Customer Service

[hotrod502]

About 8 months ago, I resigned a 2 year contract with Cingular and added a second line for my son. I had the phone shipped to my work addy, so I could see and charge the phone. When I put the sim card and battery in I noticed a little pink dot on the back. I figured it was something new with cingular or the Nokia phone(I never have had a nokia or a dot on any of my phones) About 2 months later, my son tells me the phone is asking for some kind of code before it will work. I call Cingular and tell them the problem, the agent asks for the # behind the battery and gives me a another # to unlock the phone. The phone now works..great. I hang up give the son his phone back and he runs off making calls to all the girls he hasn't be able to talk to for the last few hours.

Yesterday, my son brings me his phone and tells me he can only use the speakerphone to answer or make calls and it has this little headphone in the middle of the screen. We break out the book and look for the symbol..nothing. I go through all the settings..nothing. After about an hour I decide, I'll call AT&T to see if they can help me. The first guy walkme me through the process of removing the sim and battery to reset the phone. Doesn't work. He tells me it's something that will have to be sent in to be fixed, they have been having a problem with this on many of this same phone. Now comes the fun part.. He tells me to take the battery out and tell him what color the dot in the back is.. I already know it is pink and tell him. Well, it seems this DOT is to detect water. I get the run around for about 15 minutes about how the DOT could not have been pink when I got the phone. Finally I get transfered to a manager in the warrenty department. By this time, I'm really pissed that I going to have to pay $150 for a new phone. I go over the same thing with the manager and tell him I have been with Cingular since 2001 and never once had a problem with any phone or service. He puts me on hold for a minute and then he tells me, he wants to thank me for being a customer for so long and that they will credit me the amout to get phone replaced and tells me they are sorry for any problems I have incured. They will be sending out a new nokia something or other, the top of the line phone since they no longer have the 8 month old Nokia I currently have.

I know this is a bit long but I really made me feel a bit better about AT&T. I just wonder how many people have had to take the run around to get the service they are supposed to get. When I get this phone I will check the back for that dot that is supposed to be white.

 

[JimLor]

Cell phone companies are the devil. Just my opinion.

 

[Scab]

Cell phone companies and WalMart are the devil. Just my opinion.

There, fixed it.

 

[Calimus]

Those dots are a real pain. They are to detect water, but the problem is, if you live in a high humidity area, they will still react. This also means if they were ever stored on a high humidity area, they will react. My previouse phone had the water dot inside the battery compartment. The phone never came into contact with any water, not even rain. However, after I replaced the phone and went to recycle the battery, I noticed it was red and not white. Granted, the phone was 2 years old by that point, but still, I know it was never on contact why any actual water.

So, hearing that AT&T took care of you is great. It's rare to hear it from most of the cell companies. Even though I have verizon and have never had an issue in 6 years, everyone has different experiences.

Oh yea, and Walmart is definitly of the devil.

 

[feejer222]

In the UK you get the run around, then you get the run around, then you get some more run around. Then you give up and go elsewhere.

We had a broadband connection with British Telecom. 'Sky TV' were offering a great deal to wrap broadband, phone and satelite TV together and save money. We tried to make the move. They were useless.....worse than useless. We were within the cancellation period so we cancelled, they accepted. We went back to BT....TWO MONTHS later we still did not have any broadband at all, niether could tell us why or do anything about it. We cancelled with both and paid Virgin to lay a new cable into our house. We got £250 compensation from BT which possibly just covered the hours and hours we had spent on the phone.

Think yourselves lucky that you get any service at all.

 

[FJRMGM]

Those dots are a real pain. They are to detect water, but the problem is, if you live in a high humidity area, they will still react. This also means if they were ever stored on a high humidity area, they will react.

You mean like living in Houston where the daily humidity is only 90 percent?? Great.

Speaking of the new AT&T - yesterday I was having a problem with my Yahoo account login so I called them to get it fixed and while I was on the phone - my call was dropped!!

Service Rep called back and said: "I don't know what happened?"

My response: "That chintzy provider I go with does that all the time".

He laughed - and still fixed my problem.

 

[Bounce]

My phone had the red dot but the battery didn't. They went through the wash cycle of the clothes washer together (DOH!). I was glad I had opted for the insurance. It still cost me $50 for the replacement under the insurance policy but if not, it would have for $300. Considering the phone I have, an extra $100 would have been no big deal to move to the iPhone. The upgrade would have been a much bigger jump than the $100 difference.

 

[Bob Hughes]

I went to Circuit City on the day after Thanksgiving for the big sale. Got there early (4am) and was about the 1,000th person in line but they opened at 5am so I decided to go inside and see if I could buy a laptop for $299. Well they only had 15 and handed out coupons for them to the folks at the front of the line so I would have been out of luck except for a guy who had an extra one. He gave it up because the store was charging $87 for "optimization" on top of the $299 and he did not want to pay it on two machines. Optimization turned out to be nothing but the promiss to install two software titles at a later date when they were not so busy. Well I bought the computer, paid the extra $87, and went through about 5 people before I got a refund of the $87 a week later. Nice little scam. BTW I love the laptop.

 

[Kaelaria]

The dots have been used on some models for years, and it's migrating around recently. Two of my close friends are mobile phone managers. It's been a widely known issue, and they know the dots are not a good indicator. If you escalate it to higher management and demand satisfaction, you will eventually get someone that knows you know about the dots.