It's war!

It's not even 10 a.m. and I'm hopping mad. Why? Because Amazon and Cingular have conspired to make the process of switching to a new cellular phone service as expensive, cumbersome and confusing as possible. My Declaration of War makes the following charges.

1. Amazon.com listed this Cingular phone as costing $150, but with a $150 Amazon discount and a $50 Cingular discount (no longer listed). Nowhere on the Amazon-produced part of the page, or on the Amazon rebate form itself, does it say that Amazon rebates don't work for Cingular phones if you want to keep your old phone number from a different cell phone service.

That, however, is the case. When I got my phone last night, a slip of paper in the box told me to go to this website for details on porting my phone. For Cingular, it says this:

Cingular and Amazon.com have not yet established a method for customers to transfer their current number to a new Cingular account. Unfortunately, in order to port your previous number, Cingular will cancel the account that Amazon.com activated and will activate a new account with the ported number. This process makes you ineligible for the Amazon.com rebates. We hope to offer a porting option in the coming months, so please check back.

Therefore, instead of being up $50 on the transaction, I'm down $100. That $150 difference is three months of cell phone servce, three weeks of groceries or two used law school textbooks. Still, my old phone is not working well (it's 3 years old, after all) and it was enough of a hassle choosing a phone and service that I would suck it up, get my old number ported and move on with my life. That is, until...

2. I call the Cingular customer service number to get my old T-Mobile number ported to Cingular. After waiting on hold, they tell me to call the porting number. I call the porting number, enter my new Cingular number into the menu system three times, the system doesn't recognize the number, an operator then takes down all of my personal information before telling me that I need to have my number relocated, since my new Cingular number is not in the same local area as the number I want. The operator gives me the relocation number.

I call the relocation number, get the same automated run-around entering the number, give them my info all over again, only for them to tell me to call another porting number.

Call number #3, get the same hassle, then they give me a fourth number, for relocation. Now I need to move my 312 Cingular number to the Baltimore area code my old phone has, then I can port it. I picture the days adding up, like chalk hash marks on a prison wall.

Number #4. By now, I'm starting to memorize the number I'm trying so desperately to get replaced. The operator tells me that I have to get a new SIM card, which I can get either via mail (and several more days' wait) or at a Cingular store. I choose to go to the store, but before I hang up and go on my merry way, I ask, "do I have to go to a store in the area code I want the phone relocated to, or can I get it here in Chicago?"

"Well, some places will have SIM cards that work for other area codes, but others... I'm not sure."

It was at that point that I told the operator how surprised I was that they are still in business, hung up and started working on my paperwork to return my new phone.

So, for making me call four numbers, offering a rebate that does not apply to me without any hint that might be the case, never giving me a straight answer and making what should be a simple process take weeks, I am going to take you down a peg, Amazon and Cingular. I don't know how quite yet, but there's little limit to what one man with a year of legal education and a grudge can do.