release

Consumerist reports that - suprise! - Cingular continues to find new ways to screw its customers.

Beckie is a reader who started out with a cell phone from a small company that got bought by AT&T. As you well know, AT&T was bought by Cingular. A few months later, Beckie received a letter from Cingular asking her to voluntarily discontinue her service because more than 50% of her calls were using competing networks and she was no longer economically feasible for Cingular. In return, Cingular would allow her to keep her numbers. No refund. No apology. No free unlocked phones.

Anyone who’s read one of Cingular’s service contracts end-to-end knows that they’re more slippery than a waterbed full of eels. But whether or not they have the legal right to terminate contracts at will (knowing full well, of course that you do not have that right) it’s just bad business to treat customers as disposable, because your reputation cannot survive for long when you do.

And the more pissed off your (former) customers get, the more likely they are to go hunting for a class-action lawyer. And that is very bad for the bottom line.