"Kurt" <labolide@spacegmail.com> wrote in message
news:labolide-683331.10051829012007@news.giganews.com...
>
> No argument from me that takeover was the most abysmal ever for the
> customer. I was just like you. Besides how they screwed up my account,
> rates went up and the new phones were terrible.
>
> Bottom line, there is no such thing as customer loyalty anymore. I knew
> this as soon as Cingular took over and I wasn't expecting anything from
> the puffing hype their PR firms spun about the merger.
>
> You need to pick a company and plan knowing this full-well going in.
>
> --
> To reply by email, remove the word "space"


I should have mentioned what it was about this deal that so infuriated me:

When the merger (it was NOT represented as a buyout) was announced, ATTWS,
in their customer magazine "Mmode," had a letter from the President of
ATTWS, assuring us that nothing was going to change. No one was going to
lose their rate plan. No one was going to be forced to switch to anything
they did not want.

ATTWS even phoned me and offered me a very nice package if I would go back
onto a 1-year contract (I had long been off-contract by then) to extend my
TDMA service. I took the deal. It was excellent, and I had no problems
while AT&T was still my provider.

Then Cingular took over, and suddenly my service became unreliable.
Suddenly it took up to 5 minutes before I could log onto a tower, once I
turned my phone on. Suddenly all three of my phones would mysteriously shut
themselves off as soon as I left my home area--something that had never
happened before. Cingular denied any responsibility, and tried to upsell me
into their higher rate GSM plans, and even to pay new activation fees on my
three lines.

Now, I know that TDMA was going to be decommissioned, but does anyone think
that ATTWS, had they remained the provider, would have taken away our
preferential rates, free M2M (that was an extra charge back in those days),
or would have demanded that we re-up for two years and pay activation fees
again?

Does anyone believe that ATTWS would have deliberately tightened the noose
by slowly and progressively restricting access to its towers, as a method of
coercing its TDMA customers to switch? I believe that they would have
announced a shut-off date and probably would have offered free or discounted
GSM phones--and I'd have been happy with that. At least they would not have
been coercing millions of customers.

So, I am angry over Cingular's failure to keep the promises that they and
ATTWS jointly made to us. I would never give Cingular a penny's worth of my
business again. They can keep on releasing news of increasing profits--but
I have the satisfaction of knowing that not one penny of those profits came
from me. Juvenile? Perhaps. But it is the only form of protest that is
available to me--that and the ability for me to continually post my story on
the Internet, to give a heads-up to other potential Cingular customers. I
know it won't put Cingular out of business, but it is my little way of
flipping them the bird.

Any other company that shed millions of customers--customers that they
purchased--would have seen some executive heads roll. Not Cingular. Very
strange. I have read that SBC Communications also had a reputation for
being ruthless and insensitive toward their customers. And I presume that
we'll be seeing the same lack of consideration from the new AT&T.

Contrast that with my experience with Sprint over the past year, since I
ported my numbers from Cingular. Like night vs. day. No problems with
service, friendly customer reps. Good rate plan. Crystal-clear call
quality. No arm-twisting. No setup charges. Free phones--three of them.
They even offered me free 7 PM N/W, which was offered about 2 weeks after I
signed up. Nice people, and I don't care what the industry surveys say.
Every single contact I had with Sprint has been positive, and I came away
from those calls feeling satisfied.

There is life after Cingular. But I still am amazed and puzzled over why
they would be that way. It flies against all the textbook "customer
service" recommendations. One would think that they were a monopoly, to get
away with that.