Avoid NEXTEL!

I usually don't post on things like this because everyone gets duped a little by all companies. But Nextel went over the line.

I got married in March of 2005. My then-fiance had a nextel contract, but since the reception wasn't as good at my house as Verizon, I told her we should look into switching it.

So we called Nextel and got information on when the contract would expire, and if it would be a while before it did end, how much would the cancellation fee be. A customer service rep told us the contract would end on April 8th, and I think we called on March 27th. I then asked how much to cancel the contract, expecting $150-175. Imagine my shock when the lady (named Susie) said there would be no contract cancellation fees!

In their defense, I should have asked WHY this was so, as it seemed really weird that we could just 'get out' of a contract with no penalties. But I figured that since this was customer service, they would know, right? She then asked if I wanted to port the number to the new service, and I said yes I did. I then asked about when to notify Nextel if we do decide to end the contract, and she said that when the number was ported to the new company, it would automatically end the contract.

At this point, I began questioning the no-penalty part of the contract termination. Susie then again told me that there would be no fee if I broke the contract. I think I asked her about four times if this was true, and I'm sure she was getting annoyed. Only me, my then-fiance, and Susie know what was said. But being that I've been screwed around by companies before, I made sure I understood that there was NO PENALTY to break the contract early, and I also got her name (SUSIE!) 'just in case' it would come back to haunt me.

Now think about this for a minute--if I had been told it would cost us $200 to break a contract that expired TEN DAYS later, would we have went ahead an cancelled it?? We make 'ok' money, but we're newlyweds and don't have $200 to throw away!

Well, April 15th hits, and we get a $336 bill from nextel. Why? $200 for breaking the contract, $25 portability fee (we weren't told about that either, but I can live with it), and the rest in phone uses, which I have no problem paying at all.

So I call Nextel last night, and after speaking to a very professional customer service rep, she can't do much to help me so I get on with a supervisor. While being very professional and understanding--and somewhat patient with me during my 45 minute rant--she informs me of the following:

SINCE THERE ARE NO NOTES IN OUR SYSTEM THAT SHOW SHE TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE NO CANCELLATION FEES, THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT THE $200 CHARGE, SIR.

Now think about this a minute. It appears to me that Nextel's policy is to avoid putting anything in the notes that could 'hurt' nextel, because then when a mad customer calls back, if it's not in the "NOTES", there's nothing the customer can do. Hey, let's just record that 'customer x' called, but don't put in what you told him or her. That way, whatever you tell him/her to do can't be held against NEXTEL, and they are screwed. I tried for 45 minutes to get this supervisor to understand my side, but she kept reverting to the fact that there was nothing in the notes, so I have to pay it.

She then informed me that there may have been some misinformation by the rep, or even misunderstanding on MY part. To fix this, she said she would be sure to notify Susie's supervisor and coach Susie on proper handling of contract terminations. Does that help me? Nope, I just need to pay the bill I was told we wouldn't get.

Don't pay it, you say? Can't do that--it'll go on her credit. And since we want out of this apartment soon, it won't look good to have an unpaid bill on our credit. So, I have to scrounge up some money that would have helped eliminate our credit cards and instead pay Nextel who 'misinformed' us.

You can say it's our fault for terminating a contract and not expecting a fee. You know what, the supervisor said the same thing. What should one do in this case? Maybe call the company's customer service and get a quote of what it would cost. OH WAIT, WE ALREADY DID! She then said I should have talked to a supervisor. No, I did what I was supposed to do--call customer service, and do what they tell me. But since Susie didn't put in her notes what she told me (she did put in about me asking about cancelling the contract and porting the number though--how convenient for nextel!!), Jen and I are stuck with this bill.

So I'm on a campaign to use the internet to get the message out: Avoid Nextel!!! Go Verizon!!

i work for a nextel authorized dealer, I find what your posting to be mostly your fault. If i was to tell someone something that wasnt true... it really wouldnt matter what i said because nextel is the only one that has the power to take your fee away ya know... im not trying to be an a55 or anything im just saying... if you had been on verizon (also a dealer for them) and someone said that you wouldnt be recieving a termination fee... and you didnt get it in writing then your still gonna shafted with it. If you were going to terminate early... why wait till 15 days later.. your gonna pay for them anyway?! wtheck? you could have went to verizon and gotten her new phone and had the nextel number ported later to her new phone...

i wouldnt complain dude... terminating early was gonna lose you money either way...

message back ill pm my email to you and i can talk to you via email about trying to help you get it fixed... but any company will do what nextel did... its not nextel you should be mad at... its the dealer your pi double s ed about...

My family has had the Nextel service for over 4 years. Although pricey, Nextel had always provided us with excellent service. Recently however, Nextel has been HORRIBLE. Dropped calls, no service, poor reception, faulty caller ID are only some of the problems that my family of four has endured in the past 3 months. After countless hours of talking to customer service nothing has been done and we are once again waiting for our complaints to be "escalated". For now, I am stuck with a phone that refuses to dial out, even on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago!!!

I agree with the previous review. EVERYONE who has problems with nextel needs to complain and spread the word if we want any hope of getting any where with this worthless company.

I'm caught in Nextel limbo land. I called tonight to close our account. (Our contract ended several days ago.) The past three times that I've closed accounts with other companies at the end of a contract, it was fairly painless.

Tonight, I was disconnected from the first person I spoke to. I called back and was told that they needed to transfer me to another dept. After 15 minutes of being on hold and periodically hearing a canned announcement that someone would be with me soon, I began to call back to customer service on another line. The first person told me that there was nothing that she could do and that I should continue to wait. I asked to speak to a supervisor. That person wasted quite a bit of time telling me nothing new, but he finally said that he could take an afterhours message and that someone would call me back in 2-3 days to hear me say, yet again, that I want to close my account (I have no faith that anyone will call me back based on tonight's experience.) The entire time, my husband was still on the other line in case someone from billing actually did answer.

The defining moment came when, after 45 minutes of being on hold on one line, and wrapping things up with the supervisor, he happened to mention that billing closes at 10:00 pm ET. I pointed out that it was ten minutes after that time. If I had taken their advice, I would still be on hold.

Bottom line--They are not serious about handling those kinds of calls or they would hire more poeple to answer the phones. Also, they are not serious about keeping good relationships, or they would let you know how many minutes you could expect to wait when you call in. Too bad they don't realize that even a departing customer may have considered returning some day, does influence others on which company to go with, and can post messages to the Internet to share experiences

I will keep trying to close this account, but it's been by far my worst experience. (Why am I leaving Nextel? Unbelievable amounts of dropped calls in a Chicago market that should have plenty of cell towers.)

my thing abotunextel besides that anoying chiping noise is as a cingular rep i getabout 1-4 calls a week from people who work for nextel but have cingular service, by choice, im not sure if nextel gives employess free phones but i wouldnt take one if i worked there

lol i been with almost every major servce out there and there all the same no matter what u name the companie ill show u a post of some 1 dissing it i dont how it works in chicogo but the only reason is i stay with nextel is the only carrier i can get serive any where in the state trust me when i with cingular i went to the up north for work my so called nation wide carrier dosent have service that area happen to five time i need my phone for work and when i have to buy a prepaid that just dose it for me so i say find the 1 that works for u cuz they all prety all about money and bull crap

I have nightmare story very similar to yours with Verizon. I've never even considered using them again. I did find myself mumbling under my breath every time I saw their stupid commercial.....more like.....did U pay me now

I'm not sure what it would take to get organized enough or to get enough people motivated enough to tell all cell carriers were to go, take some action and hurt em in the pockets. They got us just where they want us......You'll pay what we say or we'll burn ur credit. Unfortunately this attitude is far to common with corporate America....period. We're hopelessly hooked and are being raked over the coals. Apparently we like it, It's to late for my credit......so I just do what I feel is right and could care less what they say.

i have sold phones for sprint t mobile cingular and nextel and u hear those kinds of stories from everybody about every company the problem is people dont go in and ask about a problem till it gets too late i am a wc for nextel and all u gotta do is take ur phone in and have it checked out at a service and repair shop or if its a network thing go into the store and talk to the people there they are usually pretty knowledgeble , at least a couple a store. dont let the problem grow, i have little sympathy, sorry

I distinctly remember when they ported my number out from cingular telling me that I had no fees for number porting--no one does that-------guess what I just got 2 25 dollar fees for porting out my number to verizon.......I had issues with phones (under warranty but they still wanted to charge me for it and just give a used phone) dropped calls limited service AND we were suppossed to get discounts from my husbands employer and I had to repeatedly call and ask for them and repeatedly prove that he was entitled to them.
If anyone has any way to fight this fee let me know cause I am getting no where fast

In general if someone is paying for a service or good it should live up to some sort of standard. If I purchase cell phone service and the dropped calls causes my minutes to excede my threshold I should be compensated for those minutes. For example If I have a 600 minute plan and I had according to nextel 5% dropped calls(which count as a full minute) and a charge for overages of 150 minutes. Nextel has this system where they take a dropped call percentage (which they told me was 5% or 97/1952 ( 1952 being total minutes including free nights and weekends simple math tells you the numerator aka my dropped calls) and multiply it by your total bill (which in my case my bill for the month including overages was $117) . So using their method I get a refund of $5.85. Now notice that in order to be at 5 percent I had to have 97 dropped calls. The 150 extra minutes used multiplied by the 40 cent charge comes out to 60 bucks. Nextel pockets about $54 dollars off this transaction. However if those calls were not dropped my overage would only be 53 minutes over. Multiply 53 times .40 and you'll about $21 dollars worth of justifiable extra charges

You would think they would be fair for a change considering their comercials boast "Fair and flexible". So after calling customer service they tell me that the percentage method is their policy. I told them that this policy mathematically does not fix theproblem and they really didnt care. This is unfair in two ways. One the customer has to pay higher bills. Second if Nextel knows they could do this they could make it so peoples calls get dropped on purpose. When people call to get their bills corrected and only get back a percentage of the charge assessed due to the dropped calls they could pocket the remainder as we are forced to pay.

Avoid NEXTEL!

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