Well, I'm in Alltel Hell. Not only is the only major cell carrier where I live ALltel, but the local phone service is the same, and they're the only game in town for DSL.
My cell phone has been nothing but problems. They've messed up their bill more times then I can remember, so I don't do an auto-payment. For some reason ( I think it's a conspiracy).....my cell phone bill doesn't arrive every month......sort of intermittent. WEll, with Alltel, here's what happens. My bill prints on the 9th. If by the 9th of the next month, if they haven't recieved payment, they'll cut the phone off. No phone call, nothing. Turned off. They cut it off to charge you $35 to turn it back on.. I do pay my bill on time if I get it in the mail, but sometimes I do forget (it seems like mail is nothing but bills anyway). I've looked into other services, but where I live is covered with trees pretty bad, and when I first moved here, I had a different carrier. Alhtouhg my address showed up as being servicable, when I brought the phone home (SprintPCS), it didn't work inside the house, and barely worked outside. Sprint has supposedly added other towers....but they won't let me turn my phone on without a connect fee to see if it works better now. Neither will Cingular----so unless I want to pay $35 to see if a nother carrier works at home......I'm stuck. Now, I hae a reminder to check my checkbook every month on the 8th to see if I've paid the bill......and if I haven't I pay it in the store....which is a PITA...but I do it to save the $35 disconnection fee. Their customer service is really bad too.....(won't go into it here), but for now I'm stuck with Alltel Wireless. I've actually thought about just cutting it off....
Now, I've recently moved to a new house in the same neighborhood, so I transferred my local phone service and my DSL to the new house. The phone number stayed the same, so on the day wew moved in , I met the Alltel tech here, and verified that my phone and DSL were connected, and it was. That was 27 days ago. Today when I woke up, my DSL was turned off. When I called tech support, I got bouned around to different people, so I just called Customer Service. Speaking to them.......I finally found someone that could read tehier computer screen, and she told me that Alltel failed to transfer the DSL on the bill, so when they did an internal audit of my account, they found out I wasn't being charged for DSL, and they turned it off. That by itself seems ludicrous. So, she was very nice, and very helpful (a rareity), and called a few people to see what was going on. 10 minutes later she got back on the phone and apologized, and said, well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but it looks like it's going to take 5-8 days to turn your DSL back on. Thankfully, she was very nice, and understood that I had a right to be frustrated, and she herself couldn't understand why it would take so long, especially, since I've not recieved a bill number one, and number two......she saw on my account where I had called in to have EVERYTHING transferred for the move.....and told me it wasn't my fault. She let me speak to a supervisor who said he'd have to call me back.
So the long and the short of it is.....avoid alltel at all costs. I like this area a good bit where I'm living, but if I knew what I know now before we moved, I'd have picked a different area where Alltel wasn't the only game in town. Hard to believe I know....but that's the hell that I've had to put up with them for over a year. Never thought I'd pick an area to live in by the utility companies, but I will now. This little story is just a molehill of what I've had to put up with from them.......(not including accidental "cut-offs" where they disconnected my complete service erroneously, or where my first phone bill had $120 in incorrect charges--they tried to charge me for the install of a jack that I put in myself)
PS.
Looks like I'm their b!tch for now, b/c the only other way to get high-speed internet is via Charter, and I've already read a good bit of posts about their high-speed service stinking. ANd when you work from home, this is even more irritating.
Back to 56k indefiitely.
My cell phone has been nothing but problems. They've messed up their bill more times then I can remember, so I don't do an auto-payment. For some reason ( I think it's a conspiracy).....my cell phone bill doesn't arrive every month......sort of intermittent. WEll, with Alltel, here's what happens. My bill prints on the 9th. If by the 9th of the next month, if they haven't recieved payment, they'll cut the phone off. No phone call, nothing. Turned off. They cut it off to charge you $35 to turn it back on.. I do pay my bill on time if I get it in the mail, but sometimes I do forget (it seems like mail is nothing but bills anyway). I've looked into other services, but where I live is covered with trees pretty bad, and when I first moved here, I had a different carrier. Alhtouhg my address showed up as being servicable, when I brought the phone home (SprintPCS), it didn't work inside the house, and barely worked outside. Sprint has supposedly added other towers....but they won't let me turn my phone on without a connect fee to see if it works better now. Neither will Cingular----so unless I want to pay $35 to see if a nother carrier works at home......I'm stuck. Now, I hae a reminder to check my checkbook every month on the 8th to see if I've paid the bill......and if I haven't I pay it in the store....which is a PITA...but I do it to save the $35 disconnection fee. Their customer service is really bad too.....(won't go into it here), but for now I'm stuck with Alltel Wireless. I've actually thought about just cutting it off....
Now, I've recently moved to a new house in the same neighborhood, so I transferred my local phone service and my DSL to the new house. The phone number stayed the same, so on the day wew moved in , I met the Alltel tech here, and verified that my phone and DSL were connected, and it was. That was 27 days ago. Today when I woke up, my DSL was turned off. When I called tech support, I got bouned around to different people, so I just called Customer Service. Speaking to them.......I finally found someone that could read tehier computer screen, and she told me that Alltel failed to transfer the DSL on the bill, so when they did an internal audit of my account, they found out I wasn't being charged for DSL, and they turned it off. That by itself seems ludicrous. So, she was very nice, and very helpful (a rareity), and called a few people to see what was going on. 10 minutes later she got back on the phone and apologized, and said, well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but it looks like it's going to take 5-8 days to turn your DSL back on. Thankfully, she was very nice, and understood that I had a right to be frustrated, and she herself couldn't understand why it would take so long, especially, since I've not recieved a bill number one, and number two......she saw on my account where I had called in to have EVERYTHING transferred for the move.....and told me it wasn't my fault. She let me speak to a supervisor who said he'd have to call me back.
So the long and the short of it is.....avoid alltel at all costs. I like this area a good bit where I'm living, but if I knew what I know now before we moved, I'd have picked a different area where Alltel wasn't the only game in town. Hard to believe I know....but that's the hell that I've had to put up with them for over a year. Never thought I'd pick an area to live in by the utility companies, but I will now. This little story is just a molehill of what I've had to put up with from them.......(not including accidental "cut-offs" where they disconnected my complete service erroneously, or where my first phone bill had $120 in incorrect charges--they tried to charge me for the install of a jack that I put in myself)
PS.
Looks like I'm their b!tch for now, b/c the only other way to get high-speed internet is via Charter, and I've already read a good bit of posts about their high-speed service stinking. ANd when you work from home, this is even more irritating.
Back to 56k indefiitely.
