The day I was robbed I was taken to the police station by the police to do a police report and look at some pictures.  While at the station I called my mom and I had asked her to call 611 on her Cingular phone and suspend my line since her phone is under my contract. So she does it.

Later that night when I got to my place I call Cingular from my home phone and ask them what phone could I get and if I could upgrade early since my contract was 2 months away from being up for renewal, in fact it was more like 1 month 20 days.

Anywy the guy tells me the cheapest phone Cingular can get me is 140 dollars and that I could not upgrade early as Cingular doesn’t allow for it anymore. I asked to speak to a supervisor and I was told by this CS agent that the supervisor could not do anything and I’d basically be wasting my time.

The conversation we were having was polite so I took what the dude said as the truth and since I was just robbed I guess I was a bit gullible since I just had a gun barrel in my face.

So I go to a Cingular store after speaking with my friend Indi who I must ad is the bestest (I know, it’s not word but I don’t care) person in the whole wide world, she suggested I go to the Cingular store and I did. They basically told me that they can upgrade as long as I call customer service and get them to OK the early upgrade.

I call Cingular again and I am basically told they don’t allow early upgrades but this time the cheapest phone was 100.

I was looking forward to upgrading my phone because I wanted to Purchase the Samsung BlackJack and add a data plan to my account but no the only option I had was to buy a cheap crappy phone for 100 dollars that a new contract could get me for free.

Anyway I ask about getting a new sim card and I was told I can get one for free at a Cingular store that it was noted in my account. So two days later I go to the Cingular Store on Broadway and 55th street around there or was it 25th street I forget, and I go to pick up the sim card, The dude says 27 dollars, I said “yo they told me on the phone that I can get it free”. The guy says that he sees that note in the account but they aren’t allowed to give free sim cards anymore. So instead of making a big deal of it as I was running late for a meeting I paid the 27 dollars and put the chip in my temporary phone that I got from my mom.

So a week and a half passed and I call Cingular again and asked about upgrading early, again shot down even though my renewal date was getting closer and closer. The cheapest they would give me the blackjack was 299 after MIR, so I asked how much it would cost to cancel my service. The girl immediately said 175, I said why so much and she said that was Cingular’s new policy effective Feb 1st 2006, I said but my contracts from November 2005, I read my contract and it said each month my ETF would go lower and lower and I read that to her. She said ohh my mistake you just have to pay 10 dollars per each month that remains on my contract. She calculated to 80 dollars.

So I start to calculate how much everything would cost, if keep the crappy phone I am using now and wait 2 months or buy the blackjack early for 299. Then I asked myself what if I switch to t-mobile. I can get the T-mobile dash for 199 after MIR plus 80 dollars to cancel Cingular. That’s 20 dollars less than buying a black jack a month early from Cingular. I then decided to figure out how much my service would be with Cingular if I got the blackjack and added a data plan, and how much my service would be with T-mobile if I got a dash and a data plan. T-mobile was 93 dollars before tax, Cingular 142 before tax. I said hmm but I have two phones with Cingular and just one with T-mobile, but then I figured if I put the remaining phone on the cheapest Cingular plan I would still be paying 20 dollars less with T-mobile and Cingular than with just Cingular alone. So I made the switch. I also get more with T-mobile, for 15.00 I get unlimited MMS and Text with Cingular I only got 1000 txt and 1000 MMS and 5MB of data. I’d need to pay 30 bucks for 3000 text with Cingular. (I have used over 5000 text with T-Mobile so far)

So the day I switch to T-mobile they actually gave me a deal in the store after they heard about my story, girl knocked the price down 50 bucks so my Dash, it came out to 149 after MIR and they had a customer appreciation day when I went, got cool little gift from them. I ported my number over and they told me it will take 3 days.

I swear on my life 15 minutes after leaving the T-mobile store and about 2 minutes after I walk into my house my home phone rings, it’s CINGULAR. They read my dilemma on their customer forums and wanted to apologize was going to allow me to upgrade early and even give me a better deal on the phone, but I told the guy I just ported to t-mobile that they should of literally gotten at me 15 minutes earlier. But the guy was cool said he apologized and said that from the first rep to the guy in the store handled my situation incorrectly, and to show they had no hard feelings they credited 30 dollars to my account to credit me for the sim card I bought.

If Cingular would had let me upgrade early by 2 months I would still be a Cingular customer paying 150 a month, instead I am a t-mobile customer. When my 2nd line contract expires in Feb 2007, it too will move over to T-mobile.

Moral of the story for Cingular (at&t;) is treat your customers right and even if you’re over priced they will remain with you.

I selected a company store since
1) the website was not forthcoming on upgrades, and
2) the drones at the phone center either did not know what the fuck Windows Mobile 6 was, or were imbeciles. Me, I’m leaning towards Cingular hiring imbeciles, but that is another story.

First off, it took about 15 minutes to get a drone to hover up to me.

I asked for Windows Mobile 6 upgrades, and his eyes glassed over. So much so that my 4-year old son who was with me gripped my hand in fright.

Are you OK, and have you ever heard of Windows Mobile 6, I asked? “Yes and no”, to the questions the drone answered, “Let me ask a manager to talk to you.”

Good, I thought, now I’m getting somewhere. Boy, was I in for a shock!

The management drone came out, and by his first words, I could tell that he totally exemplified The Peter Principle*.

He proceeded to tell me that Cingular didn’t have any released devices that used Windows Mobile 6 (true), Windows Mobile 6 was only announced (a lie), it would not be ready before the end of the year (another lie), and it was full of bugs, so AT&T;was testing it to remove bugs (a whopper of a lie).

You know I couldn’t take it lying down!

I proceeded to correct him.

I also informed him that not only was WM6 out but I had it on my Cingular account.

He started to stammer something about that not being true, so I whipped out my T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur), and showed him it was on the Cingular network.

When I admonished him for telling lies about a product they did not carry, the drone answered weakly that it was what he was told.

Imagine that!

*The Peter Principle: In every hierarchy, every individual tends to rise to his level of incompetency, and stays there.

We spoke with two seperate CS reps who confirm that this does indeed work.

Read our blog entry to find out how.
http://www.cellrants.com/site/comments/how_to_get_free_ringtones_from_att_cingular/

Have you guys seen the Cingular (at&t;) commercial about the girl who text too much?

You know the one that says she’s texting her BFF Jill?

Well at the end of the comical it says “Add unlimited texting to your plan for an extra 5 dollars a month.”

I recorded the commercial to look for fine print and there is none that says the Unlimited Texting is m2m. Meaning you only get unlimited texting to Cingular customers.

If this isn’t false advertising I do not know what is. So I asked myself, hmm do they tell the customer that orders this supposed “Unlimited Texting plan” that it is just unlimited texting within the Cingular network?

So I called Cingular Customer service and I said I want to add the Unlimited texting plan to my account. Guess what they never mentioned it’s just for texting to Cingular customers.

So beware the Unlimited Texting Plan from Cingular is just for Text sent and received from within the Cingular network.

At least on the Cingular at&t;website it does say Unlimited m2m messaging.

UNLIMITED Mobile to Mobile (M2M) Messaging - Unlimited text, picture & video messages:
Now AT&T;wireless subscribers can exchange unlimited text, picture and video messages! No more bill surprises! Instant Messages, alerts, off-network, premium messages, and messages to/from non-AT&T;customers will be deducted from your texting plans allowance.

If you are with Cingular and you want close to Unlimited Text messaging, you’d have to spend at least 25 - 30 dollars a month and even then you won’t have that many off network text messages available.