Letter to Cingular

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to Cinular Customer Service the other day. I have yet to recieve a reply.

April 12, 2006

Cingular Wireless
PO Box 755
Atwater, CA 95301

Dear Customer Service:

I was, until recently, a potential Cingular customer. I have a Cingular “Go Phone” that I picked up when I was having trouble with my other cellular carrier. I am, I believe, exactly the kind of customer Cingular would want to have. I am a tech-savvy, early adopter. My voice and data plan from my other carrier costs me almost $100/month, yet I use less than 500 minutes a month and only a few megabytes of data transfer. My contract with my other carrier is up in May and I was considering switching to Cingular for my service.

This was before my recent experience with your customer service department. To start out with, it's absurd that your customer service department is not open 24 hours a day. I contacted your customer service department because I wanted to unlock the “Go Phone” that I had purchased in January so I could use it with my current carrier until my contract was up. When I first called “611” from the phone I was connected with a clueless customer service agent who told me that Cingular could not unlock the phone and that I would have to speak to the phone's manufacturer. This of course, was wrong, as the manufacturer told me once I called them. I then tried calling customer service via the 1-800-331-0500 number. The woman there transferred me to the Technical Support department. The moderately helpful agent there informed me that he could not unlock my phone because I had only been a customer for 71 days unless I could prove that I paid full price for the phone. Now, it's a prepaid phone, you don't let people pay less than full price for them, so I can't understand why this would be an issue.

In an attempt to circumvent your asinine policy and inflexibility I asked a friend who has had a Cingular account for a few years to call and see if they would unlock my phone for her. In response you shut down her Cingular business account with no warning. The customer service agent we spoke to acted like it would be no problem and a few hours later my friend's phone stopped working. This was a business account and my friend relies on her phone for her job. This action on your part was completely unacceptable.

I am a tech-savvy, early adopter. Most of my friends ask me before deciding on technology purchases. With your actions, you have not only lost me as a customer for life, but you've also endangered a lucrative business account as well as the accounts of anyone I know.