This is my complaint about Alltel concerning phoney and/or possibly manipulated dates & records of calls and outrageous charges:

I've never owned a smartphone before, but I was conned into getting one by a savvy salesman at Alltel (thats the way they are) who conveniently passed up the normal phones and forgot to mention that I was eligible for those as well. He told me I needed to get a new Blackberry phone. They require that you add internet to your phone service for that phone, and extra 10 bucks a month, or so they say.

I'm money problems in the economy like everyone else right now, so after making the bad decision of getting the Blackberry and not questioning the salesman, I go about a month with it and decide I don't use it enough and I just want to get rid of it. I am married as well and my wife's phone is on the plan as well... I had also considered canceling my service anyway because our cell phone bill was higher than any other bill we were paying monthly ( 116.00 a month for two phones, with the blackberry, it went up to around 130).

So, on August 13th/14th (I can't remember the exact date), I officially decided to cancel my plan and take the hit of 200 bucks for the cancellation fee... figured it pay for itself in a few months. I call in and of course they try to talk me out of it, but I do it anyway (they offer 50 credit to your account to spice things up!). I didn't fall for it. Anyway, the day I cancel it - as far as I know, the phone ain't gonna work anymore - so I figure out how to wipe the memory on the phone, I take photos of it, and then turn it off, take out the battery, and wrap it up in bubble wrap (planning to sell it on ebay).

I put it up on ebay the 15th - keep in mind the phone is off, battery out, and wrapped up in bubble wrap, I set it on a table in our entry way for easy access when I go to mail it - and the auction ends the 24th of August, bought and paid for. I send it off not too long of a while later.

Now, I figured everything was fine, but I was wrong.

This month (September, the 21st to be exact), I get my bill in the mail and it is $176.60 (I had paid the 200 dollar already). I'm like, what the hell! I look on the bill and they charged me for another month of service. Not only that, but they have it listed that I called an cancelled ON the 24th of August, not the 13th or 14th! And the real kicker... phone calls listed being made from the 14th to the 24th (most 1 to 2 min, longest one was 7 min) - calls supposedly made while the phone was OFF, WRAPPED UP, AND SITTING IN MY ENTRY WAY FOR ALL TO SEE. They charged me over $100 dollars for eleven days of service that never existed as far as I knew!

I called Alltel right away and of course their system is god to them, and there is no way for it to be wrong... and all thier employees are perfect, they say there is no way anyone would have messed with or changed things around. Anyway, I just want to get to a supervisor, but it takes going through 3 different guys (Ricardo, Chris, and Richard) to finally have one of them do what they say they are going to do, and when I finally talk with their female supervisor, she cuts me down to a 2 min conversation, says there is nothing she can do, the system is right, and if I want to pursue my complaint further, I need to go to the alltel website and click on the contact information and email corporate.

At this point I was so angry I called their pre-paid or whatever customer service listed in the contact information (since there was no corporate email that I could find), and went through another 3 people before I got to a guy that was genuinely sympathetic for me (probably because I went off and explained the situation to him with the most controlled anger and emotion I could bare to keep ahold of, I even asked him to to see it from my point of view and explained it to him twice to be sure he got it). Anyway, he put me on hold for a few minutes (nice break from being on hold for anywhere from 20 min to over half an hour between being transfered on my wild goose chase) and then got back to me saying he got me a 56 dollar credit to my account (he had called his supervisor over), but thats all he could get me for.

All I could do was take it and explain to him that if he ever hears of anything like this again he should look into it because it is the fishiest thing I've ever seen! I still have to pay over 50 bucks for service I never used during time I thought my phone had been canceled... and I'm seriously considering canceling my wife's phone with them and getting them out of my hair altogether... I'm just afraid if I do that, this or something worse may happen again!!!

My advice - NEVER< NEVER< NEEEEEVER go through Alltel to get a cell phone! DONT DO IT, YOU WILL REGRET IT!

Justin