Flutterby™! : I already hate Cingular 2004-12-09 22:30:03.789673+00

I already hate Cingular

2004-12-09 22:30:03.789673+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments

Grrr... As I ranted, the new address requires a new cellphone. Because of coverage issues, my option is Cingular. The Nokia 6620 has been highly recommended to me (partially because it's a Symbian reference platform). So I go through the hassle of ordering, trying to figure out just what the hell the marketing speak of "Media Plus package" means in real world terms, and get to the address page.

Of course the address page says "we won't ship or bill to P.O. Boxes". This is somewhat of a problem, because we don't have mail delivery out in the boonies. But, no worries, my postmistress will be a little put out but I can, in a pinch, use a ZIP+4 code. But nooooo, they only allow 5 digits. So I fumble through trying to figure out what they will and won't allow in their address field, finally stumble on a compromise that gets through their regular expression parsers and should still get my bill actually delivered to me, click to go to the next page, and get told that my session has timed out.

Note to Sprint : What would it cost to put a repeater on Mount Barnaby, and can we just add that to my bill?

If you know what the street address of the post office is, you could translate something like this:

I used a private mailbox company (a mom and pop version of Mailboxes, Etc.) this way for six months, and it worked fine.

Of course, you could just walk into a Cingular retailer and buy the phone that way... But that would involve leaving the house!

If my previous experience with retail cell phone buying is any indication, that's also at least an afternoon, and my impression is that that'll also cost me a few hundred bucks more.

We've got a post office, but no mail delivery. It's not really a problem, as there's only two ways out of town and one of 'em goes by the post office, but it does give us a "far from civilization" feel.

Dan; really? I've always bought my phones at the retail store. While I don't know about pricing differences (as compared to online), I've always been in and out in under an hour.

I initially read that as "a Sybian reference platform". I think I need a vacation.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-12-10 16:35:59.799534+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

Cingular does offer some internet only pricing so it many times it is worth doing online...(and I only "own" 40% of them)