Back in February, we ran Sam C’s complaint about a T-Mobile price increase for text messages, raising it from five cents to ten cents per message. On the page detailing the change a footnote remarked how long the “discounted” price would remain in effect. Our complainant compared it to the novel 1984, wherein, “Winston notes that people had demonstrated to thank Big Brother because their chocolate ration had been increased to 20 grams. (when it had actually be reduced to 20 from 30).”
phones
Fight The Power! Email Your Verizon Ringtone To Yourself.
By 5.1.06
Now that Verizon has defined the list of prohibited ring tone terms for their network, everyone who wants a ringtone of someone screaming “Sit on my face with your teabagging ruby red bag!” is going to have to learn to make their own. Jamster can no longer supply.
Verizon Porks Leaving Customer One Last Time
By 3.31.06
It isn’t so much the incompetence, the obfuscation, the confusing pricing plans, the high prices for absolutely base minimum support. Those things annoy us here at the Consumerist, but at this point we’re almost stoically resigned to them as immutable physical laws. No, what really elicits the wailing and gnashing of teeth here is just how easy it would be for most companies to do the right thing and just how rarely they ever do.
Canadians Don’t Know What ‘Sex’ Means
By 2.15.06
According to a recent poll of 3,000 students, Canadians are much more pathetic than previously suspected:
Consumers Speak (Update: Again): Sprint Cancels Previously Happy Customer
By 2.6.06
Update: Good lord, it’s our first dupe. We’re going to leave it up here for posterity’s sake, but our apologies. Got our email inboxes crossed.
T-Mobile Hikes SMS Price, Calls Old Price ‘Discounted’
By 2.1.06
Sam C. writes in with this heads-up for T-Mobile subscribers, especially those that use a lot of SMS:
Here’s a bit of marketing-speak for you.
Consumers Speak: Paying Twice for One Phone Number
By 1.30.06
Fun with number portability! You read Robert N’s and offer any advice, if you can. Our take? Sounds like he needs to escalate the issue with Earthlink. We don’t see how they can refuse to turn off his service if we requests it.
I have a story I would like to share regarding local number portability, and would like to solicit advice regarding an apparent black-hole for customer service:
Video Advertisements Coming to a Phone Near You
By 1.17.06
It looks like the relative ad-free environment of your cell phone is about to be populated with advertisments, reports The Times. Verizon and Sprint are said to be testing “short” video ads on their services in March.
Sprint Canada’s Free Service Worth Every Penny
By 1.13.06
Joe M. writes:
Sprint Canada provides the toll-free service for the company I work for and has been for as long as I can remember. As a value-added service, they provide flexible call routing features which they call “Time of Day” and “Day of Year”, which allow us to vary the terminating number depending on the date and time. We use this to roll the toll-free number over to a cell-phone that alternates between our service staff, and it is handy for holidays.
Sprint Asks for $25 to Help Parents Track Lost Child
By 1.12.06
Make no mistake: We think that Sprint refusing to help freaked out parents locate their carjacked baby is awful. Whether Sprint’s policy states that customers need to pay a $25 fee to subpoena the information or not, an exception should probably have been made. (Sprint has stated that emergency procedure was not followed.)
Thomas Hawk Chased Away from Cingular’s 3G Service
By 1.9.06
Thomas Hawk, he of a PriceRitePhoto scandal fame and G.I. Joe name (lucky bastard), details his attempt to sign up with Cingular Wireless’s 3G Laptop Connect service. He’s already an AT&T Wireless customer—now part of Cingular—but the Cingular rep insisted that he ‘switch’ to Cingular so he could use the 3G service. Thomas seems a little baffled by this, but having put in our times in the phone trenches, we can almost certainly say that the rep would have gotten a ‘sale’ on her account had she convinced Mr. Hawk to switch his service.
Using a Credit Card to Fight Sprint
By 1.9.06
We have an unfortunate/fortunate lack of credit cards, so we are not able to take advantage of the protection services afford customers from credit card providers. Ramit “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” Sethi had been struggling with Sprint for quite some time, and despite reaching a supposed resolution, he was still charged a fee for his early cancellation—despite the fact he did not have a contract.
For That Ads: Kate Moss Back for Virgin Mobile
By 12.21.05
Lady Kate ‘Coco’ Moss is back on the spokesmodel tip, with this new spot for Virgin Mobile.
Free 411 for a Short Ad
By 12.19.05
Here’s a quick tip that’s worth the trouble, we think: 1-800-FREE-411 (373-3411) is a totally free directly service. How do they make money?
The way it works in practice is that a caller who requests a business number is first presented with a short (about 12 seconds) audio advertisement for a sponsor who operates a competing business in that area; the caller is then given the option of being connected to either that competitor or the business he originally requested. If no sponsor operates a local competing business, then the caller hears no advertisement at all.
So you’ll wait a hair longer than you would with your phone company’s directory service, but we think 10-to-15 seconds of easily-ignored ads are worth the $2 or more charge you’ll often receive.
