Warm: Cingular customers whose contract are ending...

[Tommyboy8]

If you are a cingular customer, and has a contract that end soon... BUT YOU ARE HAPPY with them

If you have an old phone and want a new one... here is a warm deal for you:

1. Call customer service, tell them you want to end your account when the contract is over.

2. They will ask you why.

3. Answer, I want phones that other carriers have for cheap.

4. They will ask you which phone are you interested in.

5. Tell them a phone that you want (in my case Sony/Ericsson T68i)

6. They will give you an offer to credit your account with a certain amount, if you renew your contract and buy a certain phone (price of credit depends on the phone you want and the amount you pay in store depends on the phone)


I just did that today:

T68i with Camera : $250 (camera was free, usually $130 retail)
Credit to Account: $175

Basically got the T68i for $about $93 which includes the camera plus i got the rollover plan and free internet for a year.


The cheapest you can get the T68 is from AT&T and it's $50 with all the MIR.

 

[NewSc2]

wow, i've had my contract for about 3 years now, with a pretty beat-up 3390, i might try this after xmas when the money flows into my bank

 

[JHawk]

Tommyboy--Thanks. My contract is up in two weeks and I was going to hit them up for more minutes. I think I'll go for the phone and the minutes.

 

[Tommyboy8]

Originally posted by: JHawk
Tommyboy--Thanks. My contract is up in two weeks and I was going to hit them up for more minutes. I think I'll go for the phone and the minutes.

You are welcome.

The T68i is a sweet phone and the camera is fun, it has built in memory. Plus you have Picture Caller ID with it. Brilliant colors, I love it...
They will give you x amount of money depending on which phone you want and how much it cost at retail places.

The credid doesn't work if you go to those asian places... but then again the asian places don't give you the camera either.

 

[larciel]

With cingular. you don't have to wait until the contract is done to change your rate plan

very good thing.. i see this only with cingular.. (might have to check t-mobile)

.. and don't forget they won't extend your contract if you change your rate plan.

 

[pinky811]

You can do the same for AT&T as well but they are not as generous. I only got $20 in credit. I am trying to ask about their phone exchange program though. I heard that exchanging an old one for new, you can get some amount of credit too.

 

[vulcanman]

Hell with the contract ... I have been with Cingular for over 5 years ... I have always gotten them to swap old phones for new phones for free (I am in SC).

I recently got a free Sony T61z phone when I renewed my contract ... I think I will sell the phone on ebay.

I got a Ericcsson R380 phone (with PDA) ... for $100 on ebay ... its so cool ... I cannot live without it ... it works great on Cingular.

I say ... get a R380 ... and you will never use another phone ... hell with color screens ... hello? its a bloody phone ... who cares if its Black and white ... I bought the R380 ... because it takes the place of the Palm PDA ... very very cool .. and the handwriting recognition is so much more robust than a palm ... regular english will do.

bye.

 

[larciel]

Originally posted by: vulcanman
Hell with the contract ... I have been with Cingular for over 5 years ... I have always gotten them to swap old phones for new phones for free (I am in SC).

I recently got a free Sony T61z phone when I renewed my contract ... I think I will sell the phone on ebay.

I got a Ericcsson R380 phone (with PDA) ... for $100 on ebay ... its so cool ... I cannot live without it ... it works great on Cingular.

I say ... get a R380 ... and you will never use another phone ... hell with color screens ... hello? its a bloody phone ... who cares if its Black and white ... I bought the R380 ... because it takes the place of the Palm PDA ... very very cool .. and the handwriting recognition is so much more robust than a palm ... regular english will do.

bye.

well .. t61z only costs $110 .. so you could've have gotten $65 more.. theoradically..

 

[Tommyboy8]

Originally posted by: vulcanman
Hell with the contract ... I have been with Cingular for over 5 years ... I have always gotten them to swap old phones for new phones for free (I am in SC).

I recently got a free Sony T61z phone when I renewed my contract ... I think I will sell the phone on ebay.

I got a Ericcsson R380 phone (with PDA) ... for $100 on ebay ... its so cool ... I cannot live without it ... it works great on Cingular.

I say ... get a R380 ... and you will never use another phone ... hell with color screens ... hello? its a bloody phone ... who cares if its Black and white ... I bought the R380 ... because it takes the place of the Palm PDA ... very very cool .. and the handwriting recognition is so much more robust than a palm ... regular english will do.

bye.

I already have a pda... so no real need for another one. Plus the bluetooth will be useful later. With cingular, their equipment upgrades are usually pretty stingy (2years), but if you know the ropes, just tell them you want to cancel and they'll give you more credit. My upgrade would have not come about until dec 03.

 

[KingUltra]

If you don't care about changing numbers, better deal may be to start over as new customer.

 

[Tommyboy8]

Originally posted by: KingUltra
If you don't care about changing numbers, better deal may be to start over as new customer.

The phone with new service is $250 with a 1 year contract, plus you have to pay activation fee, etc...

You could go for Tmobile which has the T300 with camera for $100 AFTER rebate...

Cingular and Tmobile are using the same towers so their reception are almost identical.

 

[kewlio136]

This was my experience today:

I went into a Cingular PCS shop, trying to upgrade my old Nokia 3390 and add another phone to change my plan into a family plan. I have been using Cingular for the last 2 years. When I was at the store, I was pretty mad at first cuz the phones were too expensive, but then I REMEMBERED THIS THREAD and I went out the door and called up Cingular. This was a summary of my conversation:

me: I want to cancel my service with Cingular because my phone is jacked up and I was going to get a new phones but your phones are way too expensive compared to other carriers, so I am going to switch to T-Mobile. They are selling a T68 for 40 bucks! (I was going to say less, but $40 was sorta reasonable.)

CSR: but T-Mobile has bad service, blah blah blah...

me: but their phones are cheap, and I am NOT going to pay 300 bucks for a phone that other companies are selling for 40 bucks so I want to switch unless you could do something about that. I was going to cancel yesterday but my friend (Tommyboy8, thanks for being my new friend!!!) told me to call you guys first because he felt the same way as me and Cingular gave him a $150 credit to buy a phone.

CSR: (after like 5 mins of searching up prices)... Ok, this is what I can do, I will give you $100 credit to get a new phone, just tell the Cingular PCS people.



So eventually, I ended up getting a Samsung SGH-N625, $200 with $100 rebate and my new $100 credit, and a Nokia 3590 (new model) for free after rebate. Spent $213 after tax, but $100 is coming back from rebate and $100 is going to show up on the bill on the first month. Final price: 13 bucks paying for tax, and they gave me 100 bucks to buy a phone from them.

<the end> ... Sorry for writing so much.

 

[gsethi]

i got $175 credit for my dad's phone

my dad's account is ~2.5 years old and my average monthly bill is ~$55 / month and have always paid on time (not even a single late payment). I also called them up and told them that i (on behalf of my dad) was cancelling since other providers are offering same phones for cheap. She told me that she could give me upto $175 in credit when i buy a new phone from them.

I ended up getting the Motorola V60 for ~$224.

Motorola V60: $199.00
Tax: $ 16.xx
Service charge: $ 10.00
Credit: : -$175.00

TOTAL: ~$50 w/o any contract.

Now, if i sign a 2 year contract, i can get another $50 off mail in rebate but i dont think that i am gonna sign a new contract for just $50. Will prolly sell my old Ericcson T28 and get ~$50 from it. So, a free phone upgrade for my dad

PS: my personal phone contract gets over in September next year but i asked about the phone credit for my personal phone too and they told me that i would be eligible for credit in August 2003 ...... guess what, i am upgrading my phone sometime around that.....

 

[serialb]

AFAIK, Cingular just fired a bunch of crappy phone ops and they can give customers as much as $175 credit over the phone. I don't know when will this end, but it has been happening for the past month or so.

 

[thholr]

I have three phones on a family plan with cingular and have been with them for over 5 years now and never had a late payment, I called up and told them to cancel my account cause I need new phones and their prices are outrageous. They connected a sales guy who said there was nothing he could do , sorry , they then connected me to the sales manager who said , sorry sir, we would hate to loose you , but there is nothing I can do as far as credit, I can waive the activation fee and ship it to you for free, which is stupid since through my company I already get a waived activation and there is a store right here in my building. so I cancelled, very dissapointed with them really .

 

[KeyserSoze]

Dang TommyBoy, your lucky.

I did the same thing a few weeks ago, and they did hook me up pretty good.

I have been with them for five years (Formerly Bellsouth DCS), and wanted to cancel cuz I didnt' like there plans. BUT, I didn't want to change my cell phone number. Anyways, they got me pretty much a similar plan to the T-Mobile plan I liked.

I USED to have:
$39.99 for 500 minutes daytime, unlimited N/W. But it was a REGIONAL plan, which meant no roaming. It was ok, cuz it was my home phone at school, and it was a decent plan.

NOW:
$39.99 for 600 minutes, unlimited N/W, and Preferred Nation plan, with rollover. And I got the new Motorola v60i for $150. I am happy, but it SUX that they didnt' give me Free Internet. If I had thought about it, I would have asked for it, cuz they were pretty willing to work with me on this. Maybe I'll call back and try. They sent me a contract in the mail, which I was supposed to sign and send back to them. But I never did, so technically I dont' have a contract with them yet. Do you think they will add that on to my plan???



But yeah, call and threaten to cancel, and they will negotiate with you to get you what you want.

ONE WORD OF ADVICE: Make a list of everything that you WANT on your plan (N/W, Free Internet, Messaging, etc.) And be sure to tell them "Well...T-Mobile has this...blah blah blah." I'm sure they will match your plans.




KeyserSoze

 

[JHawk]

As a follow up to my earlier post I called Cingular to see what they could do for me( I've been with them for 5 years). After some discussion the rep said he could give a $50 credit toward a new phone. Jeez, knock yourself out Cingular. Maybe I just got a crappy rep--doesn't matter though 'cause I'm going with someone else.

 

[bonk102]

i tried getting cingular to simply figure out why my coverage was so shitty, they didn't help me at all, so, needless to say, now i'm with T-mobile, best of luck to anyone trying to do this too, i tried to simply get my phone fixed ( i knew something was wrong with it) and it turned out, after a few hours of waiting, that my phone was "configured" wrong, and taht's why i was getting 2/3's calls dropped. whoda thunk it? and i've only brought it to them oh, 6 times before this!!!!

 

[jodhas]

I say ... get a R380 ... and you will never use another phone ... hell with color screens ... hello? its a bloody phone ...

So bitter... Vulcanmann

 

[larciel]

best way to do this,

call them up.. complain that you get too much $$$ but not so great calling coverages.. (ie .. dropped calls etc etc)

they'll offer $40 plan for $30 .. for one year.. w/out any contract.

hang up.

call them up again,

compain about the phone, and get your $175 credit w/ contract.

total saving.. $295

 

[Frosty3799]

Originally posted by: NewSc2
wow, i've had my contract for about 3 years now, with a pretty beat-up 3390, i might try this after xmas when the money flows into my bank

Where would I be able to get one of these money flows ?

 

[jimmyjam]

i called and told them i wanted to leave because other companies are offering free phones and free wireless internet. after quite a bit of discussion the best she would do for me was $100 credit if i buy a new phone, a year of free wireless internet, and two months of text messaging. i think i'll try back later to try for $175.

 

[KeyserSoze]

Well I successfully ADDED Free Internet to my plan yesterday.

Call them, do what you can. I was pretty impressed.





KeyserSoze

 

[snedman]

I got what satisified me I guess. Rep offered me the new Nokia 6340i. I am on the family plan 3 phones

No contract
$60 credit to account
$70 off actual phone
$30 MIR on phone
_________________
Final cost $29.99 works for me. I may not be as good as the rest of you guys, but you guys certainly saved me more then if this board weren't here...... Many thanks for the original post. Might try for the free internet or messaging to see how I like it..


Snedman

 

[KeyserSoze]

Just a reminder, that's already been mentioned a few times. THREATEN TO CANCEL for another carrier. If you've been there a while, they will try to keep you by giving you more features.


EDIT: REMINDER, there is a $50 rebate on the Motorola v60i until the END OF DECEMBER (Postmark by the end of January.) I have the Rebate form, cuz it's not online. So, see how low they will go on this phone, and then you also got $50 off at the end.



KeyserSoze