Cellular One ripoff:Senior Citizens Beware! Alpena Michigan

My Mother purchased a cell phone contract from Cellular One, in Alpena, Michigan two years ago. Her bill, during that period, was never more than $50. With 2 months left on the contract she stopped in to look at new phones. The salesperson in the store convinced her to drop the remaining 2 months on her contract and sign a new one that she promised would save her money.

Her first bill was for $140... We (Her Family) called the Cellular One office and were basically told, too bad, so sad, she signed the contract. We told her not to pay the bill until we filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office and heard back from them... during this period another bill came for an additional $150. The attorney General was unhelpful, but did suggest we seek council. Now, less than three months later Cellular One put her account into collections and added a $400 contract cancellation fee... they say she now owes almost $800.

She has gotten bills from both the Cell company and the Collection Agency for the same amount. During the period of her contract she had two instances when her phone could not contact 911... the first when she tryed to report a fire at her neighbor's house and the second when my brother was having a heart attack in her living room. Cellular One said sorry, but we should report the problem to the service department so their engineers could work on it. This company is horrible... customer service is all about explaining why you should accept the charges as they are legitimate....

In my mother's case, they downgraded her coverage to 300 minutes and when she used the same minutes as before... 450... she was billed for the overage she would not have had on her existing contract. This is a company that deliberately defrauded an elderly person who simply trusted them at their word.

Randy
St Clair Shores, Michigan
U.S.A.