From the retail outlets in the malls, to the telephone representatives and managers at the customer service center, Cingular's customer relations is of the poorest quality imaginable. Their sales associates have one sole purpose, and that is to get the customers to sign the contracts. Once they have succeeded in doing this, they consider their job done and any problem you may encounter, regardless of how soon after you purchased your phone, is not theirs to deal with. In my case, when I found out that my phone wasn't working properly, I was told to send it back to the manufacturer, TWO DAYS after I had purchased it. I argued against this to no avail, and was forced to call customer service to attempt to remedy the problem.

The Cingular customer service staff, however, was too ill-equiped to handle the problem and the conversations often led to the representatives becoming rude and defensive due to their inability to provide any sort of a solution. I then told them that since my phone wasn't working properly I wanted to cancel my account with them and find a company who could provide adequate service. They said that this would be fine, but I would have to pay the $150.00 early termination fee to them, as well as a $400.00 fee to Mobile Systems Wireless (the company who provided the phone and whose extremely rude employees justify the creation of a website similar to this one). After about a week and a half of haggling with rude representatives and apathetic managers, I finally found someone who told me to go to a specific Cingular retailer where the phone would be exchanged. All told, the entire ordeal lasted about two weeks and was so frustrating I began counting the days until my contract expired.