Cellular companies can diaf

[bornl33t]

Ok, I just had to share this piece of work with ya'll

I'm a verizon customer. Have been for well, 21 months. I've not had any real complaints with their SERVICE until this month, but it's a dozy.

So I generally use about 150-200 minutes of my 450 minute contract. Well, this last month I was on the phone ALOT. Damn contractors. Anyway, I knew I was getting close to my 450 and so I called verizon and asked to purchase 100 extra minutes. They told me they don't do that....(clickedy clikedy) "the computer shows me that you've always been in good standing with Verizon and have never had an adjustment made so I'm going to give you 50 minutes extra for the next 3 months." I'm like woaw, that unheard of from a cellular company. Well I got my bill and I got charge .45 cent a minutes for like 100 minutes and I'm like wtf?
So I fire off an e-mail asking some one to look into that and got a reply today. "those minutes are prorated and since you got them 5 days before the end of your contract 8 promo minutes where applied correctly to your statement." Seriously, I feel like they are sitting at a computer laughing at me and my 90$ bill.

Well, I've been cooling off for 12 hours and fired off a reply, told them what I was TOLD and asked them "nicely" to apply the minutes in that fashion. And reminded them that my agreement with Verizon is over in November......


WTF is wrong with these goons? First US cellular jerks me around and now Verizon, there's gotta be a way of taking them to court over something like this....I know there's a line in the contract to take any dispute to arbitration first but what if in November I don't sign any more contracts? Then if I have a dispute can I sick a couple good attorney on these guys, for no reason other then to make a point?

[MANN]

I have found that it is easier to buy 300 dollar phones, and live without a contract. I know ATT or Cingular or whatever it is this month always listens when they see I can pick up and leave at anytime.

Regardless cell phone companies in general suck.

[iambored]

yeah, Verison (SP?) has horrible customer service. We got a contract that had "Unlimited txt" then a year into our contract we txt 51 times & receive 50 (big month) and get charged +$30~50 for it. We called them and they said we had unlimited txt up to 50 sent and received.

[Pacifist_Farmer]

Theres a site I visit daily, they have some very interesting articles, one of their favorite topic is how to beat wireless companies.

www.consumerist.com

Wireless companies really can do whatever they want, and there isn't much we can do about it.

[bornl33t]

I won this one . So Verizoin is still better then US Cellular.
I was thinking about this a little though and I think, I'm not an attorney, but I think that their contact can be considered one sided enough that it would not have to be followed. Of course that's why they added that clause about arbitration so that they can settle out of court first and avoid charges. In other words they can do whatever they want until you pay for an attorney. At that point they will try to settle out of court so they do not pay for your legal fees. And only then can you sue them and possibly recoup your legal fees.

So basically, no one has to follow their contract, if you are either an attorney or are willing to spend more then their early termination fee.

I love law, it just plain sucks....

[WillyB]

A friend of mine has verison (I think) and ran into an issue last month. Basically her plan states that she has 350 min/month and then that 'free after nine pm' thing.

Long story short, she gets her bill that month and its for $350 or something ridiculous, so she calls up verison and they give her the 'well...you were over your limit by 150 min...' even though she has the breakdown in front of her and it shows that she has like 250/350 of her min used, and 250 min used after 9 or 7 or whatever it is companies give these days.

Basically they pull the 'no see, you're wrong, all of those min counted towards your monthly limit' and charge her anyway.

[FactsOfLife]

@cellphones lawl

[warbeak2099]

Contracts mean nothing. There are always loopholes around them. Any good contract lawyer can destroy one easily.

[Lohman446]

I have found that it is easier to buy 300 dollar phones, and live without a contract. I know ATT or Cingular or whatever it is this month always listens when they see I can pick up and leave at anytime.

Regardless cell phone companies in general suck.

100% agreed, don't take a "free" phone and sign a one sided contract.

[MantisMag]

yeah i actually just signed up with AT&T yesterday. i now have two phones.

i'm on a verizon family share plan. i'm the primary account holder and we have five lines. my family doesn't talk on the phone a lot so we're on the lowest plan, 700mins. usually we barely go over half of that. this month however i've been working from home a lot and doing a lot of conference calls. i went over 300mins in a week. so i went in to see if i could switch from the family plan to an individual plan and sign over ownership of the family plan to my mom. however the cust service rep says i'd have to get a new 2 year agreement and the family share plan would have to get a new 2 year agreement. that's such BS. i tell him i don't want to extend my contract and we'll just upgrade the family share plan to have more mins in that case. he goes ahead and puts that through. i get home and take a closer look at it only to find out that my contract has been extended to two years! i go back and he insists that he told us ANY change in the plan requires a new contract. neither i nor my mother heard this. i'm guessing he said it while i was talking to my mom about how to handle this. so then i have to sit there for 45 mins while they reverse the changes. ugh. very next day i sign up for an account with AT&T. i don't know if this is the official policy or not but the sales rep says he'll change my plan any time i want without a new contract. the only penalty being a potential loss of rollover minutes.

still sucks that i have to sign up for a new line of service and i'm stuck with the verizon phone sitting around until my contract runs out. luckily i'm expensing the new one so the company is eating most of the cost.

[rkjunior303]

time for me to chime in, since i work for one of the "big three"

prorated charges are standard across the board. yes - they gave you 50 free minutes, but like the representative said - those minutes were prorated. unfortunately, that's just how the system bills out. what i would do is call back and speak to a rep - give them your position of being a good standing customer for almost 2 years and tell them the situation. as long as you don't yell at them and are generally civl, most likely you will get a credit for the full 50 minutes.

once you start yelling, getting bent out of shape, and/or have a history of calling for credits evey month let me tell you - that's the last person ANY care rep will want to help.

/I work for cellular, so.....

[bornl33t]

time for me to chime in, since i work for one of the "big three"

prorated charges are standard across the board. yes - they gave you 50 free minutes, but like the representative said - those minutes were prorated. unfortunately, that's just how the system bills out. what i would do is call back and speak to a rep - give them your position of being a good standing customer for almost 2 years and tell them the situation. as long as you don't yell at them and are generally civl, most likely you will get a credit for the full 50 minutes.

once you start yelling, getting bent out of shape, and/or have a history of calling for credits evey month let me tell you - that's the last person ANY care rep will want to help.

/I work for cellular, so.....

Ok, well I can tell you work for cellular co. cause you have no clue what happened after the complaint and completely missed the rest of my problem.... No seriously, thanks for your reply but I already got it solved. I'm becoming an expert in dealing with these jokers. I win some and I loose some. I will never do business with US Cellular again, and Verizon will have to drasticly improve their software or get rid of it to make me happy. That being said, I don't loose my temper with these guys. But if I was told one thing and I was misled, deliberate or not, I will get my way or I will lawyer up.

And like someone else posted, I probably will never sign a contract again, because when loosing a customer is on the table, stupid mistakes are generally cleared up in a hurry. Especially a customer with the record I have.

Hey verizon deserves their money. But get greedy and I fight...

[Lohman446]

. But if I was told one thing and I was misled, deliberate or not, I will get my way or I will lawyer up.

Over $300? Must get expensive for you...

[rkjunior303]

And like someone else posted, I probably will never sign a contract again, because when loosing a customer is on the table, stupid mistakes are generally cleared up in a hurry. Especially a customer with the record I have.

by having no contract, that leaves you with two expensive options:

1) going pre-pay. while this is effective for most credit-challenged individuals, actually doing this because you don't want to sign a 1yr contract is asinine. the rates you pay for pre-pay are generally much more.

2) receiving NO promotional rates on the handset and service. which means, the subsidized cost that you see in every cellular store will cease to exist and you will have to pay FULL RETAIL on the phone - even the cheapest of the phones generally cost upwards to $2-300 before the costs are subsidized down. in addition, don't expect to receive any promotional rate. no free nights weekends, etc.. anything like that would require a 1 year commitment at LEAST.

as for getting greedy? honeslty, they did you a FAVOR by giving you the bonus minutes. they didn't have to do squat, but they were nice enough to offer you that promotion. in fact, they could have told you to pound sand since you weren't effective enough to manage your minutes properly. they're a business out to make money. if you go over your minutes, you went over your minutes.

THIS is why I'm glad I don't deal with consumer sales. Everyone's out thinking they deserve something..

"I shouldnt be charged for this because.."
"I should get this free because.."
"i shouldn't have a contract because.."

I'd rather be strangled to death than deal with general consumers.

[bornl33t]

by having no contract, that leaves you with two expensive options:

1) going pre-pay. while this is effective for most credit-challenged individuals, actually doing this because you don't want to sign a 1yr contract is asinine. the rates you pay for pre-pay are generally much more.

2) receiving NO promotional rates on the handset and service. which means, the subsidized cost that you see in every cellular store will cease to exist and you will have to pay FULL RETAIL on the phone - even the cheapest of the phones generally cost upwards to $2-300 before the costs are subsidized down. in addition, don't expect to receive any promotional rate. no free nights weekends, etc.. anything like that would require a 1 year commitment at LEAST.

as for getting greedy? honeslty, they did you a FAVOR by giving you the bonus minutes. they didn't have to do squat, but they were nice enough to offer you that promotion. in fact, they could have told you to pound sand since you weren't effective enough to manage your minutes properly. they're a business out to make money. if you go over your minutes, you went over your minutes.

THIS is why I'm glad I don't deal with consumer sales. Everyone's out thinking they deserve something..

"I shouldnt be charged for this because.."
"I should get this free because.."
"i shouldn't have a contract because.."

I'd rather be strangled to death than deal with general consumers.

Yeah, you defiantly work for them....
That was the second most one sides piece of literature I've read since I signed Cellular agreement.