable. Then Mike hung up the phone on me.
I called back and managed to reach Kathy Winchell, a supervisor, who agreed that I should not be responsible for the charges. She told me to fax a copy of the orders and she would have the charges removed. My husband faxed the orders, received a confirmation, and then called Ms. Winchell to ensure that the orders were received. We thought that everything would be cleared. We were wrong.
In Jan 04, my family returned to the U.S. We went to purchase a home in Arizona and when our credit report was checked, we found that Alltel showed as a delinquency. After calling around for a few days, I reached Jerry, who claimed to be some sort of vice-president in Phoenix. He told me that he could no longer find an itemized list of the charges, but if we would pay $70, that would cover any outstanding phone charges and he would send a letter to the credit reporting agencies to let them know the debt had been resolved and that, in fact, a billing error had been made. He said that this process would take 30 days.
Six weeks later, I re-checked the credit report. The account was showing as being charged off. When I tried to call "Jerry" again, all I could ever reach was voice mail and I have yet to have a call returned. Now, the phone number belongs to someone else.
This past December, my husban attempted to call to resolve the situation. He reached William, who apologized and told him that he would have everything taken care of (again, in 30 days). He gave a number for his supervisor, Gregory Gardner if anything should go wrong. It is now Febuary 18th and of course, Gregory Gardner does not return phone calls either.
Dealing with Alltel has been one of the most miserable business experiences of my life. It is appalling to know that companies can go back on their word, ruin a person's good name, and not be accountable for it. What can you do?
Alisha
Sierra Vista, Arizona
U.S.A.
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