After two years with Sprint and then two more with Verizon, I got this crazy idea to move to a new mobile phone company. After weeks of searching, I chose Cingular. Why did I pick them? Well, after this story, you might be asking yourself the same question.

Let’s start with why I left Verizon in the first place. It wasn’t the phone coverage or the customer service. During the time that I was with Verizon, I experienced no less than stellar customer service the two times I ever had to contact them while being their customer. For two years, I always had exceptional coverage even in places no other phone would even get a bar. I used my phone happily knowing that I would always complete the call and my text message wasn’t going to put a dent in my phone bill that month ($10 Verizon-IN messaging). The phone I had may not have been the newest in the bunch, but at the time it supported Mp3 ringtones and cute colorful wallpapers. Sweet, that was good enough for me. I didn’t know any better at the time. I mean, the only way I could get these files on my phone was pulling out trusty BitPim, converting some stuff, and SLOWLY uploading over the USB/Serial cable I had gotten off Ebay. I knew something was missing though. I had seen so many people using Bluetooth and I wanted to get something that wouldn’t require such a hack to keep my phone fat and happy with media. I started looking at the newer Verizon phones online.

 Well, let me save you the trouble. You won’t find a phone at Verizon now that will support moving files to the phone via Bluetooth. They may have had phones at one time (RAZRV3c firmware V2) that accidentally allowed file transfer, but nothing supports it out of the box now. Sure, you can get a phone with removable storage that you can move off your computer, right? Well, this really started to bother me. Why was Verizon locking down the new phones? Apparently, these new functions don’t belong to the consumer. Everyone that sits on one side of the fence will tell you that it’s about money. A company can’t survive without making money. That is assuming you are willing to pay to put media on there. What if you own it already?

 Well, that was it for me. I decided to find a different provider. I researched EVERYBODY in my area. I had narrowed the guys down to just two, Tmobile and Cingular. Tmobile had some really good deals in it’s court. It’s family plan was fairly cheap with 1000 min for 69.99 with nights and weekends. On top of that, they have an ALL-INCLUSIVE family texting plan for $20. With up to 5 lines, everyone is covered for all the texting they can handle. Wow, this is amazing. Why did I keep looking? Coming from the stellar coverage of Verizon, Tmobile can’t give me that kind of service. Tmobile just doesn’t have the coverage in the Southeast right now.

 So, it’s on to Cingular. Well, according to Cingular Premier I could get two new Cingular Sync phones for 75.00 total with no rebates. My family plan was 700 min, 7.p.m nights and weekends, and the message starter (200 messages) for both lines for a total of 84.00 a month. This seemed like the deal for me.

 Well, let’s go back for a second. I did say I had to contact Verizon twice while I was with them, right? Well, the first one was to verify that I was out of contact so that I could cancel without penalty. Excellent customer service, they were willing to give me a deal for just about anything EXCEPT they had no phones that supported file transfer over Bluetooth. Did I want more minutes for the same price? No, thank you. Was there a discount on new phones that would keep me with Verizon? No, thank you anyway. I had gotten the lockdown fever and wasn’t turning back.

I wasn’t expecting Verizon to bend over backwards for one customer. That would have been asinine. I wanted to go to a company that had a business model that made money but didn’t try to prevent it’s customers from using the basic capabilities of the phone. If the phone was originally designed to support file transfer, I wasn’t going to accept any less.

So, I placed my order with Cingular. The next morning, I received an email stating I needed to fix a problem with my address to port my number. I called Cingular to find out the problem and they said the address listed on my old bill and that wasn’t the same as the one presently on my account. No big deal, I gave them the information and kept waiting.

Over the course of five days, I called Cingular twice to inquire how long it was going to take to port the numbers. I wouldn’t have been concerned except my new Verizon bill was about to drop next week and I didn’t want to pay another 125.00 for that month’s bill. Cingular transferred me to their “Port Number” department. A representative explained that the problem was with Verizon and it was going to be a few more days, I should just wait because Verizon was the problem.

I called Verizon to find out what was going on. Customer Service transferred me to their “Port Number” department. The representative explained that they had already sent a release confirmation, they didn’t see what the issue was with the port. He asked if he could speak on my behalf to fix the issue. He dialed Cingular and explained the problem.

Here’s the kicker, Verizon had NO reason to continue working with me. I was on my way out and it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop me. If this guy wanted to blow me off, no problem on his part. It sounded like he had good paper trail to back up the fact their department wasn’t the issue. The whole time, the rep was very polite and professional. He told Cingular to check something (perhaps the dept’s inbox) and check to see if the confirmation was there. He told the rep to check a date when it was sent. After a bit, the rep says, “Oh! There it is!” As if it just magically appeared.

 So let’s keep this long story going. I get my phone and try to activate them. I call the automated line provided with the instructions to activate the phones. I call the number, it asks me for my IMEI/SIM stuff, reports a problem, and promptly hangs up. I try again. Nada.

I call Customer Service. I explain to the rep that the automated system seems to be broken. I told her that I also tried to use the online link at Cingular.com and the link was broken (404). She says, almost verbatim, “Oh, don’t worry about that. After making sure the phones have charged for at least eight hours, turn the phones on for 30 min, and they’ll activate themselves.”

I explained to her again and asked her if she misunderstood me. Nope, she was reading me loud and clear. The same information came out of her hole. Wash, rinse, repeat. I knew this was nonsense and called Cingular Business hoping for a better resolution.

Cingular Business was much more helpful. In two minutes the phones were up and could do everything but dial voicemail. That was no problem, she assured me that the voicemail system hadn’t quite caught up yet and would take about 10 more min to finish setting up our mailboxes. She was at least partially correct at the time. Before I got off the phone, one of the phones already had voicemail. But, introduce one more problem, she needed me to accept the terms of the contract. How did she need me to do that? She said she needed to put a suspension on my account, and have me call the automated line again to confirm my terms of service.

I’m not going to keep dragging this story on. The story goes into a 3 hour fiasco of customer service representatives having issues activating my lines because of some check box on my account that showed me as suspended and some information was incorrect. I was hotter than a fresh fucked fox in a Florida forest fire. I kept my cool but it wouldn’t have gone much longer before I snapped on a random person.

Am I still with Cingular? Well, my 30 day guarantee is up in a few days and I’m still deciding. The customer service is absolute trash right now. Also, the crazy problems I’m having on these new Sync A707s might break it for me. That’s a story for another time. My review of the Sync A707 comes tomorrow.