If there's one industry that can trump the sneakwrap practices of software companies, it's the cell phone business. Once you've parted with your money, you are just at their mercy, as this recent reader gripe about Cingular demonstrates.
"I have had Verizon for ten years, but I needed phones that would roam in Europe, and decided to go to Cingular," the reader wrote. "After telling the folks at Cingular that I needed the phones for trips being made in the next two months, and being told 'no problem,' I shelled out some $600 for four high-end quad mode phones from Motorola. I confirmed with Cingular and Best Buy (where I bought the phones) before signing that the phones would work when I showed up in Europe, no additional activation charge or notification was required."
The reader then gave one of the phones to his teenage daughter to take to Sweden. "The phone didn't work there," the reader wrote. "I called Cingular to be told that they won't activate the phones until I have established a one year history with them. (I am 50 years old and I have excellent credit.) I told them when I bought the phones I was told that my credit history made this unnecessary. Nope (not sorry, 'nope'), not true. No exceptions. Don't even ask."
What could have the reader done differently to learn the truth before his purchase? "I did my homework, and asked all the right questions," he writes. "The answers were obviously either incompetent ones or lies. My one lesson here: write it on the contract. But must I write everything on the contract? Local, national roaming? International roaming? 24-hour access? There's no space for it all. Their contract promises nothing. So now I have four expensive bricks I don't need. And the sneakwrap on their web site appears to cover them as all their service claims are weasel-worded to where, if they even shut off their network, I still have to pay. I'm headed to small claims court -- the only thing their arbitration clause allows -- to attempt to recover the price differential on the phones. And they have permanently lost a customer -- the day this one-year contract runs out."
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