You can choose to read it today...or delay gratification until tomorrow. I leave the choice entirely in your hands.
Some of you have complained that I haven't posted a good rant in awhile. SOme of you have restricted your issue with my ability to rant at all.
The absence of ranting is due largely to my busy schedule...a fragment of which has forced me to post a Friday comic before Friday has officially commenced.
I will be in Orlando slaving away on automotive matters for those of you keeping score at home. Toyota will be the victim of my ham-fisted camera work this time. We are driving. God help me.
But if it is a rant you want...then a rant you shall have.
Cingular...just say no. They do NOT have the least dropped calls of any provider. From my experience, dropped calls are something they seem to mass produce with some enthusiasm. This however is beside my actual point.
My actual point is that after a year of dropped calls and dead calls with nine bars showing, I have decided to switch to T-Mobile. Don't know if they are any better, I just know that for my plan they are cheaper...and the simply can't be worse. That is to say, they have not actively begun killing their subscribers.
To my knowledge.
Anyway. My beef with Cingular center around the fact that my woes seem to be a result of a defective phone. It was defective out of the box. Now I have 30 days to return my phone should it prove to be defective. The proof, however lies solely in the act of a Cingular representative saying "Yes, your phone is defective. Send it back."
Well for more than eight months, every tech support person I could reach told me that the phone was fine and that my misery was a result of technology integration with the recently acquired AT&T equipment.
They stuck with this story for eight months. Now, they claim that no such area trouble ever existed and that the problem is and has been with my phone...all along. Conveniently after my warranty expired. Keep in mind that I called these folks once a month on average and that Cingular acknowledges that I have had issues for eight months.
At first, they were going to sell me a new phone as I had lost the option to swap units after the first thirty days. I did succeed in convincing them to send me a new one, free of charge, because I asked for a new one repeatedly and was told over and over again - essentially - "no."
So I get the phone. I call in to switch the service to the new phone (and chip). The person (I assume) who "helped" me was almost completely incapable of:
1) Understanding that I simply needed to switch this new handset to my existing service.
2) Understanding that I was given a new chip with the phone which needed to be activated.
3) Understanding that Nokia phones CANNOT transfer all of your precious, precious address book info from one handset to another (another long, sad tail).
and finally
4) Calling me back to complete the transaction. Ever.
So it is that I decided "enough" and wanted out of Cingular. As I have some months left on my two year contract, they insist that I pay out the remaining $90 (USD) to leave the contract. My position is that I have NOT had reliable service from Cingular at any time in recent memory (a point they do not dispute) and that if anything, after I provided the tech support on my own to diagnose the problem and coerce them into agreeing with me that they should drop the $90 (USD) charge and call it even.
On this point, they conceded.
However, should I opt to drop the account and simply close out my bill amicably, they will refuse (their word - not mine) to allow my number to transfer to another company (such as T-Mobile). So I must choose between getting $90 (USD) back or keeping my business number.
Look folks, I'm paying the $90 (USD) I'm switching to T-Mobile. I'm counting myself lucky. What I would like to happen is that people call their cell providers more often. Let's not accept marginal service. Let's switch providers when they refuse to give us the tech support we pay for. Yes, we eat a few bucks in the process but as in my case, paying the $90 (USD) today will mean that I save money in just three months of service. If anyone else out there has Cingular, I'd like to know what YOUR experience is or was.
If anyone out there works for Cingular, I'd love some silverware from their cafeteria.
Just so I could say I got something from them...you know?
A spoon would be nice.
