Changing cell phone carriers

[Razor X]

I changed cell phone carriers this week, and the best advice I can offer anyone else who is thinking of doing the same is to NEVER, EVER try to port your number and buy new phones online.  I decided to do just that and take advantage of a rebate which will (eventually) return to me the purchase price of the phones.  It was an AT&T online deal only, and I naively thought it would be more convenient than actually going to the store.  Just pick out your phones, give them your phone numbers and credit card number and in a few days everything will be shipped and ready to go. In hindsight, nothing could be further than the truth.

To begin with, after placing the initial order online, I got a confirmation email which said I'd get another email notification when the order shipped.  That never came, so when I called to check up on it three days later, they told me -- after I went though the voice mail labyrinth and waited 20 minutes on hold -- that they had no record of my order and that it would have to be placed again.   We did the order over the phone this time, and it took 40 minutes to complete the transaction.   The phones arrived yesterday.  I get a discount through work and have my parents on a family plan, so I'd ordered three phones altogether.  I called to activate them, thinking it would only take a few minutes to do -- like validating a new credit card.  Wrong again.  I spent another 40 minutes on the phone, being transferred from person to person.

The customer service rep said her computer was locking up on her which slowed things down even more.  When she got her system up and running, I found out that they'd set up the calling plan incorrectly.  Finally got one of the three phones activated.  I had an appointment at the gym so I couldn't wait on the phone any longer, which means I had to start all over again when I got home, to get the other two working.  Basically, none of the set-up that should have been done before the phones were shipped had been done.  They didn't have the account set up properly, nor did they give me the correct calling plan.   By the time I got off the phone with them, we had the very strange situation where I could make outgoing calls from the new phone, but any incoming calls still went to the old phone.  I was told that this would take up to 24 hours to correct itself.   

At lunchtime today, I had to call them again.  I still wasn't getting incoming calls on the new phones.  Took a while, but we finally got that straightened out.  Then I made the mistake of trying to download a ringtone, which did not work.  I reluctantly called them again, not wanting to be charged for something I hadn't gotten.  This time I found out that they hadn't set me up for web access, text messaging, voice mail, call forwarding or call waiting.  20 minutes later that was corrected, but I still couldn't download the damn ringtone.  They said there was a network outage in my area and to try again in a few hours.  It's 9 pm now and it still isn't working.   

I got home from work tonight, looking forward to an evening that wouldn't be spent on hold and talking to customer service reps.   When I got home, there were two packages sitting on the front porch.  Two more phones and a belt clip from AT&T, none of which I ordered.  Back to automated voice mail and on hold purgatory once again ...     

On a more positive note, at least the AT&T customer service reps were all polite, which is more than I can for their counterparts at Sprint who were always insufferably rude when I had to call them with a problem.  I will probably remain an AT&T customer for the rest of my life, because I don't think I have the stamina to go through all this again.

Moral of the story:  next time just bite the bullet and go to the store to change your cell phone plan.  It's much easier in the long run.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant.  I really needed to get that off my chest!!   

[SLYinKC]

Razor, Sorry to hear about your bad time with AT&T.  I bought my last phone online through Verizon but ended up calling the customer service rep to get the order completed.  Other than that, everything went very smoothly.  My sister had a really bad experience with Wirefly.  They promise rebates equal to the price of the phone.  Well, for them it has been 3 years and they are still trying to get their rebates.

I definitely think that on large purchases it is best to go through a live person of some sort.

[Razor X]

They were very apologetic and told me that usually these things go very smoothly.  Not that this does me any good.  I don't think that there was any other possible way they could have screwed this up more.  It's so hard to get good customer service these days.  At least now that everything is working, I am getting a stronger signal than I was with Sprint.  Hopefully the rebates will come through without too much hassle.

[Paul]

Wow, Razor, you definitely get the Oscar for Patience.  I would have gone postal, I mean phonal on them.  Had similar experience with Charter that took over an hour and talked to people in four states and three different countries.  Glad yours turned out to have positive results in the end.

[Razor X]

Wow, Razor, you definitely get the Oscar for Patience.

Hardly.  It was a good thing that there was nobody around to irritate me further last night, or they would have gotten the full brunt of all my pent-up frustration!

When I first signed up with Sprint back in 2003, it was right after they passed the law allowing consumers to keep the same number to a new carrier.  I had similiar start-up issues with Sprint, only worse, because they "lost" my phone number by cancelling the old service before they ported it over --- which is exactly what you're not supposed to do because apparently that makes it impossible to retrieve the number.  Hours and hours spent on hold while the incompetent reps tried to figure out how to port the number, only to be told in the end that it couldn't be done.   

[Derek]

On a more positive note, at least the AT&T customer service reps were all polite, which is more than I can for their counterparts at Sprint who were always insufferably rude when I had to call them with a problem.  I will probably remain an AT&T customer for the rest of my life, because I don't think I have the stamina to go through all this again.

I went into the local AT&T store last December and switched my four lines from Sprint.  In my case, everything went pretty smoothly except for a number porting issue on Sprint's side of the equation (what did I expect--perfection?) that I was eventually able to resolve.

I completely agree with your statement.  The majority of Sprint's customer service reps are either clueless, misinformed, or mean.  Did you ever notice how everyone has a different story?  Or that even the simplest task seems to require three to five transfers?

AT&T is so much better, IMHO.  Friendlier reps, great phone selection, and better service where I go most.

[Timmay]

I just ordered a new Envy phone for my daughter on Friday.  I choose the one she wanted online...picked up the phone..called Verizon ..placed the order in like maybe 10 minutes.  She told me the mail in rebates would be sent with the phones. Phones should arrive in 2-3 business days.  Got the phone today...opened the package...everything looked good.  All teh accessories were there...programed the phone in maybe like 3 minutes on phone.  Charged the phone up...bout an hour later turned phone on....did the intial programing on the phone and taaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaaaaa....done.  No problems no hassles no nothing.  Maybe it was an isolated case there for ya bud.  Things happen, I guess it was just your day for that to happen.
Timmayyyyyyyyyy!