The billing process against me was so unjust I sued the local company dealer and WON!! My family was given a "30 day free internet and messaging trial" I had to go back to the store 2days after they got their phones, because the model i wanted had to be shipped in, they TOLD ME (thank god i record everything on my mini cassete) that i was on the plan, and before the first billing cycle was complete to end the trial i requested the usage info, they charged me 1300 dollars not including the origanal 119 dollars used to purchase the phone hardware and activate it, I fought with them to the point where it wasn't the bill that bothered me, it was the fact that their company ON PURPOSE, created a collection of procedures that covered everytopic, in an attempt to slip a micky in with their deals and speacal offers so that they can bill a "standard" amount to their consumers.......They rolled over for me when they recived the court date, they know they can carve out .0002% of their massive gross profit to keep legally active people swept under the rug, if you want to hit them where it hurts, get a lawyer and take them to court, it a judge were to award 20,000 dollars to a single person, it would become a media circus and their stocks and services could potentally suffer a crippling blow because of customers dropping the service when that story airs

Hi Guys!
I'm new to this forum and like any other webmaster forum I've joined, I hope to get more knowledge here.

Well I will say this.....

I am one of the few that value my job and I do not mind helping a customer in need for a legitimate reason. Just like with the CSR a customer may speak with, you get a few to many that try to get over. As a result, CSR's end up stereotyping customers' which often leads to a horrible experience on the customers' and the CSR's end. I just GET so angry when a customer calls and feels that just by speaking with a manager (which I am one) means that they can bend the rules / receive hundreds or hundreds of dollars of credit just because no one bothered to read the CSS (Customer Service Summary) before signing it or agreeing to the terms of service. I feel that all customer's should be treated fairly and equally to some extent, BUT know that the accounts are thoroughly notated and I feel that it is out of order when someone calls in to get credit every month for an issue that they know they are causing or angry because they feel they are not being treated as a loyal customer (but you have had 7 or 8 non-pay suspensions on your account in the past 5 months), or nobody told you that international calling was not included in your calling plan (does anybody know the meaning of DOMESTIC ROAMING / LONG DISTANCE)...and the list goes on....just like I get angry when I here my agents hear that are talking to customer's that have gotten crappy service from AT&T and act as if they do not care...this again creates a bad experience for the customer that causes forums to be put up and posted dogging out the CSR population as a whole and it is not all of us who treat customers like boo-boo....I wish there could be a happy medium where all CSRs acted like they truly cared and wanted to resolve the customer's issue, and that certain customer's would not call in asking us to darn near "walk on water..." and fix/or bend the rules for an impossible situation to fix assist with....agh! I feel that it is negligence on the CSR and the Customer's end....

All these comments sound like a typical customer service call, maybe u should feel bad for the person at the other end maybe you shouldn't... After all they do not make the policies up... They go by what they are told they should do... And some people do not take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their kids (which are usually the cause of high bills) the person at the other end is also a consumer and has gone through something like your issue at one point in time but when people call in they feel as though they are the only ones that have had this issue and that the rep doesn't want to help, which they would but imagine if att gave away the bank to every person that calls in... They are a company afterall and they have to make money not give it away.

If you are roaming outside of the country IT COSTS MORE TO USE YOUR PHONE. @ att.com/wireless it tells you the prices of the calls per country. i hate it when you say "well i didn't know" but did you ask? But if you are ever looking to get charges removed..

act calm and collected, polite and personable and say you either didn't know or was given wrong info. if that doesn't work ask for a manager (most of the managers don't want to take your call, so will let us credit the amount). ANY fee can be waived. Want to cancel your account? Say you are someone else calling on your behalf because you passed away. Yeah i know it sounds a bit crazy but it works. you dont have to show any proof. Or ask to be "re-rated" if you have overages. Everything is available @ your fingertips. If you dont want to call in (or bother me with dumb ass questions) just go to the website att.com/wireless. you just have to know what you are looking for. Its interesting seeing customer's issues because it is what i deal with everyday. And we do get training. VERY often! depending on how busy we are (which we normally are) we can have up to 6 hours of training a week. We just have some dumb ass reps. So i do apologize about that. I am not one of them! I know my shit! Make sure to power cycle your phone every other day for 30 seconds a day. And if you are having issues with the phone, power cycle the phone BEFORE calling us. It normally fixes the problem.

On behalf of every rep working for AT&T Mobility
IF YOU ARE HAVING ANY ISSUES WITH/ABOUT YOUR CELL PHONE. DOOOO NOT CALL ON THE GODDAMN PHONE. HOW COME ONE BE SO RETARDED?

Thank you for being a part about the AT&T Family =)

Its very clear just from the posts here from the AT&T/Cingular CS reps that they are 1. rude..... name calling? Get some class!
2. You expect the consumer know all that you do? How many months of training did you recieve when you were hired? And you receive ongoing training all the time. And STILL most of you don't understand the material! If you did then everyone would get the SAME answers for the exact same issues rather than a different answer everytime we call or having to be transferred because YOU don't know the answer!
3. So what we call in with an attitude!?? If we are getting a run around, have received POOR customer service, have had to make repeated callls with no relief, you bet your sweet a** we're going to have an attitude when we call! How about learning your job and DE-ESCALATING the issue by FIXING it!!!
4. The store reps ARE idiots. I have worked in call centers for years, one was for VERIZON and the store reps are SALESPEOPLE first. They make a COMMISSION on every phone, calling plan, add on, accessorie even taking a bill payment! So dont say that the CUSTOMER is at fault! They add things all the time withoutthe customer's knowledge and they outright LIE! And so do you!

I originally signed my contract with Cingular and was quite happy with them but then AT & T came and took over my contract. I upgraded my plan so it would be cheaper and I noticed they put international calling on my phone but never informed me of any of the rates. I thought it was part of my package. I never thought or knew it was so high. I used the phone to contact my husband overseas and went I travelled to see I received calls from home never knowing that I was being charged $2.00/ minute. AT&T didn't inform me until the bill was up to $2000.00.

I tried disputing the bill but haven't heard anything from them except nasty calls from collections.

Any advice?

My wife was a Cingular wireless customer, her contact was up and she was moving. A sales rep told her there was service in the town she was moving to, so she signed a two year contract. When she moved two months later, surprise! There was no service at her house, no service at school and no service at her job. Cingular refused to let her out of the contract, so she refused to pay and eventually they closed the account charging an ETF. This bill is now in collections. I need information on resolving this.

Here is my cingular story. I had cingular for 2years. I had the unlimited web plan. one month i get a box in the mail from cingular and wow its a bill for 27,000 text messages for over 3,000 dollars i called and the gentleman said they had to send me to the bill dispute department. a very nice man got on the line i explained what was going on and he said let me look up ur bill. all of a sudden i hear him laughing and he told me to hold on he calls someone else over and they both laugh he ask how did u receive ur bill i said in a box he chuckled he told me there is no way i made these charges and looked at my other bills for 400 a month he said they would investigate i said okay i told them to deactivate my fone. so i thought it was being handled 2months later i get a letter from a collection agency saying i owe 3,500 to cingular i called them saying the bill was in dispute he said how did u dispute the bill i said i called them he said i would have to write them so i sent a letter to them. a month later i get a bill saying to pay 1100 dollars i did i sent a check paid in full they cashed it i thought finally its over. jump ahead two years later after the merge with at&t they had sent my paid in full closed account to another collection agency for the same amount. i told them i paid it they said they need at&t to tell them that so here i go again calling at&t they said yes we see it was paid u have a zero balance i said ok can u tell that to the collection agency u sent my paid in full bill to they said well maam thats out of oyr hands now once it goes to collection it is up to that company to stop calling u i said what do u mean it was ur mistake u sent it to collections and now u wont do anything to stop them from harrassing me when i never owed u. they said yes maam we cant do anything. so i sent the collection agency my cancelled check and a letter from the other collection agency i paid saying the bill had been paid and i still am getting threating calls from them. thank you for this forum

Hello All,

Sorry to hear all the misunderstandings. I had a similar event happen to me. I deployed to Iraq last year and used the military disconnection program. The outsource rep in India told me that I did not need to send a copy of my deployment orders or have to pay anything since my bill was current. A year later, I try to connect a new service and was told that I could not due to a collection on my account. I have been billed &375 for $175 disconnection fee plus late fees for 12 months. It took me 20 phone calls to get an American base rep, she took care of me. She gave me the fax number to their main management office that takes care of all disputes. I'll let you all know if it works. Here is their fax number: (888) 470-2270.

Hi all,

They're charging me for Internet on a per usage basis while the phone connects to an email server every 2 minutes. The password to the email server is not even current so I never get anything. Phone was configured by an AT&T rep, I tried to delete the connection won't work. I canceled my data plan and I'm now getting charged per use. My phone is currently shut off though I'm paying for their service.

Can anybody share contact information to serve AT&T in the small claim court? I leave in the state of WA and while this information should be public there's almost nothing I can find on them. I think their UBI number (Universal Business Identifier required for a business in WA) is 601986747 but I'm not sure of even that.

Need an officer and an address.

Thanks much!

I have so many different fees on my cell and land line and I would like you to go over them. Received UCAN Newsletter but lost it and do not have address to send copies of billes. ThaNK YOU. J.T.

Beat this.

I use a data card with an unlimited data contract on a data 3g card. We recently upgraded two of our 10 cell phones on the corporate account and inadvertently used wrong card to connect again to the internet. Without our knowledge the bill continued to rise until we viewed the EOM statement and found the data was being consumed on the wrong sim card and rather than receiving just a monthly data charge of $60 for unlimited usage i have received a whopping $230,000 invoice. Despite all the phones on the account receiving data packages and a reasonable explanation for how during the course of the setup of this simcard there must have been some misunderstanding with the representative we spoke with etc. Our claim after 7 days has received a flat out no reduction and pay the bill.
I am speechless. I have read through this form and see no negotiations with this company and don't know what to do. naturally my job is on the line!

hi all,
I would like to share my story here too....last month I visited to international country & got approx. $ 1000.00 bill.
Last month when I was in international country I saw my cell phone had auto find local wireless GSM network & I was able to make/receive local calls.

I went to ATT website & started looking for international options & plan details to make sure I don't get charged crazy...

I saw following items pre-included in my plan which I never saw when I was with CINGULAR -

a. GSM Coverage shared $0.00

b. Expanded International Roaming $0.00

I opened up ATT website for internation roaming details & noticed that they have written information as follows -

a. International coverage, voice, data details -

City - XXX
Services - Voice, Data, Picture etc..
Network - GSM/GPRS

b. International roaming charges -

Voice - $ x.xx
Data - $ x.xx
etc...

I interpreted this as follows -

a. My plan has "GSM Coverage shared" which might mean I can share same minutes internationally with $ 0.00 cost.

b. Expanded International roaming - If I will be in roaming zone of particular international country then it will be charged to me at the rate of $ x.xx

So here I go....I started using my phone for calling/receiving local city people (my friends, relatives etc.)

After 1 month I got bill of $ 1000.00

I have couple of issues with it -

a. When I had CINGULAR plan International option/package was not by default included under my plan - In order to make/receive calls in international city I would have to pre-setup & take international package in my plan (Makes total sense!)
As appose to these ATT folks made this option by default TURN ON ! So I had no clue that what will be the charges if I access it & overall impact!!!

b. As any other layman in this world I also interpreted using GSM coverage totally differently & screwed myself!

c. Why ATT can't send an SMS saying that you started using your phone Internationally & would be charged for $ x.xx per minute on my very first call !

My future actions -

1. Fight for it !
2. File a case if not get resolved !
3. Do whatever I can to get it resolved !

thank u all for sharing ur pains same like me !!!

I've worked for AT&T wireless as a rep for 6 months now. Yeah, reps are often too lazy or rude, but that all starts from the way the customers act.
Some points to share
a) When something like this happens, I automatically switch to asshole mode:
Me: Thank you for calling the new At&t 'bout your wireless service, my name is xxx, who am I speaking with?
Cust: Why my bill is too high? I only use it for emergencies, when it was Cingular I have had no problems... bla bla bla
This bugs me and buggs all of the reps, please be polite enough to answer the questions of your name, your phone number, the accounts holders name (even if you are) and the last four digits of the SSN/Password of the account

b) Complains like "I was told in the store that..." piss us badly, you people sign a paper. The contract has tiny letters? Well yeah, but thats not our problem if you don read 'em

c) The truth is, reps can give adjustment for up to $250 including taxes, 1000 rollover minutes, supervisores can give $400 including taxes and 4000 rollover minutes, anything greater than that will be escalated and you'll be called back

d) At&t is highly commited to quality, thus having regular call-monitoring, plus the chance for the customers to qualify the service after the call (Post call survey, PCS), or random-selected calls were 2 things are considered: First Call Resolution and Total resolution. A rep who gets a bad PCS or doesnt get a FCR gets suspended and in some cases fired. This doesnt mean that there are not bad agents, all of us have done things the wrong way, but again; it depends the 95% of the time by the way you customers threat us

e) When you have something that has been pissing you off like your cell phone working poorly, high amount bills or something, contact customer care and say the words "I want to cancel" even if you have an early termintation fee, if you are good enough to the company you will be transfered to a saveteam that will make you LOTS of offers, from exclusives price plans, to adjustments or new equipment, in case the customer care rep takes your cancellation request... well, that means you are nothing for the company

For now I think it will be all, coming back from a 8-hour shift, speaking to customers that don't even know how to get a prorated charge is kind of annoying

Fewest dropped calls??? Hah. A 2 minute conversation requires me to dial the same number 5 or 6 times using up minutes. When I complained, they told me that they had excellent coverage in my area!!

After several months of high bills, despite rollover minutes, and getting nowhere with customer disservice, i finally gave up and let them shut the phone off.

The other weekend I went in two the store to upgrade my phone and extend my contract. Well within the last year, I moved to a town about an hour and half away from where we originally lived so my husband could go to school. Anyways, I told them my zip code and the gentlemen thought he was funny and said oh wow, ummm well you don't live in an area where we have towers.. I was like my phone works great we have no problems. He goes well here is the deal there is a "political battle" going on because they conisder AT&T a monopoly and so they won't let us expand, so everytime you use your cell phone you use another companies tower and we have to pay them for every minute you use.. I was like SO! I pay enough each month and have been a loyal customer for 5 years plus.. He like well At&t is going after people who are doing this (like i knew i was doing something) and charging them $375!!! Are you kidding! I said well they can't just charge me without giving me a warning and he said I just did. So I said you aren't going to give me a new phone because you will get in trouble? he was like well uh yeah. I was like okay, so what am I supposed to do? I am stuck in this contract?! he was like they might let you out, the whole time joking with his co worker about the "political battle" crap that he thought was the best punch line ever... So I guess I am just waiting for a letter although I feel like tell cingular to let me out now. Has anyone else heard of this?

Im shocked. my daughter subscribed to XM radio for one month for 8.99 a month. got the bill today for $4,500. it seems to turn out that you get XM radio access, but you pay the stream separately, at $10/MB (or about $500/hour) . other than the webpage is totally misleading, they allow underaged to commit to debt piling up to $4,500, the web page never indicates that the download cost is $10/Mb, the web page indicates that AT&T requires unlimited internet access -which she obviously didnt have, so its no requirement as they post-, im thinking on hiring a lawyer. has anybody experience with such expereinces? any hint helps, but i will definitely not pay $ 4,500 for having listened to radio for a month. tks//

I Hate At&t , my bill is $279.25 and I didn't go over my mins. How is that???

After many years with AT&T service, We moved across country, went to the AT&T store and requested that our numbers be swapped over to the new state so we would have local numbers. The store clerk incompetently took over 2 hours to complete this simple task, we bought new phones, accessories headsets and chargers totaling well over $500, agreed to a new contract and they bartered for my rollover minutes which I initially had almost 8000 and they said they would give me 5000 but offered no explanation. Several months have gone by and it appears that I have 2 accounts floating around...one account that is new and legit with our new local numbers, and our former account that was appearently never "relocated" instead it remained open generating monthly fees that stacked up quickly. And to boot, they never gave me a single roll over minute on my new account. I also paid on both accounts simultaneously as we were in transition of moving and I didn't have the bills in front of me to verify that they were billing me properly. I have made 5 consecutive phone calls to AT&T regarding fixing this problem, each consuming more than an hour of my time on hold and explainging the situation. I have found that it is a complete waste of time to even try to explain anything to the person who initially answers the call, yet when speaking to "managers" who give their name, but have no extension or identification number except their "name" can not do anything either. With each painful call I have made to resolve their mistakes, I have been thoroughly assured that the situation has been resolved completely. Yet as each bill comes, it shows that I am further in debt...NO RESOLVE OF SITUATION!!! Now I have been put in collections for the issue and As of tonight once again the situation has been resolved beyond the shadow of any doubt and I should have nothing to worry about...well la di friggin da as if its all better now. This time I mentioned involving the BBB, the FCC, PUC, my lawyer etc and they transfered me to someone with a direct call back number who in 25 minutes tells me that it is resolved and he will call me tomorrow to confirm everything with the other departments when they open. IM NOT HOLDING MY BREATH that he will call again, instead I am carefully documenting everything because AT&T is stealing from me and they are operating fraudulently. What can be done to get AT&T to pull their big corporate head out of their big corporate Butt and start SERVING their customers with accuracy and courtesy and to repay people what is rightly theirs?

I have a account in my name that is not mines. I want it removed, has not happen yet.

At least we are not alone according to these other posts. :/

Long story short, in March 2007 my company moved our service to Cingular. We purchased 5 8525 phones & signed up for pooled voice minutes and unlimited data plans for all 5. At least that is what the written quote from the salesperson said, amd that is what we agreed to. We had a new A/P person who didn't question the bills until August. That is when we disovered that they put the phones on 4MB data plans resulting in $700+ overages each month. Should be easy to realize to fix right? Several phone calls - each time they say they "will look into it." Result? Denied. Faxed copy of original quote from their salesperson stating that the plans were unlimited. Result? Denied. To add insult to injury the "notes" in their system from the phone calls (to their ill-trained and uncaring customer service reps) are inaccurate and they keep referring to them as if they are irrefutable but somehow what we have IN WRITING can just be ignored. We have now been denied twice which apparently means that they will no longer even consider the matter. Maybe my letter to their President and the copy of it to the FCC will get a little more respect. I won't hold my breath though.

I HATE AT&T MOBILITY! NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH CINGULAR!

I logged into my ATT (former cingular) account this morning to pay my bill, and was SHOCKED to see my amount totaling $645.

I (for two phones) never pay over $100-120 per month.

Heres the deal:
We purchased a new phone for my wife last month. We got it home, and she decided to download a few ring tones. Ok great. Well, on ATT's homepage, there was an offer for 3 FREE DAYS of XM Radio. (free? Ok, great)... She used the trial, (off and on for 3 days)... then quit. No Strings attached, No cancellation Necessary... Well apparently the FREE TRIAL wasn't really free. It totaled up 44,000 msg/kb charges to our ATT phone bill, totaling over $500 in itself.

In my mind, this must be some kind of joke... it is completely deceptive, fraudulant, and outright insaine...

I have as of now spoken with 3 different ATT reps, none of which "have any authority" to do anything about this issue. One rep stated her supervisor was "on another call", and would not release his name, or extention...

I cannot get to anybody who apparently has any anything at the company, and feel as if Im just blowing hot air. Im guessing I am calling some 3rd party call center in Indonesia somewhere...

I did make a call to the Office of the President...

and spoke with a secretary there who has an "executive" looking at the matter... They are soppost to give me a call-back in 24-48 hours. So we'll see what they have to say.

This IS Insaine... Ill keep you posted.

Yes, My contract was up and I feel one month behind during Christmas. Next thing I know I get a cancellation fee on $350 for early termination of my contract. My contract was actually up two months prior. So a $450 bill turned into a $795 bill. How does this happen?

Somehow, while upgrading to an iPhone I lost a SIM card that was for the second line of my plan. Unbeknowst to me, someone got a hold of this SIM card and called 140 minutes to Honduras. My AT&T wireless bill for those minutes was over $1,200.00. I complained that I had accidentally lost or thrown away the SIM card and did not even know that my account was allowed to call internationally without prior activation of that feature. At first, Cingular/AT&T reps told me the "recovery team" would look into this matter and probably would credit my account. They were supposed to call me within 7-10 business days. They took 9 business days to get back to me. I first saw notification of the bill on August 24, 2007. I called 611 immediately and told the representative about the problem, and I had thought at first the exorbitant bill was an error on their part. She told me that the charges were probably valid but that I could file a claim for a credit and if I was a good customer and did not have unusual credits in the past that the "recovery team" would likely authorize a credit to my account. Today, September 7th, a full 9 business days later, they finally call me and tell me that the charges are valid. I am utterly disappointed in AT&T/Cingular and am reviewing my options. Should I just refuse to pay them? I did not even know someone could call Honduras (or any international location) without prior activation of that feature on one's contract. They really hate their customers and treat them unfairly. Beware contracts, beware of AT&T!!!!

ATT just informed me I no longer receive cell service at my home b/c they no longer use the same cell towers in my area. They have offered to let me out of my contract at no charge to me. My contract is three months old and I paid for the stupid phone. I want my phone money back and any refund for service missed. And why shouldn't they pay me a termination fee? Anyone ever go through this? There must be 20 of us at my complex that are all getting screwed.

I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah last year, July 2006. I had a Cingular wireless phone from California.
When the contract expired in September of 2006, I traded in the old Cingular cel phone for a new Utah Cingular phone.
Service has been fine.
However, I recently recieved a collection notice from AFNI for service on the old California cel-phone.
Apparently, Cingular did not turn off the old California cel phone service. Keeping in mind, that, for the last almost a year, I never recieved a bill for this California cel phone that I traded in.
Now, I have traded cel phones in before and acquired a new contract over the years. I have never had such an issue.
I mean, you can check the records on the old California Cingular cel phone and see that it was never used. In fact, I still have that old phone and remember turning it on and finding that the service was indeed not on.
So, I dont get this but, I did not do anything wrong here. Except pay my bill on time.
How can they do this ?

Now, this collection agency, AFNI, is attempting to collect this so called debt from me and messin with my credit.

How can they collect on something I was not liable for and was never notified of ?
Can I request the records for this old cel phone ?

I mean, I traded it in and I have a different cel phone now.

I bought a Cingular phone and prepaid plan because I passed out twice this summer, and wanted protection..The prepaid service on the 351.00 cingular phone never worked. When you cll to complain some are nice =others like all call centers are ridiculous. I have not had help for 2 months . local store will do nothing. I am trying to recover from cancer. This is so sad to me.What organization can get me a working phone. I am prepaid for a year. How can I get to the top.. and get something done. thanks sik By the way I sent in my new phone they sent backa refurbished which was worse.Now they say its the sim card. Ever customer care person says a different thing read off a paper. This new A t and T is going under fast..belive me . it's awful .need help

okay i had cingular for 8 years, i lost rollover minutes when i changed my plan i was also one of those that upped my plan due to rollover minutes, but didnt get to keep them... when i changed to a smaller plan, but that wasnt all at &t buys them and all of a sudden my bill is doubled i check it out, the first page states i have a family plan 89.99 i have a lap top card 59.00 okay i look at the next page i have two phones both are being charged 89.00 per phone plus the one phone wasnt even suppose to be in service when i upgraded i wanted a individual plan. for over a year i was charged 79.oo for my lap top card, then i go in to a store speak with a tech after waiting 3 hours i get the 59.00 plan long story short i use to pay about 150 for my family plan, att bought cingular my bill was 300, then 450 they told me it was a legit charge, i stated the one phone when i up graded was to be removed i wanted a individual plan and the data on the on phone there was none because it wasnt being used apparently the tech put in an upgrade on the phone and re signed me up for another two year contract... i stated no the two year contract was to be on the 2nd phone listed but under a individual plan.. after three months of calling stopping in stores i gave up i switched to verizon... now i get a bill from a collection agency telling me i owe 1176. excuse me att owes me money first of all i over payed the first month by 150, the second month 250, let alone the time it takes to stand around their stores 12 hours of my time, phone time waiting and arguing with them another 8 hours i make 28 and hour=960.00 plus the aggravation i dont owe them nothing.

I recently went to Mexico for 5 days and of course brought my Cingular 8525 with me. A few weeks later I open my phone bill which is normally about $100.

It was $$48,797.09 !!!! And they refuse to take off the charges!

They are claiming that the charges are for Data Roaming. I did not even use my phone for data on the trip. I usually get my e-mail on this phone automatically, but they didn't show up. I had to use the hotels internet for $5 per day.

When I called ATT it took me 6 tries, each time getting transferred about 5 times each call. They promised to call me back twice and never did.

Finally I reached a supposed supervisor in the "High Use" department who claims that he has no manager for me to speak to. He also turned my phone off becasue I said I was not going to pay the bill. He also said he would ask someone to call me back and so far, no one has.

After reading the terms of my agreement it says I cannot sue them and have to use arbitration. From the web sites I found the possibility of me winning that are next to none...

What else can I do??? I don't even make that much in a year!

I used a Treo 650 for 2 years with Cingular and had no problem traveling overseas. I got a new 8525 and went to France for business for 5 days. This phone runs the internet in the background and I was charged $5,200 for roaming charges for internet use. I never even used it overseas.
When I complained they told me that this phone runs the internet in the background andi is always on. They said I should have disabled it. I said, how am I supposed to know this and that their salesman should have pointed this out as I said I use it for overseas use. Funny thing was David Blaine was in the next kiosk and he had the same thing with T Mobile as he was charged $5,000 for being in India and not using his phone. The Cingular saleman laughed.

Cingular has reduced my bill down to $1,200 which is still not fair but it does show that they admit they were wrong. I complained and now they stopped my service.

Any suggestions on how to handle the balance as the service they provide and the 8525 is perfect for me.

I'm being SUED over a 3 YEAR OLD cell phone bill from Cingular.

I activated with Cingular, and the guy at the store hit "M" for 'mobile to mobile' instead of "N" for 'nights and weekends' resulting in 6 months of disputes regarding $1,000-$2,000 bills which Cingular would repeatedly credit and attempt to pacify with "bonus minutes". I have the old bills showing credits to my account for $1400, $800, etc.

Then these "bonus minutes" refused to "roll-over" and Cingular contended there was no way to figure out how many roll over minutes I should have. Cingular customer service reps (two of them) said they would hand-audit my previous bills as if I had been placed on the correct plan from the beginning. When I called back to find the status of the audit the reps and supervisors had no knowlege of such an event occurring.

I offered to pay the termination fee and my monthly usage fee, but they told me to "pay the $1300 first, and if we determine there is an issue we will credit it back to your account."

Anyone else with a similar situation? I could certainly use some more similar problems for my defense.

castnd @ yahoo . com

I signed up for the 19.99 a month data plan which bills based on usage. This was to be used on my laptop only when I needed it. At home I use cable for my desktop and laptop.
Cingular says I downloaded 36 meg of data in one sitting. No way did I do this. I received a bill for $250.00 for this.

I didn't bother calling them because they have the runaround thing down pat. Instead, I am sending my complaint using the good old post office. I figure there will be a lot of back and forth on this so I'm going to have all of the details in writing.

I have Verizon for my cell phone service but their data cards only have an unlimited plan so I thought I'd give the pay per usage a try.

If you have a chance to get out of your contracts, I really recommend Verizon. When I did have Cingular, (now AT&T) for cell phone, I went into a store to get a problem resolved in Atlanta. I waited in line for 20 minutes and then was taken to the back to be connected to support. I waited for 20 minutes on hold there also. When i finally got through, the woman didn't know how to resolve the issue so after many occasions of being put on hold she finally came back on the line and asked me..very quietly... if there was anything else she could help me with. She then hung up the phone. That was the last straw. I turned to the guard they had posted in the back and asked him if they hired him because people get so irate with the lack of service that they get violent.

He laughed and said, yes that does happen.

I called back in and got through within 5 minutes. The first question I asked was how much longer I had on my contract. I was told 2 weeks. I said, thanks, hung up and walked 2 blocks to the Verizon store. No line, no guard and a working phone with all of my data from my old phone transferred within 15 minutes. I got a new number and two weeks later I dropped Cingular.

The difference in service is night and day.

If anyone decides to press a lawsuit against ATT, I have a donation for you. ATT was screwing me over before they merged with Cingular. Cingular used to be a good company.

I just signup with AT&T Cingular notebook #G connect card which consist of $19.99 5MB monthly cost.
I had just purchase a new notebook and wanted to try out this type of connection on my new notebook while I am on the road. I also trusted my instinct that my over run cost would not be over $30.00 more a month. Well as you are aware when you purchase a new computer you need to update the operating system, plus your existing software to the new operating system, little that I no that my first monthly bill would be $4,400.00 I was outrage when I receive my first bill.; so I called to discuss my monthly statement. My first response was that someone would be calling me the next day. I receive a call the next day and I was told that they would need to forward my monthly statement to a higher up representative that has the authority to make a decision on my request on my over run current charges. The AT&T representative explain to me that should had chosen their unlimited monthly rate plan of $59.99 and she offer to me to switch me over so I would not incur anymore over charges on my account. I agreed. The AT&T representative concluded are conversion that in the next few days I would receive a call. The next day I receive their call; the AT&T representative describe to me there current offer would be that they would reduce the over charges to 1/2 the current charges. My response to them was that their offer was not acceptable to me, and that I felt and entrapment was been done to me as wells others who choose that plan I had chosen, in the manner they offer on their website plus as costumer service they advertise to spend $18,000,00 per day they should charge me only the new plan I had accepted from them "the unlimited monthly plan at $59.99, plus I explain to them that I was requesting a plan that they offer. In addition, on their website they have an area that they provide that you can check on your daily current use. However there system was not providing that information to me at the time this over charges where taking place. In conclusion. I explain to the representative; been that they offer a flat rate plan with unlimited use at a profit, it would not be a loss to them plus it would provide them with a happy customer with their service, plus help me correct the erroneous error I had committed choosing the incorrect plan. Well she continue on disagreement and that she could not provide me with a response with my request been she was not authorized to make that decision. One quick note when I mentioned that I would be filling a complaint with the CA Public Utilities Commission her tone of voice was subdued. My conversion ended on a drop call on my cell phone she did not tried to reconnect by calling me back and I have not ha any further contact from AT&T Cingular. However, I have filed a complaint with the CA Public Utilities commission.

I signed up for a new account with Cingular and bought a Treo 750. It was junk. When I called to cancel the account they offerred me a 8525 for $150. They forgot to mention it was a refurb, which they now confirm. It was bad so I sent it back and they sent me a new one. Charged me $410 for it. Said I should have been told I was going to pay more. Now they won't adjust my bill. All I want to do is pay them $4000 over the next year or two and have service,,, not be mislead by these crooks. Stay away from them. I should stayed at Altell :(

I am also being charged for "ringtime". These one minute charges deffinetly add up at the end of the month.

Anyone else get abused like this? I manage a 10 phone Cingular plan at work and have a 4 phone Cingular family plan at home. I have been paperless with email bill reminders for over a year now with Cingular. I received a bill reminder notice via email each month and then went on line to pay my bill. No problems, worked pretty smoothly. Then the merger ~ With my luck I was also selling my house and moving to a new one the last two months so I wasn't as vigilant as I normally would be in making sure I received my billing notices. So for the last 2 billing cycles good 'ol AT&T did not send me my monthly reminder by email. When I finally realized that I hadn't received a monthly notice in awhile I went on line on my own and tried to enter the website to check my bill --- guess what? my old password and log in did not work. I tried to access the "online support chat" and received a "we are too busy to help you message". So the next day, (yesterday), I call AT&T Cingular support and get my password and log in reset. Go to the web site and see that my monthly bills that normally average $200 to $250 per month went up to $350 and $850 per month on the last 2 cycles. Their support department says the charges are legit, that we just used up all of our rollover minutes which is kind of strange since we have had the same plan and usage for over 2 years without any significant overage charges. After fighting through a couple of layers of support, all I can get is a $250 credit on the $850 bill, even thought I agreed to up my plan to 3000 minutes at a cost of an additional $60 per month. As I told the rep, I have been paperless for over a year. You, AT&T are responsible to send me a bill on a timely basis. I did not receive a bill and had no way of knowing what was going on with my bill until it reached $850. Also there must be some definitiion change with the merger that has reclassified minutes that normally were free to being "out of plan". Anyone else have a bill that was consistently at a certain dollar level that now has jumped up with the merger? I know they are screwing me but without spending countless hours reviewing hundreds of pages of billing I don't know how to prove it. Anyone have any ideas or similar situation?

I am Angel and I am a Family Liaison for the Even Start Program which provides Family Literacy services at Kimbrough Elementary School to low-income, low-literacy level families. This complaint is behalf of one of the participants in my program named Ascencion Garcia. She opened an account for two phones from Cingular, one for herself and one for her son. Ascencion came to me for help because her phone bill is $3,195.42. She doesn't know why it's that high because she has been making payments monthly. Regardless, how does Cingular allow Ascencion to run the bill so high? Regularly a phone company will cut service when the bill exceeds $200 past due or something. Please help because the well being of this family is of ultimate concern and your organization is an authority in these matters. Thank you for your attention.

Apparantly the old AT&T Wireless and Cingular had different billing systems that were not combined when the two companies merged. I changed my AT&T Wireless account to a Cingular Family Plan account in May 2006. In May 2007 I received a notice from a collections bureau stating that I owed a balance of $26.73 on my old AT&T Wireless account, but I never received a bill from the new combined company explaining these charges. I am now facing a collection notice on my credit report due to the non-notification of the old past due amount. What recourse do I have to make Cingular/AT&T resolve this issue without my credit score being unfairly impacted?

Hi

I am so glad to know there is a website like this, unfortunately I am not a California resident, I know you can not help me. But I would like to know what I can do in the state I live in. I have a problem with Cingular. I bought a prepaid cell phone online but it was defective. I called Cingular to request a replacement. They asked me to pay $50 deposit in order to have new phone. They said this deposit was going to be refunded as soon as the defective phone was received in their warehouse. I refused to pay the "deposit", they agreed to send me the business label (everything was going to be paid, they said so). I received the business label, put my cell phone in a box and put the business label on it. I followed the instructions I received from Cingular. For some reason the package had a 2 weeks delay. It means I had no cell phone for more than 16 days. I called Cingular every single day, to see if they could help me to track the package or at least to claim it, because it seemed to be lost, because the USPS didn't know anything about the package. I couldn't claim it in the USPS office because I didn't pay the shipping. One day after the 2 long waiting weeks somebody from Cingular called me to let me know the package was lost and they couldn't do anything for me, she said I could order a new phone or change company. I didn't give up and contacted Cingular again. Somebody from the Customer Service told me that she could see in their system that the phone was received and that she was going to request the credit for the phone. I am still waiting for that refund, but the other problem is that they charged my account for $40 dollars even they knew the package was lost because of their fault and I never used the first plan and the second plan either. I would like to have the second charge refunded because I think I trusted on them when I put my cell phone in that box and when it got lost they couldn't help me to track it. Also they never infomred me that they had received the cell phone, I found it out because I didn't give up. It obvious they were planing to keep my cell phone and steal my money. Also they have a horrible "Customer service". Would please give me an advice to know who I can contact to have some help?. I know $40 is not a big deal but I think how many people have had this problem with Cingular and how much many they make with this ilegal business practices. I understand now that this is the only way Cingular can make money. I am also worried because I am not sure they will refund the money for the cell phone they already received.

I wish I have read the information about Cingular in your website a few weeks ago.

Thanks!!

I was looking at my Cingular bill online and noticed a lot of 1 minute charges.When I looked at the phone numbers I noticed that there were numbers that I very rarely answer on the bill. I called Cingular and asked if I was charged for calls that I did not even answer and was told yes . So be careful people this is another way they screw you. You are charged 1 minute every time your phone rings, even if you do not talk to anyone. So they should change the term from "air time" to "ring time"

I have built up roughly 7800 rollover minutes. We are finally getting around to changing our plan to a lower plan. When I called to do this the representative told me that I would lose all my minutes down to whatever the amount that the new plan offered. For example, if I changed to the 700 minute plan I would lose nearly 7100 minutes.

She said I understand and agreed that that is pretty bad...I asked to speak to her supervisor and she patched me through. When I spoke to the supervisor she was very curt and said that a notice was sent out 10 months ago citing the change in policy and so I was out of luck.
I explained to her that the reason I bought a larger rate plan inititally was because I was sold on the idea of being able to change my plan to a smaller plan and keeping the additional unused minutes when I did so.

She said that she understands that many customers bought a larger rate plan for this same reason and were allowed to change plans without the risk of losing any minutes...however, that has all changed and since the notice was sent to all customers many months ago there would be no exceptions.

I asked to speak to her supervisor and she said that he was only going to tell me the same thing... I told her I wanted to speak to him anyway. She said that she would leave a message for him to call me back.

All I want is to stick to the original agreement. I should be allowed to change to the lower rate plan and keep all my minutes intact which is the original agreement made and the reason I bought the larger plan in the first place.
What have you done thus far to resolve the problem?:
As stated above, I am waiting to hear from another customer service supervisor.

I have been using a calling card on all three phones with our account for about 3 years, and prior to that with Verizon for about 5 years. All of a sudden last month we recieved a $1000+ bill. All of the extra charges were on my wife's phone for calls to Malaysia. We have programmed using speed dialing the dialing sequence for the calling card. My phone and our son's phone had no such charges. Upon careful analysis of the bill I discoverd that in our current month there are several calls to BOTH the international calling card and Malaysia at the SAME time and we are being billed for BOTH. So far I was told the charges were valid and they won't reverse them, but I was offered a chance to sign up for a an international calling plan to Malaysia for $3.99 and then the calls from NOW ON (won't do anything about the exisiting bill) would be .20 per minute. The changres without the 3.99 plan were at $3.51 per minute. At this point it's being put up to the next level. But I do have a question. Since my wife is using her phone in Southern California are other people in that area having the same problem?

We have just encountered another problem with our Cingular bill. This is a constant continuing encounter with Cingular. It does not matter who we deal with at Cingular, they are very one sided, selective in what they consider facts and just down right rude.
Our son had made a number of calls for a total of 360 minutes to China using a calling card. Cingular had allowed the bill to accumulate to over $1200 in charges before alerting us. When we checked into the situation we found the following facts.

A calling card was used. Cingular claims that our son did something wrong and the calling card was not properly used therefore Cingular automatically completed the call and charged whatever rates they chose without alerting the caller. Cingular claims they have no "Safe Guard" to ensure this does not happen and does not see any reason to fix this problem. I do not think this is legal, and this is certainly not ethical. This is the TYPE OF COMPANY I AVOID DOING BUSINESS WITH.
I looked on the web site and found 2 charts containing information for International calls. The first site indicated that a call to China should be charged $.85 per minute. The second chart offered a calling plan that charged only $.15 per minute. We questioned the rep on how she came with the initial $3.50 per minute charge. The rep was totally unaware what we found on the web site and it took us 20 minutes over the phone to teach her how to access the Cingular web site where we had found the $.15 and $.85 charts. She gave us another web site address that we had to enter in by hand that showed the charge at $3.22 per minute and a forth site that showed a charge of $4.22 per minute. HOW CAN ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND EXPECT SOMEONE TO MAKE ANY SENSE OUT OF ALL OF THESE CHARTS? This just looks like planned confusion.

Sincerely
Dennis