Consumer Cellular

I am a new customer with Consumer Cellular, believing all the hype of their having great customer service, and wanting to switch from Sprint/T-Mobile as my old iphone5 with 3G was going to be obsolete soon. I purchased a Galaxy A12 android and used it for a couple of days, over the Christmas holiday, and decided that the android system was too difficult to use and then decided to buy an iphone11 as it was lesser expensive than other Apple iphones and switched my service on the phone. The original phone had to be reprogrammed as the person setting up my service and sending me the GalaxyA12 connected it up with my home number instead of my cell number even though we went over everything with my Sprint bill... requiring me to go through several hours with customer service to try to get an appt with Target to get it changed over to the correct number, with Target techs in the area not abiding by appts, and then I finally get an appt over the phone with someone at my local Target, and arrive to have to wait another 45 minutes as they took a later lunch break, and at the time of my appt., and then it took another two hours to get everything straightened out. After I tried the phone a couple of days, and had trouble getting calls to come through, or photos to email, and several other weird aspects of the android system, I called CC to let them know I was going to return the phone as I did not like the android system. I had to buy my iphone11 at the Apple store as CC did not have what I wanted, and then I had the GalaxyA12 reset to factory specs by the Apple tech. I had already printed out my prepaid return receipt, and had the original box with everything except the original plastic covering on the face of the phone. I had been extremely careful about the phone, and only had it out of my house one extra time for a few hours, put in a cloth pocket of my purse, and aside from the Target activation, and the Apple deactivation, I barely used the cell phone. I made sure to wipe the face clean with an alcohol wipe, as I had been told to do, and then with a lint free cloth, and there was not a smudge on the phone, and the side plastic labels were still on the sides of the phone, as had not removed those, and placed the phone in a clean plastic bag with bubble wrap to protect the phone and placed inside the original box it came in. I had this phone one week. I just learned today, after shipping the phone back to CC that they denied my return due to what they said were scratches on the fact of the glass... and I saw not a scratch... nor a smudge and the face of the glass front was immaculate when I returned the phone. They said that they were sorry but it was not in newly perfect condition with scratches on the face of the glass... and there were no scratches I could see nor had I done anything with the phone to have it scratched as I was considering returning the phone after the first day of use. The Target tech had turned it over on the counter I observed, but other than that, nothing had been done to cause any scratches on the cell phone face due to my extreme diligence. They state one can return a phone for up to one month of use and get a complete refund and replace the phone. Under normal conditions, no phone should be scratched from the minimal use I had with the phone in the less than one week's time frame between activation and return of the phone. I am going to be received the phone back as I paid in full for the phone and try to sell it for a bit less than I paid for it online, as it is in perfectly new condition and factory reset and all my contacts and texts removed as I was told to do by the CC person handling my return. I am incensed beyond belief that they are denying my phone return, as there were no defect on the phone, and there were not scratches on the phone, and I feel that CC frauded me on their promise of ability to return the phone, and I be they do this with lots of customers. I plan to change services to some other company within the next few days and cancel my service with them. I am not happy with the way I had to wait an inordinate amount of time to activate my phone due to error in the number that was programmed into the phone when I received it, nor the several hours to try to get a Target to take an appointment, and having to wait on the phone for 30 minutes at a time to get the appointment through CC as Target won't take appointments, and then have the tech at Target not be there for my appointment, even though he was the one that finally relented and gave me the appointment two days prior. I then have had to wait 45 minutes to process the return, and another 45 minutes to discover that they have frauded me out of my phone return. I am advising my partner that was also switching his service to CC to not do so, although his service will work with a change of sim card and he does not have to replace his phone.

I switched my service from T-mobile with the expectation that I was going to get the same cellular service and better rates. Almost a month later, I have yet to receive the sim card for my Daughters phone. I have been called by 3 agents with the last being Brian; agent ID 41135, who obviously did not read his notes from the previous agents. I attempted to make up a story why my phone had not been activated. He attempted to tell me that the information provide was incorrect; however, 2 of the 3 phones are active.

The issue at hand is the sim card was sent to me instead of sending it to my Daughter in Columbus, GA. He proceeds to tell me that it wasn't done because of fraud. Which was the furthest thing from the truth. He then tells me he could send it to my Daughter, a statement that went against what he said before. Frustrated, I asked for a supervisor. He stated that he was the Supervisor and he could take the complaint.

At this point, I have been called 3 times while I have been on this report. I am debating going back to T-Mobile, even with higher prices.

The company I'm complaining about is Consumer Cellular, account #[protected] in the name of Nancy Crichton, 2720 Kyle N, GoldenValley, MN 55422; email: [protected]@me.com; cell: [protected].

On 9/16/2020 I ordered an iPhone 11 Pro 64GB, IMEI: [protected] at a price of $900.00, from my cell carrier, Consumer Cellular. This iPhone 11 Pro was a ‘used' phone having been returned to Consumer Cellular for some reason by another customer. I don't know what their reason was for return. On the "Thank you for your Order" form I received with Consumer Cellular there is one paragraph which is titled "100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!" It states their goal is to make sure ". . . . You're always 100% satisfied. If for any reason you're not happy with our service or your device, please contact us immediately so we can help." Well, I am not even 50% satisfied at this point because they refused to accept the returned phones.

I received my iPhone 11 Pro in a USPS box and the phone was inside another Consumer Cellular box, not secure just inside and very little packing in the USPS box. I charged up the phone and opened it to get an idea of how it worked. I did not like it as it was very different from my iPhone 6 x and called to request labels to return the phone. They emailed me labels to return my phone and I securely packed it up, took it to UPS as instructed and returned the phone.

A few days later I got an email stating that they would not accept the phone for return because I had ‘scratched the screen'; I dispute this vehemently as I did not even use the phone except for a few minutes to try it out. They sent the phone back and when I opened the box to check it I could see nothing on the screen until I took it over to the window and at a certain angle I could see a slight shadow ‘Under the glass' but nothing on top of the glass and I could not feel any ‘deep scratch' as they put it with my fingers. I had Apple review the phone and ATT who sell Apple phones and they could not confirm deep scratches anywhere.

Consumer Cellular has refused to remove he charges on my account and I am not paying them, I don't want the phone, it is too complex for me and I just want it returned to them; my account expunged for the cost of my order $915.00 which includes a screen protector Qmadix which was $15 and the phone was $900.

We ordered two new phones from Consumer Cellular on their extended pay program. One was an iPhone XR and the other was a previously returned iPhone 11 Pro. We activated the XR and I was setting it up for my husband and showed him how it worked; we both decided it was too complex and we would stick with our iPhone 6's. I cleared his out and reset it according to CC instructions so it was clean. I called for return labels, they emailed me two labels. I had to call again for instructions on the iPhone 11 Pro as CC had, with MY ASKING, activated the phone. I was transferred numerous times, cut off several times and in total spent about 4 hours on the phone trying to get this mess straightened out, asking why they activated my phone without my asking for that to be done. Again I was transferred/cut off about 3-4 times and finally I was sent to some type of senior tech advisor and he took care of the whole problem in 5-10 minutes and said to go ahead and send the phones back.

I repackaged them in the same boxes they were sent to us in through USPS. I included copies of my order material. I added some extra packing material to the iPhon 11 Pro as there was not much in the original box and it just slid around. I returned them on 10-9-2020 and today called to make sure they were received because I keep getting emails telling me that had to be returned by the 18th of October. The CR person checked and found they were returned and their "Return Department" found scratches in the screen on both phones; they said they took pictures of them. I asked for the ‘pictures' to be sent to me as email attachments and was told she did not have authority to do that; she checked with some ‘higher up' person who stated that the pictures were the property of CC and they could not be sent. They stated they were returning the phones and I could see what the scratches were at that time.

When we returned the two phones in separate boxes to CC there were no scratches anywhere on the phones front or back. I suppose they could have been damaged in shipping although I highly doubt that. My suspicion is that this is a scam to get people to pay for something that was legitimately returned because I have no way of proving who or what causes anything to happen to these phones once I placed them in the hands of the UPS agent to be returned via the USPS labels that had been provided by CC.

They are returning the phones to me, which I don't want; they said I would have to pay for them, which I will not; if I continually deduct that amount from my bills, they would cut off my account. I am going to contact our attorney with the full information and have him handle it; we are senior citizens with health issues, we have a diabetic pet that we are dealing with and I can't handle one more ‘issue'. This claim by Consumer Cellular is bogus and nothing more than a method to extract money from unsuspecting seniors. I, nor my husband, did not put a scratch of any type on either phone, period.

NANCY CRICHTON