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War of attrition – my battle with Nextel

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In a previous post, I discussed the folly of my brand new, military specification compliant, Motorola i560.

I may have also ranted for a brief moment about the number of calls I drop with my Nextel service and stated that it was a contention for another article.

This is that article.

I returned from the gym today, pulled my cell phone out of a compartment of my duffle bag, and like clockwork, the phone was off. Stone dead, blank screen, off.

I turned the phone back on and was greeted by the “DO” slogan used by the walkie talkie cell phone company.

And then, poof. Off. Stone dead, blank screen, so badly wanting to throw it against a wall, off.

I decided to call Nextel Care and see if I could put a stop to this and get my defective phone replaced.

The automated female voice at the other end gave me several options, including Spanish, sales, customer service, and ah yes, technical support.

On hold for about five minutes, a female technical support agent finally answers and I calmly explain that I purchased an i560 from Nextel less than two months ago and that it shuts itself off by itself.

She apologized profusely and tried to explain to me that Motorola offers a warranty, but that would mean sending them my phone for repair and being without a phone for up to 4 days, an impossibility in my profession.

Again apologizing, she brings in another lady, this time an agent of “tele-sales.” She explains to me that while Nextel stands by their hardware, Motorola warranties the phones and I would probably have to go through them.

But she wasn’t 100 percent sure.

Did I mention the Nextel phone service and coverage in Boston, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas, Denver, Orlando, Chicago and all of southern California (some of the places I’ve been since I switched to Nextel) is not very good?

Somehow, the sales representative knew this, and knew that I was having problems with my service. She offered to transfer me to a third person-a customer care representative-who could offer to credit my account for the dropped calls.

Well…money…

So I talk to Jack in customer care, and our conversation went something like this: “I understand your frustration sir, let me see…” BEEP!!! “TRY AGAIN”

My Nextel dropped a call, to Nextel.

So I close the phone and prepare to redial on speaker phone.

Blank screen.

Dead silence.

The phone turned itself off again.

Finally, I am able to call back after thoroughly screaming at the disconnected and turned off cellular phone. As soon as I get to the menu, BEEP.

Dropped call number two.

I call back and get a customer care representative who again explains the Motorola warranty-which I really didn’t want to hear about.

Her computer crashes.

“Oh my, my system is going to have to restart, let me put you on hold.”

Sprint has the most annoying hold music in history.

After eleven minutes, the line rings and a technical support representative asks if she can help me.

Well, I don’t know. Can you?

She never had a chance to respond. BEEP.

That’s number three.

My next call was almost to Verizon to have a landline installed in my home and inquire about wireless plans, but I stuck with it and finally got through to poor Tammy in customer care.

“You’re gonna need to forgive me Tammy, but I am extremely upset.”

“Uh-huh.”

This is vaguely what I remember:

“I have now called you people four times to complain about my defective phone, but I cannot do so because my Nextel phone has dropped the call three times. My phone randomly shuts off. It’s a brand new phone. I do not want the Motorola warranty because I can’t be without my phone for three days. You sold me a defective phone and I want it replaced.”

Granted, I am a little upset by this point.

This goes on for about twenty minutes, a new record for a phone call on either one of my previous Nextel phones. She gives me a $55 credit to cover, ironically, the cost of using an express service with the Motorola warranty.

Then, and I’m surprised she managed to stay chipper with me all this time, she offers to transfer me back to technical support so they can create something called a “network ticket.” This means that the Sprint/Nextel guys will come out, check the signal and reception in my area and if it is nearly as poor as I’ve been saying it is, offer to credit my account to make up for it.

Hold time: 20 minutes, that’s almost 40 minutes, and I’m not even mad that this is going on an hour. I was just happy that my phone could keep a call going that long!

“Thank you for calling Sprint, together with Nextel, this is Bra..” BEEP.

Just to add coarse salt to open wound, when I called back, the Nextel offices were closed for the night.

With what I’m hearing about Nextel, combined with what I am experiencing, there must be public relations people at Sprint/Nextel on 24-hour suicide watch

Nextel: DONE (making calls).

The PR of the press: The New York Times’ financial surveillance article

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Representative Pete King, (R) NY, wants the editor and the publisher of the New York Times prosecuted.

His reason? The New York Times, followed by the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and other papers ran articles disclosing a federal intelligence initiative to monitor international financial transactions. The program, designed to root out possible terrorists, analyzes money going from one financial institution to another. The media outlets asserted that the program was being run by presidential subpoenas and not authorized by warrants from any federal court.

King called the articles “treasonous,” and has called for a criminal investigation. He appeared on The O’Reilly Factor Monday evening calling for the Times administration to be prosecuted.

Representative Ed Markey, (D) Mass, claims that the intelligence program itself is illegal, and he appeared alongside King on Monday’s O’Reilly Factor to counter arguments made by King.

“The Bush administration put out their own subpoenas; never told the courts about it all,” said Markey. “That is a very serious 4th amendment violation.”

King expressed his outrage towards the publicizing of the federal anti-terror program, claiming that congress had been properly briefed and those that needed to know were informed.

“If everybody knew about it, there’s no need to go public about it,” said King. King, a quick talking Republican from New York’s 3rd district, cited the laws he felt the journalists had violated.

He keeps a list of his press quotes here.

Let us clear the air right now before a discussion of the public opinion reaction: the press is not going to be prosecuted. President Bush has not called for an investigation. He merely expressed his anger that the press had run the information. That was the correct response from his administration. Clearly, the Bush administration is not going to be happy that the press ran a critical article on one of their anti-terror programs. However, even Bill O’Reilly, the Fox pundit, said that he does not believe the Times editor and publisher should or would be prosecuted.

Therefore, the reader is left with a news story, broke by a newspaper, unpopular with the Bush administration, which exposes a secret government program, for which no one will be prosecuted.

Bravo.

This reporter will not state any agreement or disagreement in principle with the publication of secret information. However, it is the job of the free press to hold a democratically elected government accountable to its people, with the best and most vigilant efforts, self-guided by ethics. I do believe that the publication of this story about surveillance of international banking records is good for the public relations efforts of the mainstream media.

References to the public relations efforts of the press are often an oxymoron. However, reading this article proves that the newspaper of yesterday has an uncertain future tomorrow. Clearly, the blogosphere and the advent of “Googlefied” news that is custom delivered to each reader based on their own preferences show that the news can be broken anywhere and by anybody. The Times, however, showed themselves viable with their continued ability to check the government.

Though controversial, the Times flexed their muscle. And that, whether agreed with or not, is good publicity.

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, ran a letter June 25 addressing the financial surveillance program article.

It’s an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.

The Times may have been legally wrong in publishing information about a classified government program. They may have straddled the bounds of ethics. I am not a liberal pundit, but let me be the first to say that the last major country to actively prosecute its press for covering issues not agreed upon by the government flew a red flag.

AT&T privacy changes: likely to be bad for public relations.

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CNNMoney’s Jonathan Schienberg is reporting that AT&T has made a change to their privacy policy. A phrase saying AT&T “does not access, read, upload or store data contained in or derived from private files without the members’ authorization” was removed. Also in the revision, AT&T claimed that it has the obligation to cooperate with government agencies for the “security interests of the entire nation.” The National Security Administration, which AT&T cooperated with by allowing wiretapping to occur, must be especially pleased.

We have a long history of vigorously protecting customer and web visitor privacy. Our customers and web visitors expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy. We also have an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation. If and when we are asked to help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions.

I will say that AT&T’s public relations machine is using the excuse of their year-old merger with SBC as the reason for the “update” to the privacy policy, but the privacy policy was actually updated June 16 of this year.

AT&T spokesperson Tiffany Nels came off sounding defensive talking to Schienberg, spewing out a corporate line about “streamlining” which this reporter is simply not buying, and I don’t think she convinced Schienberg. She told him that removing the key privacy phrase made the policy easier to read. In reality, it merely makes the policy easier to circumvent.

Not great PR. Not great at all.

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