Cingular Users - Check your Wireless Bill
 

So I get a shut off notice in the mail for my Cingular phone (formerly AT&T) today. Makes no sense, there is no way i owe them $341, that's like seven months, and I paid it last month.

Go look at the bill, and on May first, at lunch time, there are two calls. One to my house for 6 hours and one minute, and at the same time one to my office for six hours and four minutes. Half of the first one put me over the minutes for the billing period, so on that bill there were $237.43 in extra charges.

I call, and I'm batted around like a tennis ball. Over an hour later I've been told the calls are legitimate. I try explaining I can't make a six hour call with my phone, the battery doesn't last that long. I'm told it will if it's charged, or if I have it plugged in. I explain to them I use a desk charger, and I'm not going to call my desk from my desk for six hours, and if I was calling home the answering machine would hang up after 5 minutes.

I'm told I'm lying, they will credit me $100. Back and forth. Off to a supervisor, to tell me I'm lying, I did in fact make both calls (never mind there were other calls within the next six hours, and I can't make four calls at once to the same number, I don't even have call waiting at home, all I would get is a busy signal).

Off to customer service, who again tells me I'm lying.

I've never gone over my minutes. I've never had any call over ten minutes. all of a sudden I take to six hour calls to an empty house? I'm told I can accept the measly credit they are offering, or pay it in full. We are still over $100 different in where I think the bill should be and where they think it should be.

I insist to speak to somebody else, and I'm bounced to the resolution department. I'm thinking, that's getting someplace, they resolve things. We start off the same way because before they transfer you they make you wait five minutes and tell the next person that you are a liar and to screw you over good. I get on the phone with them, and they go off for a few minutes and come back all appologetic. Apparently, on May 1, there was a billing issue from within my calling area (would have been manhattan) and many people were billed for six hour calls that they didn't make.

They will issue me a credit. For how much? We don't know it will be on your next bill. Will it stop the shut off? Sure, ignore that don't worry about it.

I call the shut off people in the Receivables Managment area, and I'm told no, it won't stop the shut off, that the customer service side says that just to get you to hang up, I have to file a dispute with them too, and I'll get another ten days for the credits to come through. And no, you can't do that tonight, our system is down, so can you call back tomorrow?

So check your bills if you were in the area for that day, you don't want 12 hours of calls at 45 cents per minute.

Mike,

Sorry to hear of your problems with Cingular. I'm not a Cingular customer and I've encountered situations like this with other service providers, including airlines! Anyway, if I were you, I'd stop fooling around with Cingular customer service and call or e-mail an executive in charge there. I'll bet your service will be restored pronto.

IIRC, your phone will have its own internal call timer. Perhaps you could compare it to the amount of time you have had billed since you got the phone from AT&T/Cingular?

(Assuming you have all those bills or can obtain them).

I would be lodging complaints with the FCC/FTC and local BBBs. Not only have the overcharged you, but they watsed your time, called you a liar, and put the onus on you to avert cut-off instead of assuring of it themselves. My view always is that the company's internal workings are not of my concern - I am a customer, they have done me wrong, they need to fix it - it's not up to me to navigate their corporate structure to resolve the matter.

If not, that's what LNP is for :D

Why not also cc: your state's Public Utilities Board...if your state still has one with any bollocks, that is.

I had a $200 dispute with Verizon. They turned it over to a credit agency. The credit agency called, and said"pay the $200 or we'll ruin your credit"

At least in the state of maryland, there are essentially no regulations governing telephone companies, and no enforcement.

When we got our ATT(now cingular) we were apparently load up with promo freebees, none of which we knew we had, or used. They expired after 90 days, and ran for 6 months before I noticed them(looking at another problem). The total of these extras was about $40 a month for the two phones.

My business cell on Cingular/ATT showed 2 calls at the exact same time for about 5 hours total to a Memphis phone number that I did not make. This was early May. Was told through our account manager that was a billing error and we are getting the credit.

I'm still fighting with them, I'm looking to the BBB, FTC (which accepted the complaint) and other agencies. I don't expect any real resolution from them, cellular isn't a regulated utility, but an getting a response for the billing fraud issue, which apparently, unknown to Cingular, is against the law.

I have canceled the phone, they immediatly turned the account over to collection, and have already made threats against my credit, again illegal. It's actually fun to call them or e-mail them, it's not getting resolved, but ties them up for a while.

Yeah, I had a $800-worth dispute with them over data usage and overages. And, that was just between me and my wife. They said I used like 700mb of data and a lot of minutes over my plan. They also turned it over to collections and we are still in battle. But, I don't think they care, because I got the best fico score around (850, baby!). I'm also in a dispute with MCI right now over a $300 bill with internet, local, and long distance charges even though I canceled 5 months ago and they're still billing me. I don't even have a landline anymore, and Sprint is charging me $4.93 each month for "Long Distance Services"! LOL!
Now, my wife and I are with Nextel and the kids are with Verizon and we're loving it! HAHA Cingular!

-Chris