How Cingular and Samsung Ruined Christmas
December 9th, 2006
Written By: Adam Sussman
You would think a company the size of Cingular Wireless would know how to handle a customer who is buying his wife a new cell phone PDA for Christmas without tipping off the wife and spoiling the whole surprise!
This year I wanted to buy my wife a new cell phone with a PDA. Since our wireless carrier is Cingular I had my eye on Samsung’s new BlackJack cellphone with Window’s mobile. The concern I had about the phone was my wife uses a Mac at the office and I wanted to be sure the BlackJack was compatible.
After spending hours on the Internet and visiting four different Cingular stores looking for something which told me that the BlackJack was compatible with the Mac I could not find a thing. Finally I asked one of Cingulars reps to call Samsung directly and asked them if their phones were compatible.
The rep called with me standing there and the Samsung customer support told Cingular that they had no idea. The Cingular rep told the Samsung rep that the customer (me) wanted to buy this phone for his wife for Christmas and he wanted to make sure it was compatible before making the purchase.
Shockingly Samsung told Cingular to sell the phone and let the customer figure it out. If it does not work then the customer can always return the phone!
(Samsung, this is a hell of way to treat your customers around Christmas!)
My Cingular representative was super cool, went well beyond and tried to find a better answer. So he said there was no need for me to hang out in his store while he did his research.
That same day I went to another Cingular store and spoke with another rep who told me that he was not sure the Samsung was compatible with the Mac. Then this other Cingular rep walked in and he said in a way that made me question if he was being truthful that they just had a staff meeting a few hours before and they were told the Samsung Blackjack were compatible.
With the way they were pushing the product on me I was not sure if they were being truthful about the compatibility. So I asked them to show me in writing where it says the phone was compatible with the Mac. They could not, so I left the store.
About a day later the Cingular rep who was super cool and that called Samsung for me gave me a call at the office to talk to me about the new Treo 680. While speaking with him I looked up the Treo on the web and was pleased with how it looked. What made it so attractive was the fact it came with a installation CD for the Mac.
So at this point I made the decision to buy the Treo and to also make my purchase from the guy at the Cingular store. I could have purchased it cheaper on the internet but the Cingular rep went well beyond what I expected and felt he deserved the commission.
My objective now was to buy the phone without my wife finding out. I am amazed these companies are not prepared to handle people buying upgraded phones for their family without going through all the hurdles I had to.
Since my wife and I are already customers we qualified for the upgrade which saves us a hundred dollars. The problem is to get the new Treo activated they have to disable her old line because the SIM card in her old phone is not compatible with the new phone, even though we just bought her a new cell phone two years ago. It has something to do with new technology and all.
So before buying this phone I had to overcome a few things:
- I had to make sure all of her contacts on her old phone were stored on the phone, not the SIM card, that way when they disabled the old SIM card I can still get the contacts.
- I had to make sure she did not see me take her phone, mess around with it, and transfer the data from her SIM card to the phone without her seeing it.
But these issues were quite easy to overcome. It required me to be a bit sneaky but I was able to pull that part off.
I now made another trip to the store.
The big obstacle now was the moment I purchased the new phone; her cell phone would have been immediately deactivated. I did not want my wife to see her phone had been deactivated and take action in her own hand by calling Cingular to fix it. To my luck, while standing in the store she calls me but the call dropped. When I called her back, she said her battery was about to die and in middle of the call the call dropped again.
Since I knew she was on her way home and had a thirty minute drive the Cingular rep and I both felt this was a perfect time to disable her phone. So, without her knowing we turned off her old phone and I received a new SIM card which would work in her old phone and work in the new Treo. This way on Christmas day I can give her the Treo, pop out the SIM from her old phone and put it in the new phone and she can have a gift that works.
So now I had the new SIM card, I rushed home and saw my wife was already there. When I saw that she was distracted doing other things I found the cell phone in her purse but the thing was blinking “Your SIM card has been deactivated”!
I freaked when I saw that because I was not sure if she noticed. If she did that would have tipped her off. So I grabbed the phone ran up stairs hiding from her, pulled out the old SIM card and replaced it with the new card.
After a few minutes of testing it appeared the phone was working fine with the upgraded SIM card. At that moment I felt like all the work and hassle had paid off. If all goes well, I would give her the Treo on Christmas and she would be surprised.
After putting her old phone back together I snuck it back in her purse and with in a few minutes she took it out of her purse so it could recharge it. (Amazing how in sync we are with each other).
While the two of us were standing in the kitchen her old cell phone starts to beep as it begins to receive some new text messages. After all the work and time making sure she would not find out, Cingular sends text messages welcoming my wife to her new multimedia plan and goes on to tell her about all the neat things she can do with her new service.
She took one look at that message, turned to me and said “YOU GOT ME A NEW PHONE!”
ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
I ended up giving her the new phone early. The good news is she loves the new Treo 680.
But damn you Cingular, why aren’t you setup to allow customers to buy Christmas gifts and surprise people with it?
December 10th, 2006 08:24
I’m not sure if it’s still available (since I’m with Verizon now), but Cingular used to allow you to activate an upgraded device online.
You would shop for the device, take it home (new SIM intact), and enter the various serial numbers into the correct fields. Then, within 30 minutes or so, the phone would come alive with those annoying messages you mentioned.
Would have been a great surprise to suddenly have a wrapped package start beeping with a message alert.
Oh… and nothing says I LOVE YOU like a new PDA! Diamonds are Forever (DeBeers), and Cell Phones are For 2 years, with qualified plans based on availability. Not available in certain states. Void where prohibited (Cingular Wireless).
Tech Geeks! Sheesh!
December 10th, 2006 10:25
with so much effort on this, it was bound to be foiled…nice work though
December 10th, 2006 12:09
Geetv, Laughing my ass off man!! She did just have her big birthday bash and got some of those little stones…
Monks, Thanks! True, so much effort it was bound to go bad…
December 11th, 2006 11:54
Oh yes… it’s always the same mess with “customer service”
see also
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20061210.html
cheers
christoph
December 11th, 2006 12:23
I can tell you from first hand knowledge, SHE LOVES HER NEW PHONE!! That girl is one happy camper! So dont worry! Early or not, she was happily surprised!
December 12th, 2006 09:59
You got me laughing for a minute or so… Very nice story, but you know what? … I’d preffer this happened to me than the original plan, because this tells her a lot more about what you had to do the get her a new phone for christmas.
Congrats, and keep giving her surprises like this one, women love this kind of things.
December 12th, 2006 10:22
Thanks! I admit being sneaky is fun!
December 12th, 2006 10:37
Your title is misleading. It doesn’t sound like your Christmas was actually “ruined”. Furthermore you never explained what part Samsung had in ruining your Christmas.
December 12th, 2006 10:41
Not sure why they couldn’t do this for you. Last XMAS we got the kid a new Razr at the same time the wife got me a new Razr also. She made me wait till xmas morning to use it and I was on the AT&T blue SIM. The Cingular rep just delayed activation until 12/25 and when we unboxed the phones they were up and running without a hassle. We didn’t have to do anything except turn the phones on.
Seems the reps you dealt with took the tough road to get to where you wanted to be.
December 12th, 2006 10:44
Anony, Samsung made it clear that they only wanted to sell a product not that it actually worked for the customer. If I had bought the Samsung BlackJack because Cingular told me to (based on the conversation Cingular had with Samsung) and had given the gift to my wife it would have ruined Christmas. It would have been a dud gift and Samsung knew that.
And how do you know my Christmas is not ruined! I had big plans with how I wanted to surprise her with the gift and those plans are ruined.
December 12th, 2006 10:49
pdxsam, thats what I thought but the razr phones (which is what I have) and PDA for some reason require different activation. I did visit 4 stores and they all told me the same thing.
December 12th, 2006 10:59
Couldn’t pop the new SIM in your phone to test?
December 12th, 2006 11:01
Zeiche, I did think of that but there were still complicated things with her old that we would have to still deal with.
December 12th, 2006 13:24
I find it hard to believe you did hours of research and couldn’t find an answer to your dumb question. The problem is with you. You and so many like you expect everyone to bend over backwards because you are too lazy or stupid to figure out for yourself if it works or not. If they gave you such a hard time you should have bought something else instead of standing around whining and bothering people. There are about 50,000 types of PDAs available now. Did you ever think of calling Apple and asking them? Maybe it’s thier fault for being so damn proprietary. Whatever the reason, you handled this situation pathetically and have only yourself to blame.
December 12th, 2006 13:31
“You handled this situation pathetically and have only yourself to blame”
Thanks Ted! Hope you come back to this blog soon!
December 12th, 2006 15:35
Ted you lame ass! How is it dumb for a consumer to check if the product is compatible before buying it? The stores should know if it is or not as they are the ones selling it. You say the problem is with Shandy, sounds like he did the right thing by checking before he bought it.
You then say its Apples fault for making their stuff so proprietary. Whose fault is it then, Shandykings for double checking to see if the product works or Apples? You’re the pathetic one for taking the time to write such a crappy comment.
December 12th, 2006 16:28
“Whatever the reason, you handled this situation pathetically and have only yourself to blame”.
Ted, my dear…I have to say, while it is your opinion that ShandyKing handled the situation as you say “pathetically”, I for one think he handled the situation quite successfully.
He fully did his homework, knew exactly the features that were needed and he was just looking for a sensible sales rep to help him finish the deal. The latter is not an unreasonable request as in-store customer sales reps IMHO can be just as helpful, if not more helpful in trusting in the right decision to purchase an expensive piece of equipment.
The pre-research is all about knowing the right questions to ask a sales rep upon walking into a store. I think ShandyKing was more than thorough in that area.
In the end, I got one of the most top of the line PDA’s out there and ShandyKing got…well, let’s just say…if our bedroom walls could talk….
December 12th, 2006 16:52
Hey, keep it clean in here!
December 12th, 2006 16:53
Dear Shandyking, Ted is a loser, and to the wife, I am so pleased shandyking got his just deserts, maybe the red headed grandchild will soon be on the horizon.
PS I am looking forward to reading the blog about Toys R Us
December 12th, 2006 16:55
Raphy!!!! This is a public blog!!
December 12th, 2006 18:22
I think he’s blushing!!!!
December 18th, 2006 19:16
Dude ever heard of missingsync? My blackjack syncs like a breeze with my macbook pro core2 - iphoto pics, mp3 from itunes, address book and ical…
If you would have googled i607 mac sync the first link would have answered your question… so I am amazed that you spent hours trying to track down that info and still can’t find it… I hope you don’t have a job dealing with any technology or one that relies on efficiency…