Stolen ATT phone leads to forced Cingular migration

Hello,

This is my fist posting and I am so happy to have found this site. I have been turning in circles with Cingulars customer service.

I had my cell phone stolen 3 weeks ago, I called Cingular to put a hold on my account and asked how I could keep my ATT plan. The Rep told me I would need to aquire a cell phone and ATT Sim Card to keep my current account or be forced to migrate to Cingular.

I went to Ebay and bought a ATT Sim card and Nokia 3100 phone. Called Cingular and was told three different reason why I was no longer able to keep ATT:

1. Bad equipment- when asked what exactly this means I was not provided with a clear answer.

2. Cingular has just completed switching over thier billing system for the State of California and as a result my new SIM Card will not work.

3. Without my original Sim card they will not reactivate my account.

If I could get a clear answer, from a written policy, then maybe I would feel better about this. But right now it feels like I am being forced to migrate, after I spent $250 to buy a phone and Sim card at Cingular'ssuggestion. If I had know I was going to have to migrate and sign a new contaract I would have taken the free phone!

I don't want to give up my current rate or status of paying month to month without a contract, they have not offered to honor my current rate, or do anything for me.

I am being told that I am no longer an ATT customer yet I am still paying my bill in order to keep my account, even though I can not make any calls on that account.

This whole thing is making me a little crazy. I thought that one of the terms of the sale of ATT was that Cingular could not force ATT customers to migrate and had to treat them with pairity in all areas. This smells like class action suit to me.

Can anyone help or make suggestions or provide me with this mythical Office of the Presidents number. Or any other effective place to logde a complaint. The FCC?, my local PUC? anyone?

many thanks
laurie[/b]

is the first 8 digits on your sim 8931 0380?

if so that sim can be activated as long as it has not been used before.
as for the equipment as long as the phone accepts the sim it will work...where you stated that you orded bboth an ATT sim and an ATT phone I do not forsee an issue

rather than getting into a big song and dance with the rep... just call customer care and tell them you have a new sim to activate and leave it at that

if you get pushback escalate to a supervisor...

My card does begin with 8931 0380 and is a brand new card-
I was told because the billing has changed over they will no longer activate new Sim Cards. Thanks for the advice, got any other suggestions?

l

if the rep wont do the change escalate to a supervisor...there has to be a provision in that system to make changes...

That the SIM card is in use! Of course it is in use they activated for my phone number! I am waitng for a call back from a supervisor. But I have already spoken to 3 superrvisors and a group manager, with no luck. Today I call my local PUC and the FCC to lodge formal complaints.

PUC'll be helpless to enforce anything. Wireless service is considered to be luxury service and the only utilitarian aspect are the towers and their maintentance. FCC, however, your complaints'll be noticed. That aside,

There was a billing system change where all the former AT&T Wireless customers were removed from the former GSM AT&T Wireless sytems (called "Siebel") and ported over to Cingular Wireless's billing system (for your area, "Telegence"). The system still accepts AT&T Wireless SIM cards as long as they have not yet been activated on another customer's account or if there is a billing issue precluding it. Being on a different system does not mean the process is impossible, however. In fact there are (or should be) AT&T Wireless sim cards that could have been sent out to you free of charge (pending on stock).

The information and instructions about what I've told you is available to any Cingular Wireless representative who is literate and knows how to run a query through a search engine. Like someone had said, if the representative denies you assistance, then they're not making the effort to research your acct and you definitely should escalate to either their supervisor or a technical support group.

Last edited by Sorry on Wed May 31, 2006 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total

I've been waiting 24 hours for a supervisor to call back- so I called again.
Guess what I had to start all over again with a new rep-m who listened to my entire story and then told me a supervisor would call me back within 24 hours!!!

check your local stores, it may take a couple calls, but some stores do have AWS sims lying around.

Cingular says-
I need a Sim card that starts with the numbers:
8901 150 or 8931 0170
to activate my phone.

Anyone know where I can get a Sim card that starts withone of these numbers?

Stolen ATT phone leads to forced Cingular migration

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