Shop Talk

well no one has informed me of that

Last I checked it was written on the rate plan brochure. They were actually the first company I've ever seen enforce that policy.

Yep... Cingular Authorized Rep here, and it's in the paperwork. I had a couple of customers come in that had gotten a letter that they'd be getting their account shut down and would have to start a new one.

When I called to figure out what the heck was going on, Cingular told me that there was no resolution. The account was being closed regardless. The customers were costing them too much money.

From what I understand, Sprint and Verizon have similar policies and just don't enforce them.

Well, what I've been told by my VZW Account Manager is that we do have a similar clause in our paperwork, but that the difference is that when VZW finds that a lot of customers are needing service where VZW doesn't have a tower, instead of telling the customers to go take a hike, they weigh the additional costs being incurred versus the cost of putting up a tower and keeping their customers. Who knows, this could have been a line of BS... but one never knows. I just know that my hubby and I have a VZW line that is always in the Extended Network, and we haven't had any issues thus far.

However.........I can't seem to find this clause in our paperwork.......still looking 👀

Yeah, just look for the clause that says they have to right to change anything whenever they want. They usually throw that in there to cover anything they didn't think about at that moment.

US Cellular has the same 50% Rule...

Yes, but I've only seen it enforced 4 times in 4 years. Not hundreds at a time like Cingy just did. Half of one town and all of another. And none of the customers that have come in to port told lies to get their service. They gave their addresses straight up to Cingy and they still gave them phones, knowing that the only towers that work on phones in this zip code are roaming towers.

I just think it's ridiculous to advertise for something and not stick to it. That's a good way to get law suits going

It's not really a matter or advertising something and delivering something else. Nobody is actually being charged for the roaming, which is what the plan states. No roaming fees. They're just being "let go" to further the revenue of the company.

I don't agree with it either. But the semantics of how it's worded pretty much covers their asses.

I've had customers that have said to me "they should offer some sort of an alternative. Something like have us pay a little more on our bill or something." Now I know just as much as the next guy, that the second Cingular told them they were going to raise their bill to cover roaming costs on their no roaming plan we'd still be in the same situation with a bunch of pissed off customers that everyone has today.

A way to further revenue? How do you increase revenue by telling your customers to take a hike? Does no one understand that one unhappy customer will tell 15 people, where as 15 happy customers may only tell 1 person? We've had customers switching just because they know people who have had this done to them. With the amount of...
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Yeah, you've pretty much covered all the points that I don't think Cingular bothered to consider in this recent move.

It's said that some of those customers are actually costing the company money. If that's true or not, I'll never know. Or really care for that matter.

Honestly, I'm hoping Cingular starts doing that to people around me since I'm a VZW dealer and it would increase my sales.

Right on! Our sales have tripled for the month in the last 10 days!