Friday, July 29, 2005
Misrepresentation by Cellular Phone Companies?
Today my wife went to get a cellular phone. She wanted one with no 1 or 2 year plan attached, and be obligated to pay for all that time. She wanted a per-minutes plan, and went to a local discount store to get one from Cingular. When she got home, I tried a call from it. I got "No Service" with a stop sign. I then found that the signal indicator was all the way to the lowest position.
So I checked the coverage map of Cingular, and sure enough, the midsection of Virginia is not covered. We were a little too far away from DC. So she could not pick up any phone service. The place where she got it from was in this vicinity. So I conclude that Cingular phone service was not available there either. Whaaa?? A cellular phone can't pick up a signal at the place where it was bought?
To me this is deceptive advertising. There should be NO Cingular store or shelf in a store anywhere where there is no Cingular phone service. So I urge people to either be careful with selecting their cellular phone service. Whether it can get a signal is far more important than call waiting, email, video games, voice mail or other gizmos. And I call upon Cingular to stop advertising in and cease operations in all areas that are not covered by Cingular cell phone service.
So I checked the coverage map of Cingular, and sure enough, the midsection of Virginia is not covered. We were a little too far away from DC. So she could not pick up any phone service. The place where she got it from was in this vicinity. So I conclude that Cingular phone service was not available there either. Whaaa?? A cellular phone can't pick up a signal at the place where it was bought?
To me this is deceptive advertising. There should be NO Cingular store or shelf in a store anywhere where there is no Cingular phone service. So I urge people to either be careful with selecting their cellular phone service. Whether it can get a signal is far more important than call waiting, email, video games, voice mail or other gizmos. And I call upon Cingular to stop advertising in and cease operations in all areas that are not covered by Cingular cell phone service.
