Cingular Corporate Headquarters

elmo is pretty much right.

if you have a national plan, you don't have to change the phone #. other than that, as elmo said, you could start up service as a new customer, not keep your same phone # and call in to cancel your account. it is a bit of a hassle that way.

as i said, it depends on where you are in your contract, so if it's been awhile, you should try calling in and checking when your eligibility starts for free phones.

other than that, you can check to see if ATTW recieved a signed contract from you and have it on file, if not, the rep can revert the contract and make you eligible. this may cause a loss of promotions, but it shouldn't matter if you're upgrading anyway.

cingular does have 7pm starts as elmo said and add'l lines are 9.99 with the base plan covering two lines.

Cell-phone complaints: A sorry picture for Cingular/AT&T

Complaint data obtained by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org, from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that Cingular and AT&T, which combined last year to form the nation's largest wireless phone company, have the worst combined complaint record for 2004. AT&T alone has had the worst complaint record two years running.

The graph below shows total complaints per million customers for every wireless carrier that had more than 1 million customers at the end of 2004. It also breaks out complaints related to billing and service problems, two chronic sore points with consumers.

The combined Cingular/AT&T, with 49 million customers at year's end, had the worst complaint rate--288.9 per million. That's nearly four times the rate for Verizon Wireless, the nation's second-largest carrier with almost 44 million subscribers. One major factor behind AT&T's poor showing last year: complaints about problems with number portability, or moving a cell-phone number to another carrier. It was widely reported last year that AT&T customers had an especially difficult time moving numbers.

Smaller regional carriers, such as Alltel and U.S. Cellular, had some of the lowest complaint rates. But Cellular One, another regional company, had the second-worst rate for total complaints and for billing problems. Alltel has announced plans to buy Cellular One.

The FCC data track with the Consumer Reports Ratings of wireless carriers. Cingular and AT&T earned mediocre scores in the Ratings we published in our February 2005 report on cell-phone carriers (available to subscribers); Verizon Wireless fared better. The Ratings were based on a fall 2004 survey of subscribers to ConsumerReports.org. The FCC accepts complaints but does not routinely publicize complaints by carrier. Consumers Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain them.

If you're considering a change of wireless carrier, you may want to look first to Verizon. It had the lowest number of complaints per customer among national carriers, and among all the carriers, relatively few complaints about service quality and billing.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/cellphone-com plaints-a-sorry-picture-for-cingularatt-305.htm

Dead Zones, Bogus Fees and Dropped Calls
How Cingular Wireless celebrates its Year of the Customer

by Anthony Pignataro

Jane lives and works in Huntington Beach. She uses her cell phone a lot for work and personal calls, but lately, she has found she spends most of her phone time complaining to Cingular, her wireless provider.

"I have many issues with Cingular," says Jane, who asked that her last name not be used for this story. "It’s been very frustrating."

Her phone doesn’t work in buildings, so she is forced to walk outside to make or receive calls. It cuts out on the 5 freeway near Camp Pendleton, usually during what seems like the most crucial parts of her conversations. That site is remote, but her phone also doesn’t work on Beach Boulevard near her home.

There’s currently a $36 fee on her phone bill for a problem she says Cingular created. She hasn’t fought it, she says, because she doesn’t have 30 minutes to waste calling the company. Canceling her service isn’t an option because of the hassle getting a new phone number would impose on her work and life.

According to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), there are thousands of people like Jane across the state. People trapped in bad wireless service contracts for phones that rarely—if ever—work. But now things may change.

Since June 6, the CPUC has been investigating Atlanta-based Cingular. The cause of the investigation: more than 3,000 consumer complaints against Cingular—more than the number of complaints to Cingular’s major competitors combined. According to its strongly worded complaint, the commission is trying to determine whether "Cingular’s system has inadequate coverage in customers’ area of use and insufficient system capacity to carry their calls as needed, contrary to the customers’ reasonable expectations."

The state investigation is historic.

"The wireless utility has never been regulated," says Jodi Beebe of the San Diego-based consumer group Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN). "We believe the industry should be somewhat regulated, especially since there are so many wireless customers and many of them no longer have land lines."

The reason Cingular service seems so disproportionately bad stems from its heavy initial marketing in the wireless industry. By selling cheaper service to undercut its competitors, Cingular overloaded its network. The end result is that Cingular’s claim that customers can "call nationwide at any time"—the entire rationale for owning a cell phone—seems a bitter joke.

"There is a natural imbalance in the knowledge available to Cingular on the one hand, and the knowledge available to the average consumer on the other hand," states the CPUC complaint. "The availability of such information is crucial to the healthy functioning of the telecommunications marketplace."

Translation: Cingular allegedly hid from customers the limits of its service.

Cingular is the second-largest wireless company in the U.S., raking in $14.3 billion in revenue in 2001. Dedication to its 22 million customers nationwide is a constant theme of Cingular’s corporate public relations. Sometimes that PR takes on an almost New Age tone, promising that the cell-phone company is "determined to promote the individual to a new level" and suggesting that the company can "create a personal relationship with each of its customers." That relationship, the company’s website suggests, is based on the company’s role as expert guide: "Cingular’s vision is to simplify the wireless experience for its consumer and business customers by offering easy-to-understand, affordable rate plans and excellent customer service."

But complaints to the CPUC and UCAN detail many dozens of instances in which customers signed up for wireless service thinking they were signing up for service that would allow them to place and receive calls at any time and from anywhere within the company’s clearly marked "coverage zone" maps. The truth was very different.

"There does not appear to be any point in the chain of Cingular’s advertising, marketing and sales that the limitations to coverage and capacity are clearly and conspicuously disclosed," concludes the CPUC complaint. "Cingular makes the implied promise that adequate system coverage and capacity will exist in the subscriber’s area of use. This promise is taken back—in some of Cingular’s marketing materials—by a fine-print disclaimer of warranty. The limitations of Cingular’s system often defeat the customer’s reasonable expectations of coverage and capacity."

According to Beebe, who testified before the CPUC on Oct. 23, the consumer group documented 21 instances in which Cingular customers specifically asked if their new cell phone would work where they lived and worked. After being assured that coverage did indeed serve their particular areas, they purchased the phones and service plans, only to find later their phones wouldn’t work as promised.

"[T]he service coverage claims were grandiose and extravagant, at times covering high mountainous areas, remote desert locations and even other states," testified Beebe.

When the phones did work, UCAN and the CPUC found customers would often receive busy signals as calls overloaded the Cingular network. "[M]any customers noted that at times, calls to their number were not picked up by voice mail, that some calls terminated in a busy signal, causing friends and family to try their number repeatedly," Beebe testified. "When voice mail did pick up, oftentimes it would take from [half an hour] to 2 hours for the message to appear."

Customers complaining to Cingular often got one of two excuses. First, that the problems stemmed from having a bad phone. Cingular sales associates then allegedly told some customers that the problems would cease once they upgraded to a newer, usually more expensive phone. Both UCAN and the CPUC say the consumers they dealt with insisted upgrading didn’t help.

Other times, Cingular simply told customers that problems would disappear once the company finished building new network transmission towers. But Beebe told the CPUC that in 18 instances, Cingular falsely claimed new towers would solve the coverage problems.

Customers who tried to leave Cingular found themselves trapped in draconian contracts, often for two years, forced to pay steep termination fees to get out. In addition, those who bought their phones from Cingular kiosks in shopping malls found they’d have to pay additional termination fees of often $400 or more.

"Customers leave a retail outlet bearing all the risk as to whether the just-purchased service and equipment will actually work in their homes and businesses and on their commute routes," states the CPUC complaint. "To date, the risk does not appear to be adequately disclosed to consumers."

Cingular was "disappointed to learn that the CPUC has decided to initiate an investigation," according to a written statement provided by a Cingular spokesman. The company, which considers 2002 "the Year of the Customer," insists that customer satisfaction is its highest goal. "We have aggressively invested in our network and sought to improve our customer satisfaction with enhanced computer systems, state-of-the-art retail stores, and consumer-friendly policies on contracts and returns."

One new policy, instituted just a couple of weeks before the CPUC began its investigation, is a "No Questions Asked" cancellation policy, giving customers a 15-day grace period after purchase to cancel service without termination fees. The company also insists it will spend nearly a billion dollars this year on its network infrastructure in the western U.S.

Those assurances haven’t slowed the CPUC’s investigation, which is scheduled to continue into the summer of 2003. Until then, people like Jane will simply have to contend with dropped calls, busy signals and bogus charges.

"I’m very familiar with wireless service," she said. "I sold cellular for 13 years, starting in 1987 when it was very new. But I’ve never seen anything like this."

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/03/12/news-pignataro.php

Consumer Tips :: url=http://www.hearusnow.org/wireless/consumertips/consumertipswireles sphoneservices/howtocomplainaboutcellphoneservice/]Consumer Tips: Wireless Phone Services
How to Complain about Cell Phone Service[/url]

Got a gripe about your wireless service? Here's how to file complaints with federal and state officials and with your cell phone company.

Complaining to your cell phone company
Sending a complaint, concern or question to a cellular server is not always as easy as it should be. Physical addresses for these companies are sometimes difficult to find. In some cases you need to call customer service numbers and wait for automated operators to direct your call before you will reach a service representative. You will always need to have your cell phone number ready. Below are ways that you can contact major cellular companies via phone, mail or email.

AT&T Wireless
Telephone: 1-800-888-7600
Customer Service
Contact Information
Email

AT&T Wireless
P. O. Box 68055
Anaheim Hills, CA 92817-8055
Cingular
Telephone: 1-866-CINGULAR
TTY/TDD 1-866-241-6567
Customer Service
Contact Information

Cingular Wireless
Glenridge Highlands Two
5565 Glenridge Connector
Atlanta, GA 30342
Nextel
Telephone: 1-800-639-6111
Customer Service
Contact Information
Email

Nextel Communications
2001 Edmund Halley Dr.
Reston, VA 20191
Sprint
Telephone: 1-888-211-4PCS (4727)
Customer Service
Contact Information

Sprint PCS
P.O. Box 8077
London, Kentucky 40742
T-Mobile
Telephone: 1-800-937-8997
Online Help
Contact Information
Email

T-Mobile Customer Relations
P.O. Box 37380
Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380
Verizon Wireless
Telehone: 1-800-922-0204.
Contact Info: To find contact info your region, enter your zip code.
Email Form
Mailing address: To find the mailing addresses for your region, enter your zip code.
If your cell phone company is not listed here, try the Federal Citizen Information Center web site, which lists corporate contact information for dozens of firms, including many (but not all) telecommunications companies.

Federal Communication Commission (FCC)
If you have a complaint regarding your cellular service and you do not receive satisfactory resolution from the company, you can file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC does not handle contractual disputes or violations of state deceptive advertising laws (file these complaints with state attorneys general). The FCC forwards electronic and mail complaints to the service provider and directs the company to respond back to the Commission and the consumer within 30 days.

In order to file the complaint, consumers must submit:

their contact information
the names of all companies involved in the dispute
the names of company representatives contacted
the dates of correspondence with the company
Consumers are also encouraged to maintain documentation of the billing or service problem.

The FCC accepts complaints by mail, telephone, fax, email and its online complaint page.

Mailing Address:
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Complaints
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Telephone:
1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322)
TTY: 1-888-TELL- FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Fax: 202-418-0232
Note: Not all FCC complaints result in fines or meaningful actions, but voicing concerns via the federal agency will ensure that disputes and inquiries are recorded and responded to.

State Government
State attorneys general and consumer protection offices will often handle complaints about fraud and contract disputes. Some provide mediation services. Based on consumer complaints, state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against phone companies, resulting in refunds to consumers and agreements by some companies to reform certain practices.

Find your Attorney General and your local consumer protection agency.

Better Business Bureaus
Better Business Bureaus (BBBs) are nonprofit organizations supported by business members. The BBB will take consumer complaints and attempt to resolve them.

How to File a Complaint Checklist:
When filing a complaint, explain in detail, with documentation, what the problem is, who it is with, what you have done and what you want to be done.

Identify the business. Include the name and current address of the business. An agency will not be able to help very much without the firm's current address.

Describe the problem. Describe as completely as you can the problem with the product or service you have purchased. Were you told something that was untrue? Describe what you were told and how it was untrue.

Explain what you want the business to do. Specifically state how much money should be refunded or exactly how you want a product fixed or a service performed.

Include photocopies/documentation. In written complaints, always include photocopies of documents relevant to your complaint, including receipts, warranties, both sides of cancelled checks, contracts, etc. Do not send originals. Only send copies, except upon request of the agency to which you are making your complaint (and if you're asked to send the original, make sure you keep a copy). Often agencies that allow you to file complaints on line will ask for a follow-up in writing, with supporting documentation.

File your complaint with all appropriate agencies. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sometimes it is not clear if a state or federal agency should handle a complaint. Not all complaints filed with government agencies result in fines or meaningful actions, but voicing concerns to regulators will ensure that disputes and inquiries are recorded and responded to.

I bring your attention to this final section of your verbose copy and paste

Cingular Corporate Headquarters

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