An upcoming Business Week article socks phone companies right in the kisser for their squelching of new technologies.
telephony
Cingular Wants Us To Take Their Documents Down
By 7.28.06
We just received a note from Cingular’s legal department.
We Poke Sticks At Wired’s Cellphone Cancel Tips
By 7.26.06
Wired’s August issue features some advice on cancelling your cellphone service, but how good is it?
Cingular Sics Debt Collectors On Innocent Customer
By 7.26.06
An AT&T customer, Chris upgraded his plan after the merger with Cinuglar. A week later, Cingular sent him a bill for $300, an “early termination fee.” Welcome to the neighborhood, indeed.
Phone Record Lawsuit Over NSA Spying Dismissed
By 7.26.06
A judge Tuesday tossed out an ACLU lawsuit against the government over over AT&T’s alleged turning over of phone records to the NSA.
Cingular Switches to Rebates By Debit Card
By 7.26.06
Cingular has decided it prefers you spend your rebate than save it, so now they’re going to make you.
T-Mobile Forbids You From Recording Customer Service Calls
By 7.25.06
We can record you but you can’t record us, T-mobile told reader Jeff today.
FCC Investigates Calls From a Stranger
By 7.22.06
The second of two blows dealt this week to the Miami telemarketers autodialing people’s cellphones and trying to scam them. It seems the FCC is actually looking into the matter. All it took was a few months, Verizon to file an injunction, and a few gajillion consumer complaints, like those by reader Chris.
UPDATE: T-Mobile Hotspot: Wham, Bam, But No Thanks
By 7.22.06
On Wednesday, ZDnet blogger David Berlind posted a call of his attempts to extract a refund from T-Mobile hotspot but it’s not until today that he found complete satisfaction.
Cingular Boasts 267% Profit
By 7.21.06
Amidst a looming lawsuit over its lack of service to newly incorporated AT&T customers, as well as our revelation that Cingular will no longer try to retain its most unprofitable consumers:
Spanish Tele-Scammer’s Pinata Busted by Verizon
By 7.20.06
Back in April, we were obsessed by a Miami telemarketing company scamming people, in Spanish, on their cellphones, using a robotic autodialer. After pounding the e-pavement, our efforts to angle in on the bastiches fizzled, since we were neither a telephone company processing the calls, nor an aggrieved recipient, we couldn’t do much about it, except advise people to report it to the police. Just last week we received a few complaints.
How Cingular Avoids Giving Discounts to Worthless Customers
By 7.19.06
A snip from a recent memo that teaches Cingular retention specialists how to avoid giving discounts to customers they deem unprofitable.
Cingular Distills Customer Value Into Thermometer Form
By 7.19.06
A customer service source inside Cingular sends us some interesting internal documents and says the cellphone company has a new policy that’s got the headset set in a bind. He reports that Cingular will, “no longer discount equipment for customers that are not profitable for us, no mater where they stand contractually. I have received several calls from customers attempting to upgrade, only to have to inform them that although yes, they are out of contract, we will not offer them discounted equipment. “
Cingular Bill Walks Like A Duck
By 7.19.06
Cingular’s inability to maintain accurate billing records are resulting in invoice overages which they seem powerless to fix, according to DB’s complaint.
T-Mobile Hotspot: Wham, Bam, But No Thanks
By 7.19.06
Much like beer and hotdogs at the ballpark, airports take advantage of your momentary entrapment to bend you over for the privilege of wi-fi surfing. Against his better judgment, ZDnet’s David Berlind tried to use the airport’s T-Mobile hotspot and access some important and time-sensitive documents from his office. T-Mobile was more than happy to give him a high signal as he completed the transaction, only for the wifi to completely cut out after they charged his credit card. David recorded his call trying to wrest his dollars back from T-Mobile, listen below.
Cingular Customer Denied Access To Billing Records
By 7.11.06
If you’re looking to join the newly minted class action against Cingular, you might want to turn that shredder off. A customer was seeking to replace the billing records he had shredded, in order to prepare to join the suit, and called up the cellphone company.
