I wanted to upgrade my cell phone and get the Treo 650, which ATT Wireless was listing on their website as of last month. Cingular listed it too, as they’d recently bought ATT Wireless.
And so the tangled tale begins. That phone has disappeared off both sites, and a newspaper ad yesterday from Cingular offered the older Treo, the 600, at a discount. T’would seem simple enough to just order it, right?
Nope. The merger has been so complex and convoluted that both websites now have serious problems. The Cingular site lists no stores for my zip code even though three are nearby, that kind of thing. But this is minor. The real problem is, as a tech finally sheepishly explained to me, is that you can’t upgrade or buy a phone by calling them or by website. Why? Because things apparently are so discombobulated they no longer have any phones in stock. Neither do the stores.
So, they are running ad for phones you can not purchase. Go figure. But don’t try to call them unless you want voicemail Hell. I had to enter my cell phone number and the last 4 digits of my social twice as I was shuttled around multiple times through various menus until a human actually answered. Then, you got it, she asked me to repeat those same numbers. And couldn’t answer my question.