cellphones
Dear T-Mobile: Please Stop Sending 5 Text Messages At 5 AM Every Month To Say That My Billing Cycle Has Started
By 4.11.08
Sprint Forces You To Pay $988.00 For A Phone You Never Used
By 4.10.08
Here’s a sad story from reader Kristin:
By 4.4.08
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2,600 Motorola employees got an early termination notice today, bringing the total number of Motoworkers disemployed in the past 15 months to 10,000. [Chicago Tribune via DSLReports]
At Sprint, Nothing's SIMple
By 4.2.08
Allison and her husband wanted to reduce the amount of minutes they’re signed up for on their Sprint-Nextel cellphone plan. While that was a hassle in of itself and Allison ended up getting a phone with another company, the fun really begins once “”Insert SIM” started flashing on her husband’s phone (which is on the Nextel network, which uses SIM cards). Sprint seemed convinced that the SIM card had been reported as lost or stolen and couldn’t be activated. This was very bad as it was her husband’s business line. What followed were a series of 45+ minute call time waits, disconnected customer service calls, fruitless visits to the store, conflicting and confusing information given by different customer service reps and tech support personnel. During the fracas, her husband lost one customer who hadn’t been able to reach him during the outage. Over 100 days into the reign of new Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and shennanigans like the following story are still happening. Oh Danny-boy, are one of the “nukes” you have planned for revamping Sprint aimed at customer service?
AT&T Introduces Pro-Rated Termination Fees
By 4.1.08
It’s finally official: as of May 25th, AT&T will join the ranks of the pro-rating carrier crowd (which so far just includes Verizon) and start reducing their early termination fees (ETFs) by $5 per month on both one and two-year contracts. This only applies to new customers and those renewing contracts on or after May 25th, so if you can, try to hold off on entering into a contract with AT&T for the next two months. What up, Sprint and T-Mobile? Why is it taking so long for you to pro-rate your ETFs? We guess you’re too busy going out of business and suing creation, respectively.
T-Mobile C And D's Blog For Using Magenta
By 3.31.08
Citing trademark infringement concern, T-mobile is demanding that gadget blog site Engadget Mobile stop using magenta in its logo. In a letter posted sent to Engadget, T-Mobile pronounced, “Based on the different character of the goods and services offered by the Deusche Telekom Group and Weblogs, we assume that it is in the best interest of both of our entities to ensure that the particular services can be clearly separated and that consumers are not confused…” And it’s not an early April Fool’s joke, they say. It’s not totally unreasonable, there is precedent for this sort of thing. Like the time T-Mobile sued a small a book-on-demand-publisher for having magenta in its logo.
Former Sprint CSR Tells All
By 3.31.08
A man who worked on the front line of Sprint’s customer service department sent us some dirt on what goes on over there, including officially designated fake supervisors, obnoxious personal notes left in your account from your last call, and credit quotas of about $2.50 per call. “I was once punished by a Supervisor and written up because I was giving too many courtesy credits. Apparently Sprint doesn’t feel that being transferred 7 times and then hung up on is worth $10 in return.”
This Sprint Plan Lets You Talk For 1.9 Years Per Month. What?
By 3.29.08
BG’s Sprint plan lets him talk for 1,000,499 minutes per month and only costs $50. How did he find this stupefyingly amazing plan? Hit the jump for his story.
Lawsuit Says Verizon's Text Message TV Show Contests Are "Illegal Gambling"
By 3.29.08
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against Verizon and several third-party companies, alleging that they promoted illegal gambling by enticing customers to pay to enter contests in which there was an “infinitesimally” small chance of winning, reports RCRWireless. “The suit centers on 99-cent charges levied on wireless consumers who played contests associated with popular TV shows like ‘Deal or No Deal’ and ‘Sole Survivor.'” The plaintiffs claim that the contests were less promotional sweepstakes than “illegal lotteries designed to generate revenues far in excess of the value of the cash awarded.”
AT&T Won't Sell Man GoPhone Because It Can't Verify His Credit History
By 3.29.08
Nathan’s been having trouble this week buying a prepaid GoPhone from AT&T Mobility’s website. He finally found out the reason: they couldn’t verify his credit history. This is confusing because it’s a prepaid GoPhone and because his credit history is superb. “Cheryl refused to transfer me.
Citigroup Developing Citi-Branded Phone That Can Make Contactless Payments
By 3.28.08
Do you wish you had a way to spend your money more easily, without all that opening-the-wallet or punching-the-pin-number manual labor? The trade publication Cards & Payments (registration required) says that it’s received a copy of a report filed with the FCC that indicates Citigroup is developing a Near Field Communication, or NFC, mobile phone that would allow its customers to make contactless payments at participating retailers.
Reach Helio Executives
By 3.25.08
Cellphone provider Helio’s business line is 310-445-7000. Press 4 to reach the company directory and then you can pull up all sorts of people, like the executives found on this page. Good for when Helio’s underwhelming and outsourced customer service droids fail.
Verizon Clerk Threatens Customers With Switchblade
By 3.24.08
A Verizon store employee in Monticello New York was charged with criminal possession of a weapon after threatening two customers with a switchblade knife after getting into an argument with them. The disagreement spilled out into the parking lot where the 27-year old employee, Shereem S. Burch, continued to wave his blade at the couple. Most likely they were probably trying to get out of contract without paying termination fee and Shereem decided to take matters into his own hands and exact a little termination fee of his own devising.
Save Your Cellphone Battery
By 3.24.08
If you lose your charger or are in a situation where you’re away from an outlet, you might want to use some of these tricks to reduce your battery drain:
9 Confessions Of A Retentions Representative
By 3.16.08
Retentions representatives are the cellphone company’s last line of defense between you and freedom. One brave retentions representative has come forward to teach us how to craft a direct, earnest request that will lead retention reps to do your bidding. Rivaled in effectiveness only by executive customer support, retentions reps are empowered to strike down nuisance fees and bargain liberally, all to keep you as a customer. If you were ever tempted to threaten your cellphone company with cancellation, this one is a must read.
Email Addresses For Sprint's Board Of Directors
By 3.14.08
Here are working email addresses for the Sprint board of directors. Should the special phone line Sprint set up for Consumerist readers (703-433-4401) somehow fail to work out or someday cease working, these represent yet a higher level to which you could escalate a long-standing complaint. We hear you can also use these addresses to submit hostile takeover bids.
Follow Up: AT&T Says There's No Activation Fee For GoPhones
By 3.14.08
Earlier this week we posted an email from a man who said an AT&T salesman tried to charge him an “activation fee” to switch his daughter’s already-active SIM card to a GoPhone. We got a lot of useful (if sometimes contradictory) advice from readers in the comments section, and now an AT&T spokesman has written in with an official statement about it.
Man Escapes Verizon ETF Via EECB
By 3.13.08
Talyor was able to leave his Verizon contract without paying an early termination fee by launching an executive email carpet bomb loaded with a polite email. In it, he says that customer service reps have refused to transfer him to a supervisor and now he needs some help. In the ensuing email exchange with the executive customer service rep who helps him, he tells her how he wants to leave because of the raise in text message rates. Frequent readers of The Consumerist will remember that when a cellphone company raises its text message rates, it’s a material change to the contract, meaning that the original contract is void and the other party can walk away from the contract without penalty. Taylor wins because he’s polite, professional, persistent, and acts like he’s conducting a business transactions, which is exactly what he’s doing. Read his blow by blow exchange, inside…
