The days of hoarding over your cellphone minutes like Ebenezer Scrooge over pieces of coal could be over if Sprint follows through with a plan to offer a flat-rate, unlimited voice call plan. It’s but one “nuke” in the new CEO’s brain arsenal of tricks designed to disrupt the industry and regain market share for the beleaguered cellphone service. “If we can’t be different, we can’t win,” says CEO Dan Hesse.
telephony
By 2.9.08
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A ‘computer glitch’ has left 740,000 Verizon customers in California without access to their voicemail for the past two days. Messages left for affected customers after February 4 are gone forever. [Bloomberg]
Time Warner's Hilarious Verizon FiOS Attack Ad
By 2.8.08
Competition brings out the best in employees, friends, and companies, as demonstrated brilliantly in Time Warner’s attack ad against Verizon FiOS. The scenario is that a cocksure suburban dude is interrupted making a bowl of fiber cereal by the doorbell.
AT&T Reps Don't Know Own ETF Policy
By 2.8.08
8 out of 12 AT&T customer service reps don’t know their company’s own early Early Termination Fee (ETF) policy. Consumers Union, publishers of Consumer Reports, called up AT&T to inquire about the policy and got several different answers. Some said that the ETF was halved after the first year of contract, while others said it went down each month. In fact, while AT&T has talked about switching to a pro-rated ETF, they haven’t yet. Whether you cancel service 1 month into or one month before the end of contract, it will cost you $175. Consumers Union called the other major cellphone providers too, and they gave out the right information. Couple this news and the story yesterday about reps giving out wrong information about upgrading to a new iPhone locking you into a new two-year contract, and it plum looks like AT&T has a serious front-line rep training problem.
ISP's Sneaky Fees
By 2.6.08
“ISPs create tangled Web of sneaky fees: Companies use hidden charges to generate revenue in competitive industry” is an excerpt Bob Sullivan has published from his new book Gotcha Capitalism. For example, in 2006, the government dropped the federal Universal Service Fund (FUSF) fee on DSL, which meant providers could now charge less, right? Verizon turned around and quickly replaced the FUSF with a new “Supplier Surcharge” fee. Sneaky sneaky.
By 2.6.08
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Deregulation was supposed to lower prices for California phone users, but. instead, fees keep going up. [LAT]
Reach AT&T Executive Customer Service, Rebates, Retentions
By 2.5.08
Retentions 866-485-5238
(Photo: bryce_edwards)
By 2.4.08
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Cablevision is charging customers $40 to keep their old phone number when they switch over. When questioned, they lie and say they’re simply trying to recoup the number port fee charged by the previous provider. [Consumer Reports via Broadband Reports]
Tmobile Ranked Highest In Customer Care
By 2.1.08
Tmobile is yet again as number one in customer care., according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Wireless Customer Care Rating. Tmobile scored 105, Verizon comes just behind at 101, Alltell and AT&T tie at 99, and Sprint puts in a poor showing at 83. The survey measures quality of interaction with customer service reps, automated response systems, in-store visits, and online chats. Tmobile consistently ranks high on the survey due to a company culture dedicated to solving problems on the first call. As for the other providers? The subheading on the rating agency’s press release says it all, “When Customer Care Issues Are Handled by an Automated Response System Wireless Provider Performance Drops Dramatically”
Tmobile Sued For Charging For Unwanted Text Messages
By 1.31.08
Tmobile was hit with a class action suit yesterday over its charging customers for unwanted text messages. Unscrupulous marketers can get your cellphone number, send you “premium” texts (for dating services, daily jokes, horoscopes, etc), and then have Tmobile bill you for them. Tmobile gets to keep a piece of the profit. Other cellphone companies let you disable text messages sent from the internet, where most text spam originates, or turn off text messages all together. Tmobile has refused to give customers this option.
Does Comast Check To See If 911 Works On Your Digital Phone?
By 1.30.08
A Comcast insider warns us that Comcast does no checks to make sure 911 is working on your Comcast digital phone:
$1 Billion ETF Class Action Against Verizon Approved
By 1.29.08
Somehow, an arbitrator has approved a massive $1 billion class action lawsuit against Verizon over their early termination fees. In letting the lawsuit proceed, the arbitrator wrote, “…millions of class members are entitled to adjudication of the central common questions of fact or law in this arbitration related to whether the $175 early termination fee imposed by respondents Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless … is based upon an unenforceable liquidated damage clause.” With cellphone companies switching to prorated ETFs and the rise in ETF-related lawsuits around the country, one wonders if we won’t see the death of ETFs in the next few years. By that time, cellphone companies will have figured out a new technique to keep people from leaving their contracts.
By 1.28.08
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Starting March 11, Comcast will begin charging a $3.99 “human interaction fee” if you want to pay your bill by talking to a live operator. [The Oregonian via DSL Reports]
Three Weeks Later, Your Helio Phone Is Still Not Activated
By 1.28.08
Reader Katherine has been trying for the past 3 weeks to get her Helio phone activated and has had no luck. The CSRs say they’re working on transferring her number from Verizon, but when she calls Verizon they say that no one from Helio has called. How mysterious.
FiOS Swaps Customers' Account Details, Still Won't Fix After 8 Months
By 1.25.08
Whenever Andru logs into his Verizon FiOS account, he sees the personal information on some other guy’s account, including name, address, email address, last four digits of credit card and social security number. He’s contacted the other guy, and the other guy also sees his. Verizon has said they will fix it in the next 24 hours. They’ve been saying that for the past eight months. This is supposed to be the future of the internet and they can’t even fix a simple account error?
Another Customer Escapes Verizon Contract For Free
By 1.25.08
Okay so I read the script from last years price hike on messaging rates, to get out of your contract scot-free. I thought I read some where else that they were going up again to 0.20. So I called Verizon and ran the script on them. No one in cancellations had heard about it. I called the general customer service line. Of course the csr didn’t know anything and wanted me to pay the ETF’s. So I went to her supervisor. His name was Aundra (pronounced Andre), employee # 7817 out of the Birmingham office.
AT&T Acquires A Record 2.7 Million Customers
By 1.24.08
Team AT&T is absolutely kicking everyone’s ass all over town, adding a record 2.7 million new wireless customers in the 4Q, says MarketWatch. They also added 396,000 high speed internet customers and 105,000 U-Verse TV customers.
By 1.23.08
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S&P thinks Sprint will continue to hemorrhage customers in 2008. “Because management faces significant challenges in improving operations, we do not expect a reversal of these negative operating trends in 2008,” S&P said in a statement. [BusinessWeek]
