Cingular FORCING AT&T customers to "migrate" Anaheim California

I am very happy with the service that I have received from Cingular. I have been a customer with them for almost 2 years. My contract with them is almost up. I was with ATT and migrated when Cingular bought them out. I did have to be without a phone for 2 days because I happened to get someone at the Cingular store who did not know what she was doing, but after calling another Cingular store and talking to someone there, I got my phone switched over and was not charged anthing other than the $36 activation fee. Any time I have problems with Cingular, it is usually resolved pretty quickly by someone in their customer service department. Maybe when you call them, if you are not rude to them or hateful when you call they will be more willing to help you. As I said, I am happy with them and will be renewing my contract next month.

Jonas you cannot begin to compare McDonalds or Burger King to a cell phone provider. McDonalds or Burger King does not ask you to sign a 2 year contract that does not allow you to eat at the others establishment. If they did and suddenly started serving cold burgers I think you would want to change. You certainly would feel that the have a responsibility to provide you with a quality product until the end of your contract. I believe that is all we are asking.

I agree, Cingular is taking advantage of their positioning and it appears they are trying to force conversion to Cingular contracts. I am just trying to bide my time until mine is over and I can promise Cingular will not be getting my business.

To Jonas: Thanks...

Hey Jonas, I think I had the facts pretty straight. I didn't say that the $1/day prepaid plan is the ONLY plan Cingular offers; so, my facts are straight. I just think people would be more satisfied paying 10 cents per minute as with T-Mobile than 25 cents/minute with Cingular. But, I sure do have some nerve voicing my opinion.

You were not exposed to this garbage by Cingular, therefore, it would be best to chose your words more wisely when submitting a "constructive solution."

Thanks.

Number one, about the prepaid comment, that's only one of the plans. The othe rplan is a straight 25 cents a minute. The othe rplan only makes sense if you're talking for more than 7 minutes a day. Just to clear that up. If you're going to whine about something get your facts straight.

Number two, let's say McDonald's bought out burger king. Would you honestly go in excepting to buy a whopper? No. I doubt it quite honestly. The nerve of some people. A company buys another, they don't have to play by your rules, they get to do what they want. Is it pretty, no. Do you have recourse? Yes. Quit.

I'm glad that others are beginning to see this little scam Cingular is trying to pull.

I too was an AT&T customer with two shared lines and I was completely satisfied with AT&T's services. They offered a great family shared plan with $9.99 for the additional line. (Cingular is now charging $14.99 for additional lines by the way.) Anyway, I had to move for job reasons (from AR to VA) so I "migrated" one of the numbers to my new address in VA and kept the AT&T number for my former address in AR.

I migrated to Cingular in a Cingular store, at a cost of $18 for the migration, new $65 phone, and a new 2 year contract. Of course on the first Cingular bill it stated $36 activation and I had to call them to have that corrected.

Funny thing though...my new Cingular phone had great reception, but the AT&T phone could not even maintain one bar on the display. The display even said "CINGULAR" giving the appearance that the phone was on the Cingular network. Considering what happened next, I wish it had been on the Cingular network.

I paid both cell bills and waited about a week. I then go to cingular.com because I thought I would go ahead and migrate the other AT&T phone. To my surprise, it said "This account is not eligible because the customer has a past-due balance." So, I call them and they say that I have been roaming and the AT&T account has a $1,400 balance! Even though the phone NEVER displayed "ROAM", nor did it display any other network other than Cingular. And get this...the CSR said that it takes 2 weeks for a payment to post for former AT&T subscribers. What a load of garbage.

Bottom line is, Cingular is purposely reducing the coverage for former AT&T subscribers and delaying payments...practically FORCING migration to a Cingular phone.

If you rarely use your cell phone, go ahead and go prepaid. I got rid of my old phones and switched to T-Mobile To-Go and it works out just great. The coverage area is smaller, but I don't travel outside of those areas. Cingular offers a prepaid service, but why bother? They'll charge you $1/day for each day of use PLUS minutes. So, If you only use your phone for 2 minutes on a single day, you'll be charged $1 just for using the phone for that day. Most of the other prepaid phones consider the minutes as "Anytime" and don't charge you for accessing the network.

I hope this information is helpful. And remember, Cingular - "Raising the BILL."