After reading Coach’s post about Cingular I was reminded of my own telephone woes. When we moved here we got Vonage service for our home line. I mostly like the service itself. It’s a pretty reasonable monthly price for all the domestic calls I want to make. If we talked on the phone I’d think we ought to keep it. But we don’t. And we both have cell phones, with contracts.
So I came to the conclusion that we have too many phones, and the home line drew the short straw. This is when I started getting irritated at them. First I noticed that their policy is that you need to notify them that you want to close your account 10 days before the next billing cycle starts or you get charged for another whole month. Second, because we want to cancel after less than a year, we will be charged a “cancellation fee.” Then I thought, “Well, maybe I don’t want to cancel.” (Look at me playing right into their hands! Aaaah!) I looked into changing our plan to a cheaper one. That has a fee too.
Again, canceling the account seemed like the thing to do. But you can’t cancel online, so I called the number their website said to use to cancel—their 24 hour customer service line. But when we called that one they told us we had to call another number to be able to close our account. We called that number and got a message that this line was only answered during standard business hours. Aaarrrgggghhh!
So here it is, almost a month later and we still have Vonage.
And while I’m on the topic of phones, I might as well tell everyone why I don’t plan on sticking with Sprint when my contract is up in a few months.
Last year I was doing things on my account online and I got an offer to take a survey and get 100 free anytime minutes. Great! I like free minutes. Plus, I was using up most of my anytime minutes on a monthly basis at that point. So I took their survey.
Because I got those “free minutes” this somehow made it so that for the next FOUR MONTHS all of my minutes became “mystery minutes.” I could not check my usage—not by calling their little number or by checking my account online. If I called a Sprint store, they could tell me, but that was it. So every month I’d call the Sprint store to check on my minutes and complain that I couldn’t check my minutes myself.
And then, on the fourth month of dealing with this, I called to check my minutes, and they told me I was 97 minutes over. What?! I threw a fit. Somehow because of the stupid system of theirs, the 100 free minutes were now costing me 97 overage minutes! Could I apply those free minutes (which I had never used any of) to this, I asked. No, they were a special offer and if you don’t use them, you lose them. Eventually I was mad, loud, and obnoxious enough that the manager gave me a credit for those 97 minutes and warned me that he wasn’t going to do it again and any minute I was on the phone for the rest of the billing cycle would be an overage minute (unless it was a night or weekend).
Does anyone have a cell phone service that they can really recommend?
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Oh my. Initially, Coach's cingular post was going to be about the whole telecommunications industry because it seems like they're all in the same worthless boat. But then we got our monthly statement from cingular, and their incompetence won out for special ridicule.
The point of the story: I think they might all suck.
We did recently purchase one of those pay-as-you-go phones from Net 10, and have been pretty happy with it. It saves us money because we never used the cell phone that much anyway, and we're better off just paying for the time we use. It does annoy me that pre-paid minutes expire unless you buy more--it's like having a contract without having a contract!--but so far that annoyance is less than the greater irritant that is cingular. We'll let you know if we're still (fairly) happy with Net 10 in a few months.
I must say that I quite agree with you about not keeping your Sprint phones when the contract ends.
Paul and I found ourselves in a similar situation with Sprint when I moved out here. Well, It actually began before the move when we added his phone to the account.
First, they made HIS phone the primary phone on the account because MY phone isn't web capable. *rolls eyes* Second, my original contract was for 2 yrs starting in Oct 2003. But when we added Paul's phone in May, 2004, it extended the contract to May, 2006 somehow. Fine. I could live with that.
Then, the move out here and they messed up our bill from June clear until October 2004. They finally got the minutes/usage/overages situation cleared up and my account credited w/ the proper times/funding etc.
Only, in doing so, they extended my contract to October 2006! We didn't sign ANY paperwork extending the contract. We didn't verbally agree to an extension either nor were we imformed about said extension. So, we were looking forward to May so that we could leave Sprint behind and join another mobile company only to find we are locked in until October now! :(
Then, there is a problem with my phone. It doesn't always charge the battery when we plug in the charger. So, I went by a Sprint store that was supposed to have a repair shop and they inform me that I need to go to this other location. So I go there. We walk in and are informed that their repair technician is only in between 10 am and 6 pm (it was 6:05pm at that time) and we would need to come back the next day or we could leave my phone with them overnight and they could look at it the next day.
Were they willing to give me a credit for the time I wouldn't have my phone available for my use? NO! Were they offering a replacement phone to use? NO! They don't "loan" phones out to customers. Forget that I have been paying for months for the "super deluxe" equipment repair and replacement plan on BOTH phones at $5 or $6 a month.
So, we opted to bring the phone in the next day. Paul took it in and he got there at 5:15 pm. The customer in front of him was the "last" phone for repairs they were taking that day. *steamed* He was told to come back between 11 am and 5 pm the next day. The lady behind him was told to bring her phone back between 9 am and 6 pm the following day.
Paul brings the phone home and I phone their store to complain to the management. Well, our entire repair staff called in sick today and we had to get a "loaner" from another facility.
And, I could just avoid bringing the phone in to their store and mail it to the repair facility but again, I won't get a credit for my account for the time I don't have the phone (a minimum of 3 weeks) NOR will I get a replacement phone. So, the phone isn't getting fixed and we can't leave Sprint fast enough.
First let me say that I'm a poor, simple-minded soul and have never owned a cell phone until recently. Scott had a cell phone that I used before we got married, but I don't count that. And I hated that darn thing. I never could understand the minute usage business (here's where the simple-mindedness comes in). Scott told me I couldn't talk until 7pm, because at 7pm I got free minutes. Why? Why not till 7pm? What if I needed to call someone at 4:17pm? Or 10:13am? So I tried hard to abide by the rule and save money. But then - if someone called at 4:17 or 10:13, I'd answer and talk and not realize that THOSE calls were sucking minutes away! I didn't get it!!! THEY had called ME!!! So why wasn't it to their detriment, and not mine? But it was to both of ours, I suppose. So I was never so happy to rid myself of that thing and get back to the plain-old ground-line life. But we did buy a pay-as-you-go thing, and I like it a lot. We use it between the two of us, because I do Pampered Chef shows a lot in Houston and I get lost a lot, so it's helpful and really safer for me to have one with me. Plus, it's helpful if, say, Scott's at Wal-Mart and can't find the baby Tylenol or something. So, I do say pay-as-you-go is useful and helpful and seems to save some misery as far as cell phones go,
but, as Boss says, they might all suck.
Thanks, guys. This is a very useful forum for me, because we are currently considering new cell phone options. Our contract with Cingular just ended (Yay), but not before the phone lost its ability to recharge.
I am considering the pre-paid option, but here is my concern: Can you return the phone if you are unhappy with the coverage/service? I know some contracts give you 30 days to try it out. What about these "non-contract" deals?
This is important to me because we live on the side of a hill, and although Cingular had good reception generally, we never got decent coverage at home. Bad deal if the plan was to use the cell for long distance calls. I dont want to get stuck with another phone or service that won't work from my kitchen table.
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