Friday, December 30, 2005

Captain’s Log Supplemental – Now Cingular Tells Me Next Thursday (maybe)

The guy I spoke with at Cingular at noon (who promised to call me at 4 PM my time to confirm that my phone was working) did not call back (of course).  So at 4:20 PM, with my phone still indicating “no service”  I called the Cingular activation phone number for the fourth time and spoke with my third person, Lisa.

For the third time, I had to state which plan I purchased, and Lisa wanted the IMEI number and the SIMM number off of both SIMMs – the one from the store and the one that shipped with the phone.  At least Lisa seemed to understand that this situation was an issue beyond what she could do.  The guy at noon (didn’t catch his name) seemed to think he had everything taken care of, and the guy this morning (Brian) was useless and just sent me to the store.

Lisa told me that the system was not accepting either of the SIMM numbers, so she got in touch with the migration (since that is what I am doing, migrating from AT&T to Cingular) technical staff.  After lots of time on hold (I sure as hell wasn’t going to hang up and have Cingular once again fail to call me back), she returned to say that they had to open up a trouble ticket (my words, not hers) to solve this issue and that it would be 2-3 business days before they could get the issue resolved.  We ended our call at 4:57 PM, so I was on the phone with Cingular this fourth time for 37 minutes.

So, lets review, shall we?

20 Dec – Ordered the phone, promised “1-2 days delivery”

22 Dec – Was told the order was received, would get the phone in “1-2 business days”

27 Dec – Phone arrives in NJ (which is where I was on the 22nd but not on the 27th).

29 Dec, 1100 – Family members drive into the city with the phone.  I plug it in to charge for 8 hours.  
      1900 – I turn it on for 2 hours to “auto-register”, which it does not.  
      2100 – I call their system, but the automated portion cannot help and it is past business hours for humans.

30 Dec, 0700 – Talk to Cingular human (Brian), told SIMM shipped with phone has an issue.  Sent to store to get new SIMM.
      1200 – Talk to Cingular human #2, told all is well and in 2 hours phone should be fine.  Promised to call me at 1600 to confirm phone is working.
      1620 – Not having heard from Cingular human #2, I call Cingular and talk to Cingular human #3 (Lisa).  After more that 30 minutes on phone, told it is a technical migration issue and they will try to resolve in 2-3 business days.

Lisa is supposed to get an e-mail message once it is fixed, and then she is supposed to call me.  She said they have to work Monday so I should hear no later than Wednesday and maybe even Tuesday.  She sounds sincere, but maybe I just believe women more than men.

For the record, IF the phone is finally working on Wednesday the 4th of January, that will be 9 business days (15 calendar days) after I ordered the phone.

1 comment:

JamesF said...

You should use this. Demand money back for lack of service or try and get X months free for the inconvenience.