Since the FCC mandated number portability effective 24 November, I decided to switch my service for various reasons -- AT&T had service holes in my area; and I live near a county line, and they wouldn't give me a local service area that covered both counties.
So I went to T-Mobile. I bought two phones on 26 November, and set up the number port for both of them. T-Mobile's paperwork and salespeople both said it could take up to 48 hours. Fine. 48 hours pass... nothing. I begin the first of many calls to customer service.
After about 6 calls, including one with 60 minute hold (gave up), 30 minute hold (gave up), and 2 hour hold (thank G-d for speakerphones), I finally got through to their "National Transfer Center". They're polite, courteous, and apologize. Within a day, one of my two phones is active. They had told me it might take up to 48 hours (are you beginning to see a pattern?), so I wait.
The 48 hours pass, and my other phone is still not working. I call again. They apologize and tell me it can take up to 48 hours. I tell them this is not acceptable. Customer service transfers me to the Transfer Center. After an hour, I get through (yay speakerphone), and they say they're having problems with AT&T transfers. I point out that both my phones were scheduled at the same time, and they didn't seem to have a problem with the one that transferred. They apologize and say it should be within 24 hours.
The next day, I get home from work, and I have a message that T-Mobile customer service called me! Apparently somebody typoed and scheduled my transfer for the end of December. I told them to fix it. They did and said it might take up to (guess how long... yep, you're right) 48 hours.
48 hours passes, and I call the transfer center again. Only 60 minutes of hold this time. The guy looks and tells me my phone will be active by midnight PST (it was currently 7PM PST). So I wait.
12:15AM. I call again, and amazingly get through with no wait! I explain that the last customer service guy told me midnight, period. This guy does the one thing I wanted to hear. "Let me activate that for you now. I'll click the activate button and... oh...".
They're not allowed to manually activate AT&T. I ask to speak with his supervisor. It's now 12:30. He tells me his supervisor's busy with another customer. I tell him I'll hold. 10 minutes later, he comes back and says, his boss is still busy, and it'll be another 15 minutes. I give him a number and he promises his supervisor will call back.
1:30 AM. No callback. I send an email to T-Mobile customer service informing them that:
I don't even have a cell phone. With my money situation (I have to pay both alimony and child support) it's either a cell phone or digital cable service. As I like (maybe too much) to watch TV, rather than yak on the phone, the decision was made for me.
Also, when I took new apartment I'm in now, I wanted to get phone service through AT&T. They didn't connect on the day they said they would, and they would take at least another week to connect me. So...I called Verizon the next day, and I was connected by the time I got home from work.
Turns out my problems were with AT&T.
I filed a complaint against AT&T with the FCC.
Mrs. ScottN didn't like T-Mobile because it had too many dropped calls. So we cancelled the T-Mobile under the two-week "buyers remorse" period.
Wound up having to get new numbers (because I didn't want to futz with AT&T for one, and the other was with T-Mobile, and cancelled). Wound up going with Sprint (because of lack of local holes).
I discovered something cool as far as cell phones go. I've gone through several cell phones in my day. I'm just not careful with them and treat them rather rough (I don't mean to be) and often have to replace them. My latest phone was a Moto Razr that I bought second hand from a friend so I had no insurance on it. I've been having problems with it, pretty common ones with the screen I'm told. I'm an AT&T customer and couldn't find one that I could get for cheap without extending my plan, which I didn't want to do.
Instead I bought a GoPhone at Bust Buy. GoPhones are those prepaid cell phones that AT&T sells for a fraction of what they charge for their regular phones. I just put the sim card from my Razr into the go phone and it works fine. They sell for anywhere from $10 to $50 and work just like any other phone. I don't know if they would work with other cellular providers but if you are an AT&T customer and need a new phone for cheap get a GoPhone and use your same old SIM card. My brother-in-law bought one the day after Christmas when they were on sale for $10 and hasn't even opened his. He just has a history of cell phone problems (like me) and figured for $10 he can just hold onto it as a spare for when he inevitably has problems with his current phone.
Should work with either GSM provider (AT&T, T-Mobile).
Verizon and Sprint are CDMA and don't use SIMs.