Ripoff Report Needs Your Help!
X  |  CLOSE
Report: #282401

Complaint Review: Cingular Wireless - Hilo Hawaii

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Hilo Hawaii
  • Author Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • Cingular Wireless Ben Franklin Bldg., 333 Kilauea Ave Hilo, Hawaii U.S.A.

Cingular Wireless Charged $1,229.59 for early cancellation after being told it was not early cancellation. Hilo Hawaii

*UPDATE EX-employee responds: How this might have happened

*Consumer Comment: Ummm

Show customers why they should trust your business over your competitors...

Is this
Report about YOU
listed on other sites?
Those sites steal
Ripoff Report's
content.
We can get those
removed for you!
Find out more here.
How to fix
Ripoff Report
If your business is
willing to make a
commitment to
customer satisfaction
Click here now..

I received a letter from Medcah, Inc, a collection agency saying I owed $1,229.59 for a delinquent account from Cingular Wireless.

My daughter opened a Cingular account in my name without informing me several years ago. I did not sign for it and did not know for several months.

My daughter went to a Cingular kiosk May, 2007, to change our phone company to Verizon and the Cingular employee informed her that she could change her phone without penalty as her contract ran out the middle of June. She waited until the end of June and cancelled the contract.

Medcah (the collection company for Cingular) said the contract did not run out until October. The Cingular employee deliberately gave my daughter false information telling her the contract ran out in June.

All of these business transactions were under my name and I knew nothing of the transactions. Have never signed my name to any contract.

The first I knew about the cancellation was when I received the letter from Medcah, Inc., the collection agency.

So now, I am paying $50.00 monthly payments to Medcah from my social security income. Since I am 79 years of age, ruining my credit would not matter much but I do have a pension from Boeing that could be attached.

I suppose I can blame my daughter for witholding information but that would not change the facts. The Cingular charges were turned over for collection so what can I do?

JoAnn
Hilo, Hawaii
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/01/2007 02:51 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/cingular-wireless/hilo-hawaii-96720/cingular-wireless-charged-122959-for-early-cancellation-after-being-told-it-was-not-ear-282401. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

Search for additional reports

If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here:

Report & Rebuttal
Respond to this report!
What's this?
Also a victim?
What's this?
Repair Your Reputation!
What's this?

Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
0Author
2Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#2 UPDATE EX-employee responds

How this might have happened

AUTHOR: Sarah - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Thursday, November 01, 2007

I know this isn't helpful to you now (and I was very sorry to hear this story), but as a former Cingular customer service rep, I have a guess at what may have gone wrong. Maybe this will help others avoid a similar situation.

The Cingular employee your daughter spoke with may have been quoting her the date at which she became eligible for an "upgrade", where you get a phone for cheap or free in exchange for signing a new two-year contract. You usually become eligible for an upgrade several months before the end date of your contract. So my guess would be that the account was upgrade-eligible in June, but the contract wasn't up until October.

It's much more likely that the rep just completely misunderstood your daughter. Cingular reps have absolutely no incentive to make *leaving* Cingular look appealing. The company wants them to make a lot of noise about the $175 fee and encourage customers to stick it out till the very end of their contract.

It's a really unfortunate miscommunication, but given the total size of the bill, I don't think the $175 that would have been saved by waiving the termination fee would have helped much. I'm really sorry you have to deal with this.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#1 Consumer Comment

Ummm

AUTHOR: Susan - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Thursday, November 01, 2007

Unless you can proove that your daughter didn't run the phone bill up to $1,229.59 and you didnt know this bill was going into collection you are stuck.

Respond to this report!
What's this?
Featured Reports

Advertisers above have met our
strict standards for business conduct.

X
What do hackers,
questionable attorneys and
fake court orders have in common?
...Dishonest Reputation Management Investigates Reputation Repair
Free speech rights compromised

WATCH News
Segment Now