Jack ‘n Tracie

For almost two years (1 year 7 months to be exact) we’ve had to deal with Qwest wireless. First of all, 2-3 years ago when we tried to get other wireless cell phone service, we couldn’t without paying a deposit. But Qwest liked our history with them and had been offering us service with them for a while. Finally we took the bait.

The service sucked! No other way to describe it. The signal was always weak unless driving on I-5 and even then, it wasn’t a guarantee. Worst of all, I kept getting roaming charges on my bills when there is no way I should be roaming. (And I won’t even go into how they talked me into an “upgraded plan” that didn’t include any free roaming, which they neglected to tell me till AFTER I got my first bill for the new plan — my original plan had 60 minutes a month of free roaming!) You know it’s bad when you’re in an area and everyone’s phone has perfectly fine coverage but yours so you have to borrow someone else’s phone. True story!

For the first year I called and complained and always wound up with the repair dept where they’d have me tweak the phone settings and change numbers and go into secret menus to ‘update the phone’. I did that so many times that I could probably do it without them telling me the ’secret codes’.

I gave up trying to fight it, though. I was locked into a 2 year contract with my plan. But last month’s bill, showing more roaming charges, when Jack and I haven’t traveled *anywhere* was the final straw.

I called today and got the WORST customer service rep ever. She said since I didn’t have any roaming charges credited on my bill since October 2004, that my coverage must be fine, therefore, if I wanted to deactivate now, there would be a $200 deactivation fee. *choke*

First of all, that’s complete and utter bs. I’ve called since October and have had them credit random roaming charges multiple times. Miss nasty-CSR couldn’t see these. (I asked if they still owed me money then, hehe). I was calm, cool, collected, and just trying to state my case and for some reason she was really pissy, and extremely defensive. I finally said “look, go through my bills, and tell me how many roaming charges you see”. (BTW: we never got a single roaming charge while we were in Hawaii, great coverage there, lol!)

She started reading them off.. for EVERY SINGLE MONTH since October. And she saw some credits too. Now what’s this about OCTOBER? I asked her if this is the coverage I’m supposed to be getting and paying for? She finally said she’d transfer me to the deactivation department and they would determine if I owed any penalty fees.

I got the sweetest girl named, Bianca. She at first gave me the standard “well you’re breaking your contract early and agreed to pay a fee in such a case, but I can lower it to $117″. No thank you. She listened to my case then put me on hold so she could review my history with their repair department. After reviewing it, she said the repair department confirmed I was “out of coverage” and therefore they could waive the de-activation fee. I win!

We get our new phones with Cingular service next week. Our current cell phone numbers will be deactivated July 22nd, 2005. Our new number with Cingular will be: 360-609-9954 and I expect these will be active by Thursday next week, July 21st, 2005 (which is Casey’s 7th birthday).