Thinking of switching to CIngular....

I am currently a Nextel customer and considering switching to Cingular wireless. I'm interested in buy the Treo 600 Smartphone in the near future. It's only offered with companies that have a GSM network (Sprint, T-moble, At&t and Cingular). Can anyone tell me how well GSM coverage is in the Washington, DC area.

When I was there a year ago it was great - I don't see how the coverage in a large city would get worse, so you should be set.

I would definitly go to Cingular if I were you. Cingular is handsdown the best Cellphone carrier. Oh, and the coverage in Washington DC is flawless.

I am a Cingular customer in the Baltimore/Washington area, while the reception/service out in the "wilds" of Virginia can be very poor (we don't even have caller id), I'm sure their city coverage is fine. It is their extremely poor customer service that I am most distrubed by. I have two separate phones on my account because I purchased a phone for my mother in the mid-'90's, long before family plans were the norm. I have been in Customer Service Hell since Febuary. No Cingular outlet wants to help you unless you purchased your phone from them, even if it is a Cingular store, and sometimes the place you purchased it will claim they can't help you and send you to the 'main' store. So you will spend a lot of time going from store to store (I live 30 minutes away from any store that will even pretend to help me unless I'm there to purchase a new phone, so I really get shuffled around).
"The manufacturer determined that you damaged the phone and the warranty is voided," is apparently code for the phones were so crappy we ran out of replacements and after we let you sweat for awhile we can offer you a lousy deal on an 'upgrade' and you will be dealing with us for another 2 years. And finally, you can get different information from every Cingular Agent you speak with, sometimes even during a single call. In the real world of there being no such thing as a free lunch, Cingular gives away the farm to a new customer, but in 8 years I have never gotten any perks for customer loyalty.
I am the office manager for a Rolls-Royce repair shop and the owner circumvented the system years ago in order to get a 202 area code number, since in the early days the vast majority of his customers were in DC. AT&T has been very good to him. The owner had an early Nokia Flip stlye phone for years, actually several of them, and when the last one died and you couldn't get them anymore he wanted me to find another flip phone for him. This was when the Motorola V60 first came out and they were still in the $250 dollar range. I called AT&T and the agent looked up his account , mentioned that he had been a customer for five plus years and they would give him the phone to show their appreciation. He just received his 3rd V60(the color version this time), since June 2002--one he ran over with his forklift and the last one he broke the piece that holds the battery in the phone--it has never taken more than one phone call, never cost more than $50, and never taken longer than 2 days for the phone to arrive.
Sometimes you just get what you pay for. Cingular's rates are low end, but so is there service.

I live in the suburbs of Washington D.C. in Virginia. The only service provider that even covers my area is Cingular. There seems to be hardly any areas that I don't get a good signal strength. I've traveled up and down I-95 from Maryland to South Carolina and have had atleast good reception everywhere. I highly recommend Cingular to anyone who wants dependable coverage, that beats Verizon and Sprint hands down.

Bountyhunter

I live in New York, so I can't tell you how the service is in DC (it's so so where I live) but I can confirm the above post about customer service hell. These people do NOT want to help you. My latest incident involved me trying to become a candidate for an early upgrade, because the T720 I brought with me from a previous Cingular plan started having problems, and after a total of about 10 hours on the phone, I was still refused. So finally, I bought an unlocked V600 on ebay, which is working great so far. Ultimately, if you won't have to deal with customer service, you'll probably be alright, but if you will, I would suggest you look elsewhere.

I have been with cingular since it was called Bellsouth Mobility, and i have never had any problems with them. In contrary to what was posted previously, i HAVE received several perks for maintaining service so long. As for the gentleman that was cheering for AT&T wireless; guess what, Cingular bought them out!! Where on earth have you been? In closing you wont regret going with Cingular.

Regarding problems with Cingular CS, I can say Verizon is just as bad if not worse. A friend fo mine had to involve the FCC to resolve a billing issue. I have also had totally conflicting advice from reps, it really sounds like the same story. I would never recommend Verizon - their customer service is pretty much useless and the services they offer are increasingly overpriced. They are even limiting the BT on their new moto V710 so they can charge more premiums for options that should otherwise be standard.

I have discovered that is very useful to get things in writing from them. Require them to email you what they say on the phone, or mail you a letter. At least that will give you something to work with.

Anyway, I'm looking to switch to Cingular from Verizon, live in Central NJ - Summit and would like any input from people with experience with service here. I'll be getting a SE t637.

Cheers,
Zoidy

Absolutely a perfect point zoidy. ALWAYS have the customer service rep "Note the Account" whenever anything is changed or offered. It's a simple process they can do and ties anything they said, did, or offered you onto your account. It provides proof and reference to something that occured when you have to call back and talk to a completely different person.
I had a customer who was saved from almost $800 of overage charges from an incorrectly assigned plan only because the account had been noted three months ago when she called in to make the change.
ALWAYS have them "Note the Account"

I have to agree with the service. In May, my apartment building burned down, and I wasn't insured. This was the month after my mother had died, and I was already in a huge financial pit from that. Not wanting to muddy up my credit for the background investigations I would be going through for work, I kept in contact with every creditor and every service I had an account with. I let them know that I would not be able to pay for 1 or 2 months while I find a new place.

I owe my credit card companies a lot of money. I have never had prior issues with Cingular or any other creditor. They said it was fine, they'd not my account, and I was to pay the full amount due when I was able as long as I keep calling in and making smaller payments. I was fine with this. My friend gave me a gift card that he got when he signed up with Cingular to help with this situation, so I went to use it and they wouldn;t let me, even though he had activated it. It was "tied to his account." I understand that, but since it's a gift card and it said nothing in his rebate contract about it being non-transfferable, I wondered why it was such a big deal. They sent me to the department who handled it, and since my account was past due, that department was collections. Within two minutes on the phone with them, they had the card applied to my account, and told me that they see the notes and to pay whenever I could within the next month.

Last month I received a $600 bill saying that I had gone over my plan by 800 (!) minutes. I told them that I had set up a payment plan, was still getting back on my feet, and that I would make payments when I could as arranged. I also asked for the detailed call information because I am one who rarely talks on the phone, let alone for that long. The web site kept saying there was a problem with the database when I tried to view it online, and when I asked the person she sounded put out by me questioning the bill.

A few days later my phone was shut off. I called and asked why and they told me it was because I was past due by one month. Even though a big chunk of the bill was paid, there was still $12.28 unpaid before the $600 bill was posted. I again asked for call details and the CSR told me, "If my mother passed away and my home burned down I probably would have made a lot of phone calls, so I think the bill is just about right." I reminded him that I called to talk about my cellular phone habits, not his.

It is now a month after that, and my phone is shut off. I still owe some money, but they are inflexible and have not made good on the plans they set up for me. They have reported me to the credit agencies and I lost my phone number. The sucky thing is, I had just upgraded to the V600 right before these events happened, so I'm not only with them for two more years, was charged two seperate fees for upgrading (a $28 fee labeled "Promotional Processing Fee"), but I have to listen to the CSR say, "Well our records show you paid over $300 for a new phone, but you are saying you're having financial problems." Yes, I did pay that much, before rebate, still have not gotten the rebate.

Okay, I needed to vent because I'm itching to be done with Cingular. Their coverage is fantastic, their phones great (except for the T720 shinanigans, and they're all a bit over-priced), but their customer service just plain sucks.

Thinking of switching to CIngular....

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