Cingular XBM Fiasco
I got a new cell phone when i switched my account over to Cingular from ATT Wireless back in Dec. I got a Motorola V220 camera phone, and was pretty happy with it. About a week later, the internal display went blank. Well, not completely blank, there was a white horizontal bar across it. I was miffed that my new phone died so soon, but thought
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1. Call PC Partners. They do indeed handle returns for Cingular. I give them my IMEI number and they take a moment to look it up. Their records show that phone has been repaired. "Really? Cingular told me it was Beyond Economic Repair." They replied that I'd have to take that up with Cingular then because they just repair the phones there.
2. Call XBM back, finally getting through to Raymond. I explain what's been going on and he puts me on hold. A long while later Dave comes on the line, sounding flustered and annoyed that I dared to call back. He reviewed what had transpired so far. He stated "I understand that you have contacted Motorola. And you have to understand that has no bearing at all on this matter." I agreed - I don't know why they sent me to Motorola in the first place. He went on to say that some other department was responsible for the charge and there was no way for him to remove it. I told him that I had contacted the third party who did the repairs, and that their records show the phone was in fact fixed. He replied that that didn't matter either. I asked how it was possible that they had absolutely no idea where this report came from or who was responsible for it. That there must be an error in their system. He said that with all the thousands of phones sent in for repairs, NOBODY had ever called back as I had. And then he said something about maybe only 1% of them could be in error. He was being pretty gruff at this point and I really don't know what he meant be that. I reiterated that I dispute this claim and that I want them to review it. "We can't do that." I ask who can, and he suggests calling Customer Care. Well, they just sent me to you, they don't know anything about this either. Who else? Then he gave me the address of Cingular Customer Care in Ocala Florida and repeated that once the charge was on there, they couldn't do anything about it. He said he appreciated my concern but I was stuck with their charge. I ask a few more times what depart could do something about it, and he gave me the number for the Billing Department. (866-246-4852)
3. Calling the Billing Department, Ramsey answers my call. He is actually very polite and concerned about my frustration. I gave him all the information and he calls XMB too. After a while he comes back with "Well that was almost entirely useless." At least at this point, he's sympathizing with me over the frustration of dealing with XBM. He was saddened to learn that XBM has been telling customers to go away and accept is as he'd been sending them to that department when they called with similar complaints. He was just as surprised that there was no possibility of review for this charge. And just as frustrated that XBM denied all responsibility of it, passing it on to the unknown "other department."
After verifying the phone number I gave for the repair shop, he called them as well. This time however, they wouldn't confirm for him that the phone had been repaired. Now they wanted to defer to the actual reporting office which sends the information back to Cingular. I think they were getting scared of getting in the middle of this nightmare.
Ramsey offers up three possibilities.
a) have me call XBM back and ask to elevate the inquiry. ( i tried that already and got the cold shoulder of Dave. )
b) he could request an inquiry in to this charge. But, the request may not be honored, and they may not get any further than we had already.
c) or he could remove half the charge based on our conversation. But, if accepted the half off compromise, the inquiry would likely consider the dispute settled by that compromise.
argh.
He offers to make some more calls, to see if he could find a place to even submit the inquiry request. I ask him to call me back afterward.
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