Time to get off my <Bleep!> and contribute!

[The_Ed]

Hello fellow sufferers of customer's ills!
My name is pretty obviously ED and I like many of you spent a lot of time behind a counter or in front of a register dealing with the seething masses in person. I've been lucky enough, what type of luck I don't know, to spend the last three years on the phone making faces at the masses that they cannot see!

I work for one of North America's largest cell phone companies as third tier technical support. By the time I get to talk to your average SC they have been transfered at least three times and more than likely five! To say that most of my customer's are pissed would be a gross understatement.

I've had cell phones with rust that no one got wet, pancake thin phones that never got run over and even melted phones that have never been on fire. I will admit that I get great joy in informing an SC that yes, you did get that phone wet and no, we will not be sending you another one.

I think I will keep this short, as a warning I am usually fairly long winded. But I would like to say that it is a pleasure to find such an understanding community and look forward to sharing my many horror stories with you!

Now lets all share a hearty

[Ree]

to CS, The_Ed.

I look forward to your stories.

I have to say, though, I had a phone that I'm sure some tech rolled their eyes over.
We were told the phone had been dropped, but I can honestly swear that I NEVER dropped that phone. If it was dropped, it had to have been before I got it, or during shipping to the repair depot.

From the day I got the phone, it would randomly redial the last number called.
It didn't happen every day, and I usually caught it as it was redialling.
It was really random.

I kept meaning to have it looked at, but never did.
One night, my cell phone called my mother's phone from about 2 am until 8 am and it scared her pretty bad. She didn't recognize my cell phone number. She lives alone.

I was pretty upset by that, so I figured it was time to get the phone looked at.
We got a call from them on our answering machine, telling us the phone was not going to be covered by warranty, as it had been dropped. They claimed the inside of the phone was a mess. It was going to cost almost what we paid for the phone to repair it.

My husband was handling the whole thing, because he had bought the phone for me as a gift, and the cellphone account is in his name. He never called back to authorize the repair or to argue our point that it had not been dropped. He forgot, actually, until I bugged him. When he did call, they had lost our phone.
They ended up giving us one as replacement, but it was a much cheaper model with none of the features of the other one.

I am sure somebody went home that night cursing us.

[The_Ed]

Don't Worry. your probably right...

to CS, The_Ed.

I look forward to your stories.

I have to say, though, I had a phone that I'm sure some tech rolled their eyes over.

I hate to say it... but a very large percentage of my coworkers wont give the average person the benefit of a doubt. More than likely with UPS and Fedex being the wonderful companies that they are the phone was damaged while being shipped to them.

If your phone was dialing by itself but was usable in other fashions such as you could make/receive calls, SMS normally etc... Than more than likely it was a software failure that caused the problem. (and if I had to guess I would say it was a Motorola)

And just because this is one of my favorite subjects: I have a general recommendation for choosing a cell company. NEVER go with a local cell service, ever! Stay away from off brand prepaid like Tracfone or AMP'd. And pay the extra fifty dollars and get a one year contract, a new cell phone is never worth two years of your life. Besides the warranties only last one year, why would you want to be stuck with that phone for two just to save fifty bucks?

[Ree]

Thanks for the advice.

It was a phone from LG Electronics, through Telus. (It's discontinued now.)
http://www.cellphones.ca/upload/manuals/lg_5450.pdf

When I called about the problem originally, they said they had never heard of a phone doing that, and I needed to send it back.
When they opened it up, they said that the fact that it was dropped, and the mess inside was probably why it had malfunctioned.


Thank you for suggesting the software problem, because that's exactly what I thought it was.

[The_Ed]

Yay Discontinued!

now I'm really curious about what happened to your phone... Ah well, the world may never know.

Personally I blame ups.

[BookstoreEscapee]

At least it didn't randomly redial 911, like my old cordless once did. My parents had called early in the morning because my mom had appendicitis...I called my brother later to tell him what was going on and somehow the phone called 911...and then got disconnected. The cops showed up about 15 minutes later and I had to explain

Hey, The_Ed! Welcome