Cingular pre-paid is USELESS
 

I bought a Cingular prepaid sim yesterday to prevent my $4 roaming charges on my dutch sim, after a load of calls I was ready to reload the credit:

Their "automated customer service line" was down

Their alternative credit card system didn't recognize my number

Their "live customer service" line's rep couldn't recharge the number because it would take 48 hours for it to appear in their system

Their myprepaidrefill site didn't allow numbers from my area code to get refilled

So... I now need to go to a cingular store and get a topup card, I think not... They can take the whole card back, what a useless service, I hope Voicetreams prepaid sim is a bit better...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sounds like their service hasn't improved since one weekend in February, 2001:

Their "automatic billing" system was broken for the 4th month in a row.
Their phone payment system was down.
Their website was down.
A customer service rep could not take payment.
A billing rep could not take payment.
The cingular store would not process my payment for 2-3 business days (since all they do is mail the payments into HQ).

I did the next best thing; drove down the street to AT&T and signed up. Best decision I ever made.

Sad as hell that T-Mobile can get their online stuff working without any problems when they launched CA/NV EVEN after merging the non CA/NV customers (voicestream) into their web front end.

From the last time I looked at my Cingular account online, I couldn't make a payment online nor were the rates listed matching anything close to what in-store locations were selling.

FWIW pre-paid mobile services in the U.S. are all pretty much useless. I do not think that T-mobile will be any better, although they do have one of the higher pre-paid subscriber bases, as a percentage of their total number of sunscribers. The percentage of pre-paid subscribers is much lower here in the U.S., and the services have been targeted mostly at high credit risk customers. In most of the rest of the GSM world pre-paid services are fantastic.

Just noticed this Virgin Prepaid Mobile thing...is this suppose to be good?

My friend needs a cell phone but she won't be here for the whole year.

I looked into their website...though they did not say who they are owned by...i think Virgin records?

It operates on Sprint's PCS network. 'Nuff said??

Oh, and Scottsea... CINGULAR here in Texas and in the Southeast is very good... Cingular on the West and East coasts SUCCCCCCCCKS! T-mobile is fair, but they're at least consistent.

haha, sounds like you are not a fan of SprintPCS!. I use SprintPCS...eventhough they suck bad at times...but there is value... compared with ATTwireless, i go with Sprint anyday.

http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...um/biggrin.gif I used to work for Cingular and I would hear this all day long.