Customer Reviews

Cingular 2 Year Contract

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Do not purchase a Cingular wireless plan from Amazon.com unless you are prepared to give up your previous cell phone number. I was a former ATT customer on month-to-month service with Cingular. I wanted a Cingular plan with rollover minutes and a new phone. I purchased via Amazon.com because I was able to get the best price on the Motorola Razor 3 phone (free after rebate). During the online ordering process, there was nothing asked about prior cell phone number. I assumed it would be handled by Cingular when I activated the phone. Cingular activated the phone on the day it shipped and 14 days prior to my actually receiving the phone and assigned me a new phone number. I am told by them that they cannot reassign my old cell number (which is a Cingular number) without changing the SIM card which inactivates the plan I purchased from Amazon.com. Furthermore, Amazon.com would subsequently charge me the full retail price of the phone and my rebate would be invalidated. This was confirmed by Amazon.com. There is a law that requires cell phone carriers to port your old cell number when you change carriers, but apparently they don't have to do so when you continue service and are not upgrading your phone device. I am very dissatisfied with both Amazon.com (for not making this fact known in advance) and Cingular for not being able to grant the simple request of reassigning my phone number to the new SIM card from my old phone.

I purchased a Motorola razr with a 2 year contract through Amazon. I had planned to move my existing cingular phone number (not under contract) to the new contract, which Amazon suggested was possible. Only after the phone was delivered and I looked at the fine print of Amazon's $150 rebate did I find out that Amazon can't move the number and Cingular will be forced to cancel the existing contract and create a new one. This process causes Amazon to lose their commission on the contract and void the rebate. To make a long story short I'm out $150 because Amazon didn't make it clear that existing Cingular customers should avoid their "deal" like the plague. This should have at least been a question during the checkout process, if not spelled out explicitly in giant red letters at the top of the screen.

Hello. I have very limited time so I will keep my review short. I spent 100s of hours researching and planning to buy a phone and plan because i was unhappy with my sprint service. I finally decided to go with cingular because of the good reception and the free razr. I was very skeptical about purchasing the razr based on the reviews here on amazon and elsewhere. I finally decided to bite the bullet and sign up. I immediately knew I had made a mistake. I was impressed with the phone when it arrived; however, when I called cingular to get my old sprint number ported over, they said it was impossible and I would have to cancel my account and restart a new one which would make me ineligible for the rebate. I was very upset about that and customer service was not exactly friendly either. I then contacted amazon.com and they were no help either. I have very little respect for amazon anymore because it seems like they just read a portion of the customer e-mails and just send them to a generic link.

Anyway, I just happended to browse the internet and saw that t-mobile was now offering the same deal, only they offered a 1 year contract (vs. 2 year for cingular), insurance was an option for the phone, and their customer service was supposedly the best. I then decided to just return my phone and resign up w/ tmobile.

it took a few weeks to recieve my phone as they sold out, but it came a few days ago and I am happy. the phone really does look nice; however, all the other reviews do point out a lot of viable flaws, most predominantly the operating system. Really, it is not THAT big a deal, although it is inconvenient. Tmobile customer service really is absolutely excellent and they bend over to make their customers happy.

I did not know this before, but T-mobile has contracts with Cingular and verizon so that you have coverage everywhere w/ no roaming costs.

In summary: phone good; cingular sucks and you're locked down for 2 years; t-mobile excellent so far.

good luck and hopefully you did not stress as much as i did in making this decision

I did a lot of research before I made consented to the 2-year contract. I am kinda studious that way, and I have to say that I am very happy with this purchase.

When I ordered the phone, it was smooth and simple, the rebate process is a bit of a nuisance, but well worth it for such a great phone. And whenever I needed customer service, the reps were great and pretty amicable, no hassles and pulling teeth. They were sensible and fair. Instead of just going off, lemme give you the run down...

1. Make sure Cingular hs good reception where you are.
(I'm in Hawaii in the middle of the ocean, surprisingly reception is great.)

2. Make sure you can commit to the 2 year contract.
(I compared all the plans, it had more perks for less dollars.)

3. Check to see if you are eligible for business rates.
(I am a grad student at UH and there are pre-existing discounts for colleges, schools, AND businesses. Check it out:
-go to www.cingular.com
-click on Business Center
-on the bottom right-hand side, qualify your work/school email. You'll get and confirmation email from cingular with a yea or nay. I was able to get a waived activation fee, 15% monthly discount, and a discount on future accessories.)

4. Make it work for you.
(A little preparation before you buy goes a LONG way.)

I ordered the 2 year Cingular subscription in conjunction with the Motorola Razr phone. While the quality of the phone and Cingular's network has been great, the headaches I experienced when something went wrong were excessive and took me two weeks to resolve. First off, the phone would not connect to the network. So I called Cingular to see what was up, and they said they had no record of my account in their system--so they told me to head into a Cingular store for assistance. I went to a store, where I was told basically the same thing, and they said I would have to take it up with Amazon. Easier said than done...Amazon does not provide, anywhere in its vast piece of cyberspace, an email address or phone number for customer support. They simply provide an online form, which was not working, to submit your problem. So with the trusty help of Google, I was able to find the actual customer service number and reported my problem. They logged my problem and referred the issue to their wireless department. Two days later I received an email informing me that my account was activated and should be working properly. No such luck I'm afraid. After contacting Cingular [again], they informed me that my information was now in the system, but the SIM would not respond. They informed me that I would have to come into a Cingular store [again] to get a new SIM card. This finally resolved my issue.

The long and short of it is this: Amazon is a great place to get a cellphone for cheap, but be prepared for a royal headache if there is a problem. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Goods:
Quality is good. All Cingular to Cingular are free minutes. Rollover is a good feature. Nokia 6682 is a good phone. Samsung D807 is decent.

Bads:
Customer service is poor. Voicemail calls count towards minutes. Rollover calculation is not very clear. 2 year contract.

Worse:
Cingular won't give SIM unlock code for Nokia phones, they say that Nokia does not provide them. But on contacting Nokia, they say its Cingular's responsibility because its a customized phone.

I made the unfortunate mistake of going with Cingular again. I can't believe how stupid I am. I had a 2 year contract before and a month brefore it expired I bought a couple phones and Cingular 2 yr service from Amazon.com. After I got the phones and activated them was told by Cingular (after 6 calls) it is impossible to have old phone numbers for the two new accounts, unless I paid to have old accounts reactivated. THen I would have 4 contracts????. My son went with team mobile after buying phone from Amazon and had his old Cungular number transfered to his new phone in 30 minutes. I am totally disappointed with Cingular and after this contract expires will never use them again. They just don't care. Lee

I am a little bit disappointed with cingular customer service. First, they don't have 24 hours customer service. Second, I received my phone without activation! I thought my SIM card broke. The reason is that I received my phone on weekend and cingular doesn't work on weekend! BUT they started charging the phone bill from the time I ordered my phone.

I recently signed up for a two year contract through Amazon. The phone that came with it while feature rich: Nokia 6682 has an awful user interface. I decided to exchange it for a different one. This is when I hit the wall, Cingular asked me to talk to Amazon, Amazon in turn says that they cannot exchange phones they can only take returns. Moreover if I return the phone I'm stuck with a Cingular 2 yr contract for which Cingular will charge me full price for a new phone. I should have just used Cingular in the first place.
Please don't sign up for a contract through Amazon, both corporations win and we the consumers- lose.

I signed for this contract just for free Razar phone. Just after 1 week T-mobile came up with same deal but with 1yr contract. So I thought of returning the phone and taking up T-mobile service. But I didn't, because of the contract and cancellation fees. The welcome kit arrived after 40 days and it said I can cancel the service without any chanrges within 30 days. It was posted exactly after 30 days !! Beware !!

So far the service is OK.