Cingular and Double Standards
- September 21st, 2006
- Read 1648 times
- 2 Comments
Consumerist is running a story about an Alabama woman who is getting shafted by Cingular. The story goes that the woman owned three phones on AT&T, which was, of course, bought out by Cingular. Her phones are frequently used during long commutes. Due to this traversing, the phones are on the towers of other providers for more than 50% of the time.
Cingular decided that this was not economically feasible for them and sent the woman a letter requesting that she voluntarily withdraw from her contract. In return she would get to keep her phone numbers, which, as you know, is the law anyway. They didn’t offer to unlock her phones or anything like that. She refused and Cingular cancelled her phones anyway.
It seems a little heinous to me. If the woman had found that honoring her contracts was no longer economically feasible to her, I doubt seriously that Cingular would have given a damn. Grumble.
Cingular’s One-Way Contract [Consumerist]
Peter (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I always hated cingular and their outrageous charges and nitpicking even though I had been with at&t before that and before at&t it was cellular one…15+ years and you’d think they’d do anything to keep me…NO. But I must admit the UMTS phone they have coming out made me think twice about leaving but only for a second.
rcadden (Who am I?)
1 year ago
*sigh* As a new site, I was really hoping you’d run better stories than this. This clause has been in Cingular (and Sprint, ftr) contracts for YEARS, they just haven’t really enforced it until recently.
Also, if anyone would actually read their cellphone contract, it’s not a 2-sided agreement. It’s a contract that says they don’t guarantee service everywhere, that they will not reimburse you if the network is down and you lose business, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Basically, use at your own risk, but you’re required to keep paying us anyways.
This is cause (at least in the US) the contract is required in order to get roughly $100-150 off the retail price of the handset that you pick. It has nothing to do with service in the least bit.