My wife and I have been on the Cingular network for over 5 years until recently, and painful it has been. Originally both our phones were part of a group package awarded to Cingular by our firm. One of the many promises Cingular made in order to win this large contract was that ALL calls received on any of these cell phones would be *Free Incoming*. That promise got them the contract.
Cingular made the promise that, "As long as these accounts remained with Cingular, this Free Incoming feature would continue for anyone that remained a Cingular customer... Even if our firm went out of business".
Well, our firm DID eventually scale down to a dozen employees from over 200, and ultimately we did not survive the 5th and 6th round of layoffs. And then in a very predictive way, the Free Incoming was becoming Free less and less. Month by month, our billing on both phones began to reflect that we were being charged for this supposed Free Incoming. This billing error required that I contact customer service to correct the mistake with calls to their customer service. These "correction sessions" would normally last 30 minutes to over an hour, not including the long periods of time being placed on hold.
The overcharges were almost always straightened out, and a Cingular associate would conclude the call by saying "Sorry for the problem". However, some of these "correction sessions" were never entered into the log by the Cingular associate, and the credits were never applied as promised. This would result in a *double mess* the following month, then having to correct two consecutive months worth of the same overcharge. The monthly overcharges ranged anywhere from $100-$200 dollars for both phones.
It was becoming blantantly obvious that Cingular had grown tired of maintaining their promise, and they were doing whatever they needed to do in order to *kill* the Free Incoming feature on any phone from this group account... Even if it meant intentional repeated billing errors in order to achieve their goal.
CONCLUSION: After 5 years of billing mistakes and poor service, Cingular finally got tired of crediting our accounts for their regular monthly billing errors... And so the "Dropped the Bomb" on us! Both accounts went haywire and resulted in overcharges so excessive in nature that "AN OFFIVCIAL INVESTIGATION" would have to be conducted. One phone bill was over $1,250 when it should have been no more than $300.
That phone was cutoff in the middle of the investigation... And when the next bill arrived it was over $3000. The other phone has a similar story. I was strongarmed into paying one account in excess of $600 what the amount really was... Just to keep it off my credit report. However, while I was mired up in negotiations over the $3000 that should have been $300... They reported the other phone to our credit report. I am now begging Cingular to delete it from the credit report and I'll just pay them whatever they want!
They win! I lose... Bigtime
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