Customer service, my foot

Well, this is going to be a pain in the rear, so I might as well start documenting it.

This is a documentary post and not interesting at all!

Kris purchased new phones for us last February or so. He did so through the Oracle company account, because the rates are so much lower than the rates individuals can get. As in, yes, you are being screwed by the wireless phone companies.

If you look at that date, you'll notice that it is after the announcement of the Cingular/ATT wireless merger which started in October of last year. No matter, Oracle's sweet wireless deal was with ATT Wireless, and Cingular is honoring those rates.

But, not really.

I have an okay rate for voice calls, but one that sucks (big time) for "modern phone features" such as text messaging or, say, picture messages. Lots of minutes, but heavy charges for SMS and MMS.

So, before heading off to Florida for Nationals tomorrow, I figured I'd call Cingular to add their unlimited media bundle, mostly so that I could send a cabillion pictures to my flickr account.

So, I call up Cingular, and ask to add the Media Net Unlimited bundle. Basically, lots of pictures, lots of text messages, and some additional web bandwidth, all for less than the overage charges I paid last month.

After about 10 minutes of confusion, the company representative realizes that what I'm asking for on the Cingular website (which is where any user will go if she tries to go to the attwireless.com website), and that my phone is a converted ATT account.

Um. Okay. Honor what's on the website.

Nope, she can't do that. She can offer me 100 text messages + 20 pictures for $8/month. No, I want the 1000 text messages and unlimited photo messages for $20/month.

Here's where the fun begins.

No, she can't do that because the account is an old ATT account. Fine, where's the web page that lists the packages? "On the web." Okay, what page? "On the website." Ding this is going to get me nowhere.

The website says I can sign up for this Media Net bundle, this is what I want to do. No, you can't do that because it's an ATT account. Look, ATT Wireless doesn't exist anymore, I want the company who sends me a bill every month to honor the bundle it offers on its website and let me sign up for it.

No, because it's an ATT phone.

The woman is retarded.

At one point, she attempted to talk over me. I kept talking, and in the middle of the conversation asked, "Are you going to let me finish my explanation, or are you going to continue trying to talk over?" She stopped talking, but never truly answered my questions.

Apparently she became more frustrated with the situation than I was.

The woman hung up on me.

So, now I'm frustrated. I can't add a Cingular media bundle because the phone is with ATT Wireless, but ATT Wireless doesn't exist anymore. I can't change the phone plan because I have to go through Oracle to change it from ATT to Cingular, but I can't do that because Kris doesn't work at Oracle any longer.

I keep thinking this system is completely messed up. I can't believe people actually think this system is working. This is all about screwing over the individual.

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