UScellular Reviews

This month she called to make a payment using her debit card and again they pulled a double payment out. I called them myself as I am also on the account and it took me forever to get through to talk to customer service. I was on hold for 45 mins and finally hung up. My phone was close to dying and I didn't have my charger with me. When I called back it took me forever to get through again. This has been a nightmare with them. We aren't on a contract with them and will be switching to another carrier along with the rest of our family members.

Then today we got another bill from US Cellular that had about $50 in "reconnection fees" even though cell phone service has not been restored... The last US Cellular customer representative we talked to also stated that US Cellular had been sending notes (supposedly through e-mail) that auto payments had been cancelled in August. We could not find those e-mails. We did get a letter earlier this week from US Cellular stating that they had problems with their new billing system and that auto payments had been cancelled and would resume in December, and it said that no action was required on our part. Yet we did get disconnected...

This is beyond bad customer service. I recommend that US Cellular sort things out rather quickly, and that they credit any "reconnection"fees or other charges and termination fees because I can totally understand that people do not accept this kind of service and terminate their agreements. In fact if US Cellular does not sort things out quickly I will terminate our agreement despite the fact we have been loyal US Cellular customers for many years. It may be time for a class action suit against US Cellular given the large number of similar billing related complaints I am seeing.

I got so angry and told them I am switching! They then connected it with no charge! And said that I'm caught up with my cell bill. "Month of Nov. on the 20, your total will be $100.06," said on Oct. 13th. It's now Oct. 30 today and my bill is SURPRISINGLY $425.00!!!!!!!!!! Called 611 and said what the "F" is going on?! They said I went over my data plan for last month when I received a text from them 5 DAYS after my bill cycle was already up saying "you had used 75% of your data usage for last month"! YEA! THAT WASN'T LATE AT ALL!!!!!!!!! Charging me an extra 176.00 dollars for that, plus $100.06 for the month bill! They said that isn't their problem!

I was shocked and asked where did the other 200.00 dollars come from?! They said I was behind on my last 3 months! OMG! I flipped out and screamed at the lady and hung up! I am NOT PAYING FOR THEIR MESS UP!!!! Anyone else agree!!!!! This should be their responsibility because they were the ones who messed up all of this themselves!!!! And they did this without warning to any of us!!!!!!!!! US Cellular, you can go to ** and I'm ditching your **!

My sister's line had $70.00 in over data charges; fine we paid that on the bill dated 9/4. She did not use iHeart Radio from the end of August to the beginning of September; the application itself was not working so how she obtained $200.00 in data is impossible. It simply cannot have happened. The lady I spoke to yesterday said, "Well, it shows she used data every day." Um, sorry she doesn't browse enough websites, Facebook or any of that to go over her 5 Gb and incur $200.00 worth of data charges. It's NOT possible.

My bill is normally $181 and some change. I will pay the stupid reactivation fees (which we did) and I'll even pay data charges if they are valid, but there is no freaking way. She's been using iHeart Radio since January of this year and all of the sudden you get a new system and she's gone over twice? I've also been looking at the shared plans for both AT&T and Verizon. Yes, we get 15 Gb total for data between the three phones - they are not shared. Lonnie and I never use more the 2 Gb so you are charging us for 6 Gb that go unused every month (2 Gb is HIGH, we are both currently under 1 so that would be 8 Gb that is being billed and unused) and you are charging me $200.00 for overages? I know that's not your plan, but its making me double think.

I JUST resigned a 2-year contract; however if this is not resolved, I will take my business elsewhere. Between the 3 of us, we have been loyal US Cellular of over 20 years and we've always raved about the wonderful service, the excellent customer service, everything. This is very disappointing. So far I've been told "too bad, the charges remain".

I then chose another phone service and cancelled my service with them on Oct. 15 by changing my new phone to my existing phone number, and I knew there should be no further charges as my contract with US Cellular was expired. I then receive a bill from US Cellular a week after cancelling my service, a bill for service until 11/11/13. US Cellular is no more than a gang of thugs that are trying to use their business to rob me for service I don't have with them anymore, nor are contracted with them for. I have exhausted my attempts to contact them to have them clear this matter up, and I am near taking this matter to an attorney for help.

This was completely inappropriate and a form of harassment. I gave him my two-fold reason. We attend church in Fond du Lac so we added the US Cellular stop to our plans after church. The second reason is that I experienced terrible customer service, on three other occasions, at the Ripon location. I avoid going there. Since I live in Green Lake, Ripon is closer and I thought I would give the Ripon branch another opportunity to redeem themselves. It seemed ridiculous to me and wasteful to drive all the way to Fond du Lac to replace the phone. Well, for the fourth time, I was disappointed by the Ripon US Cellular location. At the very least, one would hope a salesperson would offer some apology for my inconvenience. Mike ** did offer me a sarcastic "Have a wonderful day" as I left the building. I consider this harassment, as well, and I will not tolerate it.

To add to my frustration, my son and I spent 1.5 hours waiting for a sales associate this past Sunday. I understand that this is typical in a larger city on a Sunday. Because of my distaste for the Ripon location, I waited. Today, I called US Cellular to report the problem with the phone after receiving no help whatsoever from Mike **. After waiting for 15 minutes on hold, I spoke with someone who put me on hold again. In an era where customer service is key to the success of a business, I am very disappointed. Please tell me how you are going to address these issues including harassment, failed customer service and faulty equipment.

- We have documented evidence of all these complaints.

10/21/13, we received the "fixed" fourth phone in the mail today from US Cellular. It does not work! I desire a refund for our phone, charges from the past two months, dismissal without penalty from the contract from this 4th phone that never worked and reimbursement for our trouble and time.

Getting back to the problem, I was told that I would get $100 for my old cell phone, that worked fine, and my rep, David **, packaged my phone up and I took it to a FedEx deposit place and sent it in. 2 weeks later, I got a letter offering me $1.79 for my phone, which is a total insult. I got the phone back and took it to Dubuque and David sent it in again assuring me that I would get my $100. 2 weeks later, I got a letter from the exchange place offering me $1.49 for the phone, another insult. I got the phone back and called David and he said that he would see to it that there would be a credit of $100 on my bill the next month.

The next month there was no credit of my bill and I emailed David, I called David, I called the Office, and never got an answer from any of them so I decided to just keep calling until I got someone. I finally got someone today and I will admit that I was very unhappy and was not as nice as I wish I would have been, but I was a little perturbed. I was in sales for 37 years and when I got a voice mail, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS answered it within 24 hours. So when Eric called me tonight and says I will be getting a $100 credit, I was less than enthused that I will see it.

I hope that I do because I have made up my mind that I will get it. He also told me to take my business elsewhere. It is actually not the money, it is the principle involved. I am also sure that you are aware that a lot of the US Cellular customers' bills are all screwed up, and guess what, mine is one of them too. It really is too bad US Cellular was a good company at one time but their customers are leaving in droves right now. Thanks for your time and good luck.

P.S. I was told that David is no longer with this office. I do wish him good luck. I really liked him. I just hope that he has learned that you always answer your voice mails because a problem is nothing more than opportunity in disguise.

A month later, 9-20-13, I get my bill and it was $173.06 so I went up to US Cellular in Rochelle and had the man explain all of the charges to me. He said that I changed my plan in the middle of a month, that I had to pay for half of a month and all of the next month. He also told he that there was a $35 activation fee and I asked him why didn't anyone tell me that this was going to be on my bill. He said that I should have been told that when I got the new phone. So I asked him what my bill will be after this one and he did some calculating and said that it will be 100 dollars without the taxes. That is when I told him that the man, Jason, who got me a new phone told me that my bill would be only $20 more a month.

I was upset and didn't want to deal with them anymore if they were going to lie to me about things so I asked the man if I could just go ahead and cancel and I would just get a phone elsewhere. Then he tells me that I can't cancel my plan because I signed a 2-year contract and the only way to cancel is to give them $350 even if I gave them the phone back. I asked when I did I this, my phone hasn't been on a contract for a year and I thought that US Cellular stopped doing contracts. He told me I did it when I got my new phone. I then asked, "Why didn't someone tell me that I would have to get a contract?" He said, "Jason should have told you when you got your new phone." I told the man that he did not so since he did not, then I should be able to get my phone shut off and he said no, not without the 350 dollars.

I went home and called the 1-888-944-9400 number on my phone bill and after being on hold for 45 minutes, I told the lady on the phone what happened and she told me that it didn't matter if I knew about the contract or not, I signed it and it would not be removed unless I paid the $350. She did say that she was sorry for what had happened to me but could not fix it. She offered me a 20% discount for the remainder of the contract. Well, at this point, I had felt taken advantage of and there was nothing that I could do to fix it. So I took the 20% discount for 22 months but my bill was still going to be $95 a month and I had budgeted for it to be $70 so I was still not going to be able to pay it.

All I really wanted was for someone to take everything back and I would go somewhere else but I was not going to pay $350, when no one told me that I would need to sign a contract. I would have no problem paying the bill I was using the phone for that month. I think that they just thought that since I had been a customer for 7 years that I would not care about the contract and therefore they did not tell me about it.

At this point, I see that no one will help me so I want to talk to the person that did this to me and I want them to play back their cameras that will show that I was not told about this. I called the store back to see when Jason would be working. They told me he works from 10 am to 5 pm tomorrow. Tomorrow would be 9-21-13 and I had to work from 7 am to 5 pm so I was going to call him on my break. I took a break at 10 am and called. Jason answered the phone and I started to tell him the problem and he said that they were very busy and he would have to call me back. At 4:30 pm, I sill have not gotten a call back so I called US Cellular and the phone was busy for 15 minutes. Finally, I got it to ring at 4:45 pm and the lady on the phone told me that Jason had gone home early for the day. That is when I told her that I was waiting for a call from him and asked why would he go home early and not call me back. She told me that they were very busy and he may have forgot. She asked me if she could help me and I told her the problem and the same old thing, can't help. She said that she would have her manager call me on Monday because she would not be in on Sunday.

I waited, no call on Monday so on Tuesday I went to the Dekalb store and the man that waited on me was so nice and explained everything to me and also told me that I could take the phone back to that store with my old phone and just have them change everything back to the way it was but he could not do it because it was the other store's phone. I left so happy. Finally someone can fix my problem and take my bill back down to $50. I drive to Rochelle and go in the store. There is a line. The people that the one lady is waiting on cannot get their phones to turn on. The person behind them has a problem with her bill. It keeps going up every month and then I am in line waiting to talk to the only person working.

A man walks in and he has a problem with his bill online and the man behind him cannot get his voice mail to work. I waited 50 minutes to talk the lady working and when I did, I told her what the man from the other store said. I asked if they could just change everything back. She called her manager and she said no because I signed the contract and it had been more that 15 days. This is when I find out that they have a 15-day return policy. Wow, now even more mad because no one told me about that and the other store said this is how I fix it. She then told me that she could trade my phone in for another flip phone that my daughter was only going to break again and they could take off the internet but my contract would still stand.

Now I am stuck with a 95-dollar bill that I can only pay 70 dollars on every month. I will always be behind and they charge you a 5-dollar late fee every month if you do not pay it in full. So, as of now, I will always be behind 30 dollars for 22 months. When my contract is finally up, I am going to be behind 660 dollars. Wow, this is more than canceling it but I don't have the $350 to cancel.

How am I supposed to pay this? How is it my fault you only give me 2 weeks to come up with that kind of money it? How is it my fault you couldn't send out bills because you decided to do a system update? Then on top of that I'll have my October bill coming in soon which I'm sure is over $100. So in the month of October I'll be paying over $300 in phone bills for 1 PHONE! ALL IN ONE MONTH! I'M SWITCHING.

I explained that I am on Social Security. Oh, they don't care. They are answering as they read from a script! How could they do this to people? I hate their IRRESPONSIBLE and ARROGANT ATTITUDE. Not sure how I can get the bill paid. This has never ever happened to me with any other company. Whatever happened to CUSTOMER SERVICE?????

After 13 days I was back again, because one of my phones would keep dropping calls and the data was very slow. This time, I wanted to switch (before my 15 days) were up. This time the sales person took the time to explain that the 4g network, which the bragged up and sold us on, was not working properly but they are fixing the problems right away. He said everything will be fine in a few days. Funny, but now I am past the 14 days or so return policy. And I have two 4g phones that only work on 3 g and drop calls and turn on and off whenever they feel like it.

After dealing with this for over a month, and around 25 different trips to the store, I was finally able to have one of my phones sent in for repair. Around a month later I had my other phone turn off and not turn back on. This just happened to be my main business phone that had all contacts and text on that were all gone. I pleaded my case about 10 different times to numerous people that I just wanted my money back for the two phones that I bought, and I would purchase two new phones because I can't run a business if I don't have phones. That in their mind was not an option because they can't lose over 600$ on each phone by buying them back. And that's the answer I got from everyone that I talked to, every manager, and sales person. I said after being a customer for 13 years....

After finally giving up on that, I switched carriers. I returned the two loaner phones that they had supplied me with, and patiently waited to get back my two phones that were getting repaired. Well then I get one of them back, and they tell me they lost the other one. But they are going to do me a favor and credit me back $99 for the one they lost! Now even though they were dead set against that when that's what I wanted them to do in the first place. Now its fine in their eyes to keep the $700 retail phone, because in their words, I am no longer a customer of theirs! Me being a business owner, I have never seen such poor customer service!

This is their mistake and they need to fix it without further inconveniencing their customers. The customer reps are unapologetic and couldn't care less. The "supervisor" told me they didn't have to credit me back the $. They were just doing it to be nice. Excuse me? Yes, you do have to credit it back when you are taking it out before you're supposed to. I will be cancelling my service with them as soon as I can. Customer service reps are beyond RUDE!!!!

So I send an electronic payment from my bank account online and 2 days later, US Cellular debits my account! I call customer service again and tell this rep that I was told by another incompetent rep there that my auto pay was cancelled... Now this rep says NO, it's still active and that she could see the debit that US Cellular just made! SO I informed her this is the second attempt to STOP my auto pay and she CLAIMED she did. So now long story short, since September 9th to October 1, 2013, US Cellular has debited my bank account for 251.54 plus the $83.11.

I was told by one of their INCOMPETENTS to send in because auto pay was stopped (but it wasn't) for a grand total of $334.65 in a 3 & 1/2-week period! And NONE of this money is because I was late with payments. I AM NEVER LATE! Hopefully this rep did cancel my auto pay as requested and the extra money that I have paid will now go as a credit on my bill... Once that is all squared away, US Cellular will lose my business... There are many other carriers to choose from!

I was then informed that I was not eligible for the phone exchange program because my phone was damaged (it was fully functional prior to the software upload except the volume button) Furthermore, if I wanted a new phone it would cost me full price and I’d have to pay an activation fee of 35.00. After being a US Cellular customer since it came to Wisconsin I felt this was absolutely unfair. I also felt that my phone was damaged on purpose so that I would commit to another two year contract.

After about three hours of arguing, they agreed to drop the activation fee just this time.... I’m not paying for an activation fee on my other two phones attached to this count either in the future. US Cellular also informed me that they no longer have the battery swap service and the insurance coverage changed under the contract (making it so it is worthless to have phone insurance because of the costs associated). US Cellular did a poor job of communicating this changes to their customers and in the end are forcing people into contracts.

It eventually took over 6 weeks. It was impossible to conduct business with the outdated phone mine was replaced with. Often there were overages I would need to call about as everything was to be blocked, credits were issued, but the process was very time consuming and several calls needed to be made as several times there was disconnection and no return call. One time we used reward points for an overage on our data on one of the lines and that user was warned no more overages.

In May 2013, the battery in one of our phones would not hold a charge. I went to the store in our town to make an exchange and was told they had discontinued the battery exchange program 1 or 2 months before. I said great communication, no email, no text and no insert in my paper bill. I would have exchanged all our year old batteries had I known. I refused to have to buy a battery for the phone and opted for an upgrade using reward points. I complained to customer service about discontinuing their programs without notification. They defended the change.

In August 2013 one of our phones was not working consistently. I contacted customer service and was told we were eligible for an upgrade the next day if we used 1000 reward points. After waiting in the store for over an hour and a half the next day, I was told I would have to sign another 2 year contract to upgrade the phone. I said no when I signed there were no additional contracts required. The rude associate said they changed that last month and if I wanted to upgrade the phone I would have to sign another two year contract. I tried calling customer service and reached a recording that said they were closed, it was Sunday.

I went to our local store to make sure when I upgraded the phone in May, my contract wasn't extended without my knowledge. They assured me it wasn't. They contacted customer service on my behalf regarding the phone that wouldn't work and the two year contract required. I requested my contract with them be terminated without termination fess. They refused but I was offered a refurbished phone for the same price as a new one, with no two year contract. I agreed because I needed something to get us through the rest of our contract with them. They said they would send it out overnight as it was Labor Day weekend. The phone arrived Thursday and they sent the wrong color. I called to complain about the wrong color and the idiot associate deactivated the old phone and activated the new phone without my requesting she do it.

I had dropped off the phone and the party had to get to work while I was on hold. He was going to take the phone to the store the next day to activate it. There were things that needed to be entered into the new phone for it to work and I had no way of reaching the person. I asked them to reactivate the old phone and she said she had. She didn't and it took 2 more lengthy telephone calls and a couple collect calls from the deactivated phone to get a phone back working. I did negotiate a half off discount on the wrong color phone as I told them I did not have the time to go in and out of their store for activation at the 1-2 hour wait. My third phone call, I was told it looked like they accidentally ordered another phone be sent, the correct color. They told me to send it back when it arrived. The phone arrived the following week and I happen to catch the UPS guy and told him to send it back. I never even touched the box.

I had called when I did not get a bill in July 2013, and heard the recording that they were in a change period and that bills would be delayed. I received a bill in Aug and paid the balance as I always do. When I got my September bill no credit for payment had been applied even though the payment had cleared our bank prior to the new bill being issued. The total of our bill was $735.85, 3 times our normal bill. I called (taking 3 attempts, as their system was updating and they could not access my bill) about the payment and they said it was updated on their records. They said we had a data overages. They also added the equipment charge for the refurbished phone but had no credit for the wrong color listed on our bill.

In the end they say our bill is $381.65, although I still dispute the data charges as we have WiFi at home. I asked about using our reward points for the overage and they said they no longer offer this option. Strike 3.... Every promotion they offered when I signed they have discontinued, worse yet without notification. I wrote a complaint to the Better Business Bureau and US Cellular defends their right to change promotions at their discretion. I asked to be let out of my contract, and they refused to waive the termination fees. I am locked into my contract but they are not responsible to at least offer the services offered until the conclusion of my contract. POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! My recourse is to keep any other consumer from getting sucked into their empty promises!!!

The next day after 4 pm, my phone said "US Cellular has disconnected phones for failure to pay." I was shaking with rage. I went into that store with a clenched jaw. Here my payment was lost "in the system". The girl at the store kept telling the company she had my receipt in her hand, like they didn't believe her. Finally it was found in the archives of payment computer land and my phone was reconnected and I was told I would owe no reconnection fee... Lucky me. Of course I shouldn't. I feel trapped in a contract with a company with no laws of their own...

The 1st informed me that it wasn't taken care of and he would process it, gave me a ticket #. Of course they are unable to email to me because everything is all "internal". The other line picked up from my cell phone and she said there was nothing showing on my account but she processed a ticket # also. I asked for the ticket # and she gave me the EXACT same ticket # the previous customer service employee. So now I sit and wait.... again!! Tried to get a few more numbers for anyone else having a problem.

So I called back the next day and got the same story - they put another ticket out on my account and was told to call back the next day. Waited on the phone for 2 hours only to find out that no one ever submitted a ticket on my account so I was just wasting my time. That customer rep told me call back Monday and they gave me their direct extension. I tried calling them on Monday several times with that extension with no answer. So I finally called and waited for a rep to answer - that took an hour; was transferred to technical support, that took another hour; tech support said they couldn't help me and sent me to customer service again - which took another hour. SO 3 HOURS TOTAL ON THE PHONE JUST TO BE TOLD THAT I HAVE TO WAIT 3 WEEKS for my new line of service to be activated for some unknown reason.

So then I went to the local US Cellular store only to wait 2 hours there while their sales associate called customer service and had to wait like any other person. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS? I had Verizon prior to this and if you wanted help they were able to directly contact help instead of waiting... Now my phone is activated, I don’t have 3G in a 3G coverage area on their map plus I’M ROAMING ALL THE DANG TIME! Please tell me what the point of this company is? I would like to get out of my contract and go to Verizon again but I don’t want to pay the $350 fee for the crappy service they have tried providing.

After waiting out our 2-year contract, we switched companies the day after we were out of our contract at which time I promptly paid my final bill. I received another bill a few weeks later stating that we owed an early termination fee on 1 of the 3 lines we opened AT THE SAME TIME! When I called and waited 1 HOUR on hold, I was told that they were so sorry for the mistake and they would take care of it. I had a credit on my account after they removed the additional fees and expected it to be handled promptly. WRONG! I called a month later, waited on hold another hour, and asked where my refund was and they said it hadn't been processed at all, would I like to do that. I was told that I would receive a check in 7-10 business days. Didn't get one, just another bill.

When I called again, another hour on hold, I was told that it was processed and I would receive it in the mail within 3 weeks. When I didn't receive a check I called AGAIN and spent another HOUR on hold for someone to tell me that it was processed more than a month after I was told it was on its way and that they credited my credit card. When I asked why it took 2 months to credit my card and why I was told I was receiving a check, Christine asked me why I was so agitated. Apparently, if you don't pay your bill, it goes to collections but if they don't pay you, it is perfectly acceptable to make you spend 4 hours of your own time calling them and getting the runaround about your refund just to be transferred over and over so you can keep telling everyone your issue.

Last week, I went into the local (30 miles away) store, only to be told that US Cellular went bankrupt. They don't know anything about BB phones and the sales person actually recommended finding another service provider because our 2-year commitment was up. So there you have it. If anyone is considering doing business with this company, don't say you were never warned.

So a few days later we both went up to US Cellular so I could get an account with my boyfriend and get a phone. While we waited 20-30 minutes to be taken care of, we waited another HOUR while the sales rep was just staring at the computer confused, when all this time, the account couldn’t be set up because of my BF’s account! First, I don’t understand what could be wrong with his account and why they don’t know what it is, but I expressed at least three times that I had to be at work. I had to set up a separate account the whole time but he didn't say that that was the problem until an hour later.

I then just left with my new phone and newly set up account in a hurry. Since then, my phone has VERY slow service, roams very often, drops my phone calls and my service cuts out very frequently. I would say at this point I am very dissatisfied with my service and was better off with paying my 60 dollar bill at Cricket as opposed to my 80-100 dollar bill that's just not worth it.

Now I panicked! (AGAIN... what I missed reading in THIS email was the "NOTE:" that basically said if the amount due has changed, the auto payment will be adjusted to process the lower amount). I double-checked with my banking account. I paid a regular bill July 10th, then there was not another payment until September 9th (and the history revealed the 9/9 payment was my 8th payment for the year)....BUT the upcoming scheduled payment for 9/28 on the "Payment History'"showed that 2 payments are to be taken. So now I really panicked ... because to me this would mean two payments would be taken earlier than usual. I then began to search online about complaints and came upon the comments on this website ... so now I'm ready to "Jump Ship".

I immediately went in to US Cellular's website and cancelled my auto payments (both the scheduled one and then any future auto payments). Before that when I tried to call a few times, there was an announcement the waiting time was 15 minutes plus, so I hung up. As I was online and just got done cancelling the auto payments (while on hold to try to call again), I got through... Actually I got to speak to someone after only about 18 minutes (but being online doing something while on hold made it less stressful). Anyway, Jose was the representative who helped me (very polite, very responsive, and knew what he was talking about). When he started to help me, he immediately said there was double-billing. I immediately felt a little more assured. He saw my last payment date was Sept. 9 and then the upcoming billing had two payments due. When he looked at another screen, it showed one payment due. He then double-checked with the other system and said the payment of 9/9 is now showing as posted...but explained that at the time of the overdue notice today (both systems were not meshing together).

The reason for the double-billing was the cross-over problem. I asked him what would have happened if I didn't do anything... and he said only one payment would have been taken out of my bank account. Yes, the next payment scheduled for 9/28 is coming earlier, but then by November, things should resume back to the normal billing dates. In the end, it all made sense to me and after Jose's help, I definitely felt reassured that everything would end up okay. I wanted to know what the problem was with US Cellular and I told him it is not looking good with all the complaints I read online; but still realizing there is only so much he could say... I didn't want to compromise him. I admitted to him that I was ready to "Jump Ship".

In regard to the billing... it turns out that the OLD billing system didn't sync with the online system. The NEW billing system will be able to fix that problem. I think just hearing some kind of explanation did give me some resolve. I'm not personally aware of the problem with the difference between the billing systems; but if it helps eliminate a problem, then it can't be a bad thing. I also realized the system problems must have created the employees a lot of extra work and headache; especially anything to do with a changeover of databases; and now customer complaints on top of that (I wouldn't want to be YOU). I then told Jose that I don't usually write anything online, but actually wanted to make sure that I posted a good review online. I let him know that his great attitude and responsiveness is what really helped and thanked him for that.

In looking at what took up all my time since I got off work at 6:00... and it's now 1:00 am... I realized that I messed up by not reading closely. That hit home too... because in my own job, our correspondence with customers involves them having to read policies, procedures and our responses to their email inquiries. SO OFTEN, someone will write back asking another question... and it's frustrating because I'm saying to myself.. uhhhh ... "We already answered that'" So now, here I am... NOT READING. Gee-Wiz ... thought I was smarter than that. I felt compelled to post a good review on behalf of US Cellular because it would really be a shame if they lost customers in trying to do a good thing by making their system better (for us and their employees). I'm afraid I wouldn't have as good an attitude as Jose if I had to deal with all the complaints. Hang in there everyone, read the fine lines, and I wish you all resolve with any problems you're experiencing.

Today, I finally received a bill and it was over $400. I call, wait around 30 minutes for a rep and am told I have $127 credit and in two weeks I'll get another bill and only have to pay $95! My monthly bill should be around $130. Lovely US Cellular added fees for me not paying a bill on time that they didn't send on time. This company is about to go under. They are spiking bills to line their pockets. They no longer care about keeping customers. This is a red flag to me. When this billing cycle is over, I'm out.

OMG... I have written certified letters, e-mails, regular letters, called. NOTHING - NO CALL BACKS - ZERO! THE WORST COMING: I sent my son to the local store where we lived hoping he could talk some sense into them. The sale person said, "Why you on with your mom, get your own," and sold him a new phone after seeing my account. OMG

To this day - 3 years later, I am getting bill collections notices for another $868.50. I will not pay it. I know it has lowered my credit rating - it's the ethics. Each time I staple my "form letter with my bank payment proof" to the credit company. I will pay my remaining $130 and that is it. I will not pay them $1600 because an 18 year-old was told "all incoming calls are free" by a salesperson who probably knew we would pay roaming fees. PLEASE SOMEONE - LAW SUIT!!!!!! THEY ARE CROOKS!

However in the meantime he said we could drive 60 miles and get a loaner phone... Yes he looked it up himself - the nearest store is 31 miles away - 1 way! Then of course we would have to return it too at some point. Monday... nothing; Tuesday, nothing... We live far from town. They left me with no way to reach him if I needed etc. In the meantime like others have stated, no bill, no service off and on, on my phone. Can't say how his service was.... They still haven't sent a phone!! On Tuesday, we became new Verizon customers. I didn't break my contract - US Cellular did!

I called their prepaid customer service (800-270-6054) first because I couldn't remember the 4-digit PIN I set up when I placed the order; and I was told that is necessary for their CSR to access my account (knowing this from online chat). Okay, what happened? I was waiting to talk to someone for 15 minutes, and listening to their damn commercials talking about how convenient their service is and how good their prepaid plan is. Finally, I was connected to some Indian accent guy. I'm okay with his accent; however, after I said I need to know my PIN to activate my account, he simple said, "I'll transfer you to our activation department, and have a good day," then transferred me, before asking me whether I think that'll be good enough! Have you guys ever felt bothered when you call 800 CSR and they say in the end, "Is there anything else I can assist you with"? Well, I started to appreciate that now!

Anyways, I was transferred to their so-called "activation department", meaning I was put on hold for another 15 minutes ,no BS! I was connected to a girl finally, namely Samantha, right after I greeted back and say, "Hello Samantha, I want to activate my prepaid phone on US Cellular". I was told, "Sorry sir, I can't hear you. Please hang up and call from a landline or real cellphone at 800-** (didn't catch) to activate your phone. You have a good day", then bang! I was hung up! WTF is this type of issue?! I called from my cell phone, and even if there was some connection or reception issue, she should try to speak or listen to me for another few seconds! She was on the phone with me for no more than 10 seconds then simply hung up on me! What am I now? A customer or a stranger she cared nothing about? Doesn't she hear of the complaints about their CSR and long wait?

This is their welcome to me! Right after I bought the phone and paid for the first month service. Now this phone I bought from them is associated and bound to that phone number they assigned to me, which means I can only use it with my USCC account which can't be activated with ease! And this is not a single case, there is not a single time I need to wait less than 15 minutes to get connected. Average is 15, I once waited to 34 minutes!!!!! WTF, WTH! No more USCC for me. Their customer service sucks, their prepaid monthly rate is higher than most other CDMA prepaid plans; their reception isn't any better than Verizon MVNOs.

Who is gonna spend half an hour just try to get connected to a CSR, who may just simple hang up their phone on you?! I consider myself a very patient and courteous person most of the time. Now I just become outrageous with them! No **! Go play with yourself, USCC!

At this point I was finished and I transferred my service to Verizon. I became my own personal Verizon broker and had the new phones sent to my house, followed the SIMPLE 10-minute instructions and ported our phone numbers from US Cellular to Verizon. I then called US Cellular and after 1.5 hours of being on hold was finally able to speak with someone. I let her know that I was cancelling all service with US Cellular. She proceeded to tell me that was not her job and she could not help me, that she needed to transfer me to the department that handles that. I let her know that she was NOT to put me back into the queue - she did. I waited AGAIN for more than an hour and spoke with someone else... This person AGAIN told me they could not assist me and I asked again not to be put back into the queue...

I was again put back into the stupid queue! I was so frustrated... Then the call was disconnected while I was waiting. I sure hope they have all my service there ended, but I doubt it since two of my three phones are still accepting and receiving calls, emails, texts. I looked online at my bill and it shows the current bill is current (my June bill). I am curious though as to WHAT they think they will be charging me for a bill whenever they get their act together!!!

Anyway.... Hello Better.... has chopped back customer perks.... Their solution to lower my monthly bill was sign up for a new plan (2 years)... yet keep your current phone for 22 months.... Way to go, Hello Better.... Anyway.... I left the store with my old phone.... my old plan.... and no resolve on whether the upgraded payment info is set for my September 1, payment.... as of September 1..... Hello Better will now be known as Goodbye Better..... Feel free to call me... I left a message for the store manager who has yet to call me back.... GOODBYE, BETTER.

4 hours later, my husband called them on our land line and told them we need our phones. We haven't received a bill in the mail, the store told us on 8-12-13 that we were current, etc. They said we shouldn't have been told that. My husband offered to pay the bill, sight unseen, and they said they couldn't take credit cards. So we had to give them our bank number which is making me extremely uncomfortable. (I bet they might be experiencing some kind of credit card hacking which is using up their resources as well as selling off the Illinois accounts.) Two minutes after my husband hung up, we got our service back.

They are so disrespectful. Instead of turning off our service, they could have called or emailed us to let us know what is going on. It makes me uneasy to not have my phone working. What if there had been an emergency? Now we have to ask them for a copy of the bill we already paid today, to make sure it is billing us correctly. I have read on this site and others that customers are getting incorrect bills and I want to stay on top of this. I don't need my service cut off again.

Today I get an email saying that my new bill was available. I just online only to see that it is the same old garbage, not the right bill. They have me not owing anything. I am so upset that US Cellular and they have always been pretty good in the past. I don't know what on earth they are doing, but they need to hire people that can do what they are suppose to be doing the right way and not taking months to repair or change whatever they are changing. This is ridiculous!

In early July, purchases two additional Republic Wireless phones and again initiated a transfer of numbers from U.S. Cellular. I have been attempting to port two numbers from U.S. Cellular to my two Republic Wireless phones for almost a month. My initial on-line request using Republic's website several weeks ago seemed to work fine and indicated "Awaiting transfer". After over a week, I contacted U.S. Cellular to inquire why the transfer was taking so long. After a very long wait to speak to a customer service rep, I was told that they were converting systems and no transfers had been able to be processed and I should redo my transfer request.

That same day my Republic account showed "transfer rejected". A new transfer was initiated and appeared to work fine once more. Again, it remained as "awaiting transfer" for over a week. I again contacted U.S. cellular (again with a LONG hold time) who seemed to agree again that their systems had been unavailable, but should now be working OK. The customer service dept. promised to credit my account for the delay in the transfer and tried to transfer me to the porting department but no one answered. I tried again to reach the porting department and after a long delay to reach customer service, was once more transferred to the porting department. The porting department NEVER answers. I have spent, literally, hours on hold with U.S. Cellular attempting to resolve this issue. Then I contacted U. S. Cellular, they said they had no record or any transfer requests for the numbers I was trying to port!!!

I was able to easily transfer from US Cellular to Republic Wireless a couple months ago with no problems and no delays using Republic Wireless's on line transfer request. It went through in minutes. I know that U.S. Cellular has been working on system changes as more than one customer service rep acknowledged that and also because often, including today, I am not able to access my account on-line. Whatever is going on, I'd like it resolved and once my numbers are ported, I'd like credit for all the intervening time.

U.S. Cellular has systems that no longer function correctly. They have horrendous wait times to reach customer support. Customer support can not help with porting and can not communicate with their own porting department, but can only suggest that they put you on hold to porting dept. The porting department does not ever answer the phone. Literally hours wasted trying to resolve and can not even get a call back, send an email or get any type of resolution. Abysmal!!!!

Well your life took over after that and I forgot all about it until my phones were suspended. So again, I get on the phone and call customer service and I am on "HOLD" from 10 to 45 minutes waiting to talk to someone. I finally get to talk to somebody and I ask them how long is it going to be before our phones are turned back on. The first time I called, they said it should be back on in about 5 minutes. Well that part was true, but the phones that were turned on were our kids' phones. So again I get back in touch with them and again I ask how long is it going to take to turn on the other 2 phones and they tell me about four hours. When the four hours were up, they still weren't on, so I again get someone on the phone.

Of course after some waiting time, then they tell me, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience but they should be on no later than 24 hrs." Guess what, they still weren't turned back on. By this time I'm more than frustrated, so I again get someone on the phone and ask them, "Okay, I've waited and have been very patient up to this point. Now when are you going to turn our phones back on?" She then tells me they are having technical difficulties with the system and that they have escalated my case to the highest priority and that it should be on in 48 hrs. Well 48 hrs. have come and passed and our phones are still not on and now they are telling me that it could take anywhere from 3 to 6 days for them to figure out what the problem is. I've had it. I feel like taking all of our phones and throwing them through the corporation's window. "FED UP with our businesses who say they care about the customer."

When I complained about the long wait, they were sympathetic and informed me that they too had to endure long waits in order to get problems resolved. Really????? I have the bill paid automatically from my checking account, so they have already captured the payment for this bill. I have resigned my self to the fact that I will have to waste 40 minutes of my day to get an issue resolved that is their fault. US Cellular's customer service sucks! I find no excuse for them to not be able to solve customer's problem at their store or without a 40 minute wait time. UNACCEPTABLE!

They wouldn't work with me. I had to pay that day to have my phone. So I had to find the money and I did. Then I find out that because my account was suspended for less than 1 day, I now had to pay $25.00 suspension fee. So basically, if they decide to shut you off for being 2 days past due on 1 bill, they will charge you $25.00. WOW, $25.00 for less than one day suspension because they wouldn't work with me to give me 2 extra days. It sounds ridiculous to me. I cannot wait to be done with my US Cellular commitment because of reasons like this and also because their rates are terrible.

3. Lose all of the ‘points’ that I accumulated while paying my bill on time each month.

This recent experience with US Cellular has, as you can expect, caused me not to believe any more. To say I’m dissatisfied with the recent experience is…well…lacking in focus. I’ve called US Cellular and my only recourse is to attempt to sell my US Cellular phone on the open market, along with the other US Cellular phones within the Chicago market that are for sale.

So…what would be an appropriate compensation for all of the grief that US Cellular has caused? I’m not sure, but I am looking at my most (and probably last) US Cellular bill that must be paid. I am considering not paying the bill, but, this is not the moral thing to do. After all, I used the service, thus must pay the bill for the services rendered.

As I sit today, I am disappointed with this callous corporate approach to a problem that I did not create. What to do…what to do…what to do???

Today, I received a bill. When I called and inquired what this was for, they informed me it was an early termination fee.

Why can't these US Cellular people get this through their thick skulls? Not to mention we deactivated our 3 kids’ phone lines because they go way over the data plan, but the company keeps billing us month after month for the "early termination fee." I mean how many months are we going to have to pay for these lines?! We deactivated them because they cost too much but it's more expensive to deactivate than to keep them. We had to renew our 2-year contract just to upgrade and get phones that actually work. Unbeknownst to us, the "insurance" on our phones (that we have to pay monthly for) doesn't cover the phones and we have to pay out of pocket to fix or replace any phones. I HATE US Cellular and would cancel if they didn't charge $350 to do that! I would recommend that NO ONE, and I do mean absolutely no one go with US Cellular... unless of course you're super rich and love being robbed of your money.

One week later, I received a bill in the mail for $350. I called customer service and it was explained that I had broken my contract on the two phones. I told her that I was told to do this because US Cellular would not honor the contract and considered them void. She said the company sent a letter out and I informed her that I did not receive any letter and my first information came only that day at the store. No one in the store or at customer service knew anything about a letter nor could anyone produce the letter. I relied on the knowledge and accuracy of the store manager and employees as well as customer service, just as any customer would do. I did not expect to be misled and forced to pay outrageous fees.

This is one thing that's frustrating, but the most important thing I want people reading is how US Cellular commercializes 4G LTE phones and service, but not everybody gets that service in your area. I've called and complained about it and customer service tells me it's my phone. They sent me a refurbished phone and the same kind of things I'm experiencing again with my Galaxy S3 is going on. In my area, I don't have 3G flashing. I get 3 scroll bars and it just disgusts me with them. I stopped calling them when they sent me a refurbished phone.

I have been with them for over 13 years. I kindly told them if they didn't do any type of compensation, I would be porting away my two current lines. They offered to send me to customer relations to cancel without any fight. Poor decisions on their part. They shouldn't be giving away my number and they should do something to fix the problem.

For all this, US Cellular must have looked at us as a bad risk (10 years of auto pay was overlooked) and as soon as they bill, they auto draft our account and take the money over three (yes, three) weeks before the payment was due. They have done this two months in a row and now I am looking for a new carrier. Too bad Sprint didn't buy all of US Cellular. They only took what covered area that seems to run along I-80. I certainly hope Verizon or other cell carriers are at least a little better.

I was going through personal family and health issues at the time, so the phone thing kind of took a back seat for a while. But about 4-5 months later, I called to complain that the service was not any better than the S3. I was told that I obviously had a defective phone and should pay $35 to send it in for repairs, or more (I forget the amount) for a replacement since it was under warranty. I didn't want this phone anyway. So since I had another line eligible for an upgrade, I went ahead and splurged on a Samsung Galaxy S4. I figured after 8 months with a phone I didn't like and had bad reception on, I deserved to spoil myself. S4 reception not quite as bad as the S3 but still dropped calls, rarely any data reception. I usually could only use data if I was on Wifi. Calls going out wouldn't go through most of the time.

I decided to return the phone and switch to Verizon but horrors... The day I was going to return it, 8 days after purchasing, it fell out of my pocket and the corner of the screen shattered. This was about a 12-inch fall, maybe less. I've dropped other phones before and have never had one shatter like this. I went back to the store to see if anything can be done but they said since I had not purchased insurance (I've never needed it before because I've never bought such flimsy pieces of ** before) and it was an accident, that they would not replace it. They said they only take a phone back if I changed my mind. I told them I DID change my mind... it's a cheap piece of garbage and I don't want it anymore! But I was told there was nothing they could do.

I decided to check out Verizon. Lower rates and full coverage in our area. Verizon rep told me US Cellular lost certain contracts that made them lose the right to use many local towers. It made sense because I went from 11 years of full blue bars on my phone to 1-2 white bars, indicating weak reception. I called 611 and told them I planned to switch to Verizon and they told me I would have to pay $350 termination fee on one of my 4 lines, the one I upgraded. I told them I refuse to pay because I barely have service and I won't pay for something they aren't providing. They told me the fee was to pay for the phone since I got it at the discounted price. But whether or not I had gotten this phone, there is still a termination fee of $350 so they can't tell me it's to pay for the phone. They said if the phone wasn't damaged, that I would have been able to return it and back out of the contract within 15 days; but since the phone was damaged, I was out of luck.

I had looked into getting it repaired and was quoted $150 for a new screen. I told them I would give them the phone and $150, thinking that sounded reasonable, but they refused. They said I could send it in for repairs myself. But then by the time I got it back, the 15 days would have passed and I wouldn't be able to return it anyway. When I was talking to customer service about my options, she told me warranty doesn't cover accidental breakage but only covers lost or stolen phones. What??? What would stop me from tossing it in the bushes and claiming it was lost? But I am too honest a person to do that. In the store when I mentioned that, the salesman told me that was not correct. I am getting conflicting stories from different employees, and when I call, I am being passed from person to person and am having to repeat my story again and again. In the end the response is always the same: "There is nothing we can do."

I have been with US Cellular for almost 12 years, have referred at least a dozen people to them, and this is the way it ends up. I have a broken phone, $350 termination fee, and nobody gives a **. I suppose I will have to pay the termination fee, but I will count it as a loss that is well worth it to leave them forever and switch to Verizon. I am absolutely disgusted beyond belief for the runaround I was given between the 3 phones in the last 10 months. I'm angry that they led me to believe the phones were defective rather than to admit that they had issues with towers. I asked about it and they flat out denied that it was true; however, they have no explanation for my loss of service. I found out it's not just me too - it's everybody I know in this area who have US Cellular - and they made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

Rude employees who don't know their product, condescending reps on the phones when you call 611... I am DONE with them and I hope as many people as possible read this and avoid all the problems we all who have posted here have experienced. Hoping they go out of business soon because paying customers don't deserve to be treated this way. Please spread the word!!

I have been with US Cellular for 9 years, and this last CS response causes me to pause to ponder if I will try for 10 years. It only seems reasonable that if AT&T and other providers of the S3 can connect to Samsung software via Wi-Fi that US Cellular “dumbed-down” their version that does not connect and flatly refuses to correct the issue. You can rate their customer service... I have.

I'm still a US Cellular customer and this is just ridiculous. It's not my fault they are on the way out of business. Also had a friend who they sold a new phone to 5 weeks ago. He will not be able to use the phone on a different network. Seems like they are not taking care of their customers very well! Don't get me started on all my rewards points which are going to waste. Oh well, looking forward to switching carriers.

Financial Services was seeing a different amount due on their screen and Customer Services was seeing $155.93 as my bill stated. This went on for hours. I was transferred to the cancelation department 2x where I was asked, “What can we do to keep you as a customer?” I told the rep I would like to pay $55.94 today (3/28/13) and the balance of $99.94 on 4/4/13 (next Thursday). The male rep said, “OK, that’s not a problem,” and transferred me back to Financial Services where I was rather rudely told he has no authority over Financial Services.

I was transferred back to the cancellation department. A female rep asked me, “What can we do to keep you as a customer?” I went through the whole drawn out story again (15 or 16X), only to be told, “I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do.” Then why did she ask? At this point, I’m livid. I will be cancelling my services with US Cellular as soon as I secure a new carrier. I have been with US Cellular for 11 years. This whole experience was unbelievable. I said to the rep, “US Cellular would rather lose an 11 years customer over a $100.00 payment. US Cellular has no loyalty to their loyal customers. Check my records. I was on my cell phone the whole time.”

Now here is where the untruthfulness comes in. I told him I planned on selling used stuff online. I also explained I had a niece who called often due to grief of losing a child and wanted to be there for her. He said “Do you have many calls you need to get?” I said “Well, if the line was busy (I thought I wouldn't know it anyways like a landline), they would have to wait.” He said, "If you need to use your phone, then you may want to think about hotspot so you won't miss any calls.” I said, “When I am listing my items, I may need my phone and did not want to lose my connection as I would be listing and would hate to begin again.” He replied, "Well, you definitely would benefit with hotspot and you are lucky as there are no contracts with it."

So I did not need the hotspot! I got the 5g plan the first month okay; second, no luck. I went over 2g that's $20 more. So now I am paying $90 for phone, $20 which is a required cost for smart phones, the $50 for hotspot and then $20 for going over. I also had the ins plan for my phone for $4.99. I went back in feeling quite nuts for paying all this. I dropped down my phone to calling and text for $40 then the $20 for smart phone. My thought is this would take care of things and increase my internet on hotspot to 9g and I had to sign a 2-year contract on it.

The very first bill was 8.7 something usage to the 9g won't fix it. I text a company you can get phones at a large discount store who told me unlimited everything for $50. Really? Really? I have to buy the phone for $104 but yes use WiFi. My housekeeper called me using her WiFi. The call came through and did not disconnect me. I feel led on and robbed. I don't have the new phone yet but am ready to let go of US as I can’t trust them. Why do this, they made money?

I said, “This is our first notice that something is wrong. No text, no email, no call for 3 months and you are canceling a 15-year customer in a few hours and this is the first notice we get? “Yep. Sorry, sir, pay now or you will be termed!” The problem stems from the time we upgraded one phone that month. It put our bill over a pre-set limit on auto deduct and so it didn't go through and then it automatically stopped all future deducts. So it all piled up, each month - Oct., Nov., Dec. and now Jan. and they finally got around to telling us 4 months later? And gave us a few hours to pay without us ever having the chance to figure it out? So we paid; we had to. They had us in a box. So we are off auto-deduct and off paperless and will be looking for a service that does better than this.

We are set up with them for text and email notices every time there is a statement due, a payment due, or an amount past due. We received no messages and the text number I know they have is correct as they used it to notify me yesterday of the balance needing to be paid immediately. First notice in 4 months of unpaid bills.

Today I called and spoke to the two rudest idiots I’ve ever experienced in a customer service position. They told me they were not taking any money off my bill and I should have opted for the 100 dollars they offered me yesterday because today the offer was null and void! What kind of manager says that? I felt like I was bullied and treated unfairly and not at any time did I receive a text or call from them stating that my bill is skyrocketing! They obviously don’t care about keeping me as a customer and they sure won’t care about keeping you. Please do not use US Cellular as your cell phone provider. Thank you!

I was in the store a few days ago, trying to figure out how best to handle this situation, when a customer came in loudly complaining about the activation fee. A regional manager was in the store at the time and kept talking in circles, in an attempt to get the man out of the store. Several customers left in disgust. I have had several cell phones and worked with various companies. US Cellular is a joke.

I am not the kind of customer that needed a new phone every year. The phones we had been using were at least 4 to 5 years old. My children were older and wanted texting and internet. I broke down and agreed to get new phones. I avoided it for so long because I know what it is to get the phones switched and upgraded. The clerk laughed at the phones we were using because they were so old and out of date when I purchased the phones. When I returned the phone to the store where I purchased the phone, I got absolutely no help. I got "We have to send it in for repairs. We can be given a loaner." I was pissed because it was "We can't exchange it." I said I did not buy new phones 16 days before to have a loaner phone for who knows how long. The phone did not work from day one. The phone was in mint condition when we brought it back into the store.

I agree to have US Cellular send it to have it fixed after the clerk said it would be 4 to 6 weeks for the repair to be completed. I get it back yesterday, 11/09/2012, finally. My son is traveling back home and he calls me. Guess what, I still can’t hear him. They did not fix the mic as needed to be done the first time. I call 611 this time around. I find out we have to drive back and have it sent in again. The customer service rep stated it has to be sent in for repairs 3 times for the same problem before they replace the phone. I told the rep that it took 4 months to get notified the phone was done. I never got a call from US Cellular. I called them at 4 weeks, 6 weeks, and 8 weeks. I then told them to call me. It never happened. I called last week, and lo and behold, it was allegedly fixed, but it was not fixed. I don't even have any proof it was even sent in for repair.

I asked the worker if it took 4 months to get this phone back and now I have to travel back to the store again and wait another 4 months or who knows more time. They did not fix it this time (what faith do I have to fix it this time). If I have to wait for two more times for the phone to be sent in and returned, that is 16 months before the worthless company exchanges my phone according to the no exceptions policy of US Cellular Company. I have been with US Cellular for years. I get "We can't help you." When I worked customer services for Sears years ago in college, it was never ever "I can’t help you." It was "How can I help you and make this right?"

I checked on eBay this morning. A new phone that I purchased new on 08/11/2012 is selling for $50.00. US Cellular would rather piss me off, lose my loyalty as a customer, and have me badmouth their terrible business practices than fix the problems. Unbelievable! Warranty is one thing, but you know common sense and doing what is right is clearly the way to do business. And just like politics, these companies need to know what happens locally, not nationally or global, is what keeps their business going. Piss off enough people like this and you don't have a business or you’re getting bought by your competitor because of your poor business practices. Oh yeah, what the hell are rewards with this company? I asked, “Can my reward be used to get a replacement phone?” I was given a “no".

It sounds good in a commercial, but with this company, it is like giving gift cards out. They sound great when you get them. But you lose them or misplace them or they expire before you can use them. The only one that gets anything from them is the company that sold them. They get your money and don't sell you anything - pure profit. I guess that is what the rewards program is. I have learned my lesson and I hope other's do. I look forward to witnessing US Cellular having a smaller market share of the cellular business due to their lack of customer service. Oh, I have filled out several surveys, and I wonder if anyone will read them. My best bet is no! I will be dropping US Cellular as soon as possible.

Now after dealing with the BBB on this, they claimed they removed the activation fees (however, they still show up on the bill) and they said that even after only a month of so-called-service, they could do nothing and we would have to pay the ETF in order to leave. They never gave an exact reason to why, just they can't do it. The only thing they offered is that they place a $25.00 to the account - $25.00 that shouldn't be on there in the first place. All we asked of them is to drop the whole account with no ETF as we would return the phones (which have only about a month and a half of usage to them) allowing them to keep the $158.00 we already paid for them.

We always heard such good things about this company. But after only dealing with them for this short period of time, I would never recommend them to anyone. We are still working on this issue and hope it can be resolved soon. We want nothing to do with their billing habits or poor customer service.

Today, September 5, when I went in, I was laughed at and told it is not uncommon to have to charge a phone every day. The clerks were very rude and snotty. You need to send these clerks to public relations school on how to treat customers. When my contract is up, I will consider looking for a different company for a cell phone. My phone still does not hold a charge, but I will be darn if I will return to a bunch of rude, impolite clerks. I will find a different store and hope they have decent employees.

Now for July bill, we never received (paperless) billing. On the night of August 1, 2012, they disconnected our service. No phone call or text message, no email, and nothing to say hey, your bill is past due to remind us to call them to find out where the bill is. So, I called immediately and paid the bill over the phone on an automated system. The phones were turned back on in 10 minutes, but now we still don't have the July bill (I requested the next day on August 2). And the new August bill is out and of course the billing is incorrect and they have charged us a $25.00 per line (5 lines) suspension charge with their taxes and surcharges added to each line, which totals out to be $29.62 per line in additional charges.

We have had it with them. No consumer should have to go through this each and every month, just to have a service that we can get elsewhere. But of course, we are locked in a 2 year contract. So my question is, is there anything we can do to get out of this contract so we can go elsewhere?

There have been several payments misapplied to the wrong account. My service has been interrupted 3 times since we switched. Logistically, their process makes no sense. They have a credit balance on one account and are disconnecting my service for non-payment on the other account. I've made so many double payments to get my service back on it would make your head spin. There were countless hours I've spent just asking them to apply the payment to the correct account, but it’s rocket science to them. They tell me they are mailing me the overage amount.

After patiently waiting for their mail for 4-6 weeks, I still have nothing in the mail. They then agree to post the overage to the account. Would you believe that, after all the representatives that I spoke with and all the notes that should be on the account, they reapplied the overage to the same account that it was misapplied to in the first place? I decided that I just can't deal with the incompetence anymore. I'm running to Verizon to switch my service. I don't know if they are any better, but they can't be worse than this. It is frustrating for me to leave because I'm a very loyal customer. All I wanted to do is pay my bill each month and have my service. They had no appreciation for how long I've been a customer and how much revenue they make off of me annually. They called me harassing me for my payment like I was the scum of the earth who won't pay my bills when all along U.S. Cellular owes me money!

They will spend millions of dollars in marketing to get new clients, but won't spend the money to train representatives to fix what should be simple billing errors for existing customers. Message to U.S. Cellular: please appreciate loyal customers. With the no contract campaign, we will leave if we are not treated fairly and with respect. Unprofessionalism and incompetence isn't acceptable. Please learn from this and improve your process and procedures before more customers leave.

I explained the problem I was having and she said that their cell phone tower was down today. When I said, "This is frustrating because I just signed up for your internet service and it has been happening out of state as well," she told me, "What do you want me to do about it?" She then explained that I should go back to the service center and directed me to it as if I was a child. The family next to me that was considering to move their service to US Cellular walked out. I do not blame them. The service associate told me he tried a couple of things and reprogrammed it, but doesn't know if it would work so I would have to come back if it didn't. When I got to my car, I looked at my phone info. It had not been turned off to reprogram nor had it been reprogrammed in the call logs. Do they think I'm stupid?

I had a previous issue back in December when the other phone on our line did not work right after we got it. After four trips to US Cellular, they agreed to mail us a replacement phone. The same day we got the replacement phone activated, we sent the old one back with their prepaid address US Cellular mailed us. In January, our phones were shut off at midnight on a Sunday. I went into US Cellular the next day and they said it was because the phone had not been returned. I said it had and provided the tracking information and ended up calling around myself. Finally, I found it at a post office and they told me that the address on the label did not exist.

I took the box back to US Cellular and told them what the post office told me. They called customer service and the customer service said they would mail me a new label, but no, they would not turn our service back on nor could I just give it to the US Cellular store I was at. In order to turn our service back on, we had to pay $600, the value they claimed of the phone even though it was not in working order and it would not be refunded - it would just be a credit on our bill. We ended up adding our phones onto another family member's line and when we finally got a zero bill, went back in. We had previously been told that they would allow us to pick back up our contract and what not when the account balance had reached zero, but that was not the case. Customer service had canceled our account so we had to sign a whole new contract and start back over.

I am considering just paying the $300 to cancel two lines and go elsewhere. This is the worst customer relations company I had ever dealt with. I will gladly overpay for Verizon for better phones and customer service.

I told him that I had been disconnected even though I was paid up through 3/21/2012. It took some repetition before Keith seemed to understand what I was talking about and he still insisted I would have to pay the $113.85. Finally, he left me on hold and when he came back, he said that I would still owe $5.61. I told Keith I felt very angry and that this would not be the last of this because I did not owe US Cellular anything and that I would not use this service again. He said something like, "so be it!" in a rude manner. Upon reviewing this bill after I hung up, I noted that the $58.21 I had already paid had not even been deducted so I was being billed excessively even if I had owed for another month.

On 4/22/2012, I was billed $63.31 with no explanation on the bill, no note of what the expenses were for except that it shows a $58.21 credit and "Extended Home Service Area" charges of $101.43. When I came to Nevada, I phoned US Cellular and discussed the fact that I was out of the home service area, but they said it was no problem as long as I paid my bill. I am only guessing that the $63.31 is for the three days before US Cellular disconnected my phone on 2/24/2012 even though I was paid up through 3/21/2012. I want to have US Cellular acknowledge that I was paid up through 3/21/2012, do not owe them any money at all and that they will stop billing me. This has resulted in much stress and frustration and I have an appointment with a legal attorney assistant in June to discuss this.

Now 7 months later, another $200 charge. Well after 1 hour on the phone once again, they were telling me that I have used this data. No way! I barely use the internet. So now, they have a new plan to charge you only $10 extra a month for each 1GB you go over. How convenient. So they are intentionally over-billing, because there is no way to keep track of your usage because their connection logs are not accurate. So they probably send out thousands of these $200 overcharges and then give you a credit. Today, I got $100 off my bill, because I threatened to cancel. Then they sign you to a new plan. It sounds like a scam! I will be looking into Clear and canceling with US Cellular because I'm not happy.

I took everything back the next day, got a refund for the modem, but the store said US Cellular had to issue me a check for my prepaid time. I was told it would take 4 to 6 weeks for a refund. I paid with a credit card and asked if they could just put it back onto that. They said no, that wasn't their policy, I would have a check issued to me. Needless to say, it is now May 10, 2012, and I still have not gotten my refund. I have spent about three hours talking to people, trying to get my money returned, only to be told that the ticket has been pulled and a check is in the mail, but they can't tell me when it was issued. I have been put on hold and you hear a recording that says, "US Cellular customers are the happiest customers." Well, I am not happy! Beware! I will never buy anything from them again.

I went to the U.S. Cellular website and looked at the LG Wine II phone, and it does state that a minimum of a 90-day data plan is required in order to receive the $50 rebate. This is a false rebate because the full price of the phone is $79.99 and we are required to spend an additional $44.85 which totals $124.84. Taking the $124.84 that we are required to spend on this phone and minus the "rebate" of $50.00, the new total that we actually pay for the phone is $74.84 which is $5.15 less than the $79.99 full price, so actually there is no rebate!

How can this company get by with this blatant customer rip-off? I told the customer rep "No thank you" on the so-called "rebate" and to further add insult to the situation, the LG Wine II phone is not a smart phone and can access the Internet but it has very limited and primitive Internet capabilities. It does not come with a web browser or email client installed so we would have to download both from the U.S. Cellular Easy Edge which would cost us more money.

Many people have probably fallen for this fake rebate. I have been a U.S. Cellular customer for 16 years and had no complaints until now. They have become greedy and their interest is in the company, not in their customers. When our contracts are up, we'll change to a different wireless carrier.

The lady then issued the work order ticket and transferred me to customer service where they made sure I wanted to stay with the same plan, etc and said that they would be back on in a few hours. Well seven hours later, they were not back on and I called them to see what was going on and then they told me that they couldn't turn them on because the account had been turned over to collections and I needed to call the collection agency. And if I wanted service with them, I needed to re-apply. I said the other people told me it wasn't any problem to turn them on and they said, "Well, they made a mistake."

So I called the number they gave me and they had no record of me. I called them back and asked more questions and they said what I can put an order in and I said, "You don't see any problem, like collections?" And they put me on hold, and came back and said here is a different collection # but to call back tomorrow during the day and they will work with you and the collections.

So I called the collection and they said I owed a different amount and I looked at my last bill and I paid what the bill said. US Cellular told me my account was current 0 balance. So I called the next morning and the account now showed only collections and told me that they could not discuss the account with me and to call the agency. They took my money and I feel they lied to me just to get the money. If the account is with collections and they don't own it, how could they take my money? If they had told me in the beginning that the account was with collections, I would have paid it differently. I really didn't have the money but was not happy that I didn't have service with them so as soon as I came up with it I made sure I called them right away.

A friend of my family recently passed away and the message came in several days after the funeral. I pay about $55 per month for one of the only cellular service providers in my rural area that has reception. As with most things in this great country of ours, I should be happy to play solitaire and take pictures with my phone in lieu of actually receiving relevant phone calls. Can you say "Big Brother"? Perhaps I should travel with a Scrabble board to entertain myself while awaiting telephone calls for up to several days.

So I called back and asked why you hanged up on me. He said because I was cussing at him and I clearly wasn’t. I even asked if the call was recorded and he said no but I wish it was like seriously, and the worst part about this story is he said he was the manager. Yeah, y’all just lost me as a customer when my contract is done within the next year and a half and this was the store located on Millertown Pike in Knoxville, TN 37918 and it was the store located outside of the mall.

Started talking to my friend. And the earpiece kept falling out of my ear. It was getting annoying. So I got off the phone. I had another call. I look down to put the other earpiece in and both rubbers had fallen off somewhere. I was hot! I'm looking all over for the rubber piece and can't find them. I got tired. I couldn't put my earpiece in my ear because it hurt without the rubbers. I ain't never had this much problems with a damn earpiece in my life.

The next day I had found a rubber piece from my old earpiece and put it on. The same day the top of the silver earpiece had broken off. How cheap! I took it to the store, wanting to exchange it. One guy was super nice and the other guy was a jerk face, sitting there and playing with his cellphone. The nice guy said let me make a call to somebody to see if I can exchange it. While he was doing that the jerk face guy was saying that they can't take this! I don't have all the pieces and I said yeah, they kept falling off. So I waited there about 10 minutes waiting for the person to call back to see if I can exchange it. Very awkward. While jerk face was still playing with his phone, finally someone called back and they said no! I was so pissed. I didn't want my money back. Just wanted a better piece. How rude! I would never step into a US Cellular store for the rest of my life or refer anybody to switch to them. You suck! $32 wasted.

Before transferring me, I was blackmailed by Andrew. He said that if he transferred me, then I might not get any help with my bill and made it sound like asking for a manager, I would be giving up any help he had already offered. I called his bluff and told him to just transfer me. I was on hold for another timeframe and then Charles came on the line and was a pleasure to talk to. Not only did he apologize for Andrew, but he also positively turned the situation around and created interest in using US Cellular again in the future.

I don't usually send complaints or compliments so this is a good statement from a consumer point of view. But Andrew needs training and should not be representing your corporation in customer service. Some have it and some just don't cut it. Andrew misses the cut while Charles meets and even exceeds it. I had to switch to an iPhone for my job. There are other issues I have had with your corporation on a professional level that had me thinking of switching before, but if I could get Charles a job at Verizon, I would. Your training and ethics as a company are not customer focused, and you have a ton of people in the wrong position. Larger isn't better if you lose all your customers.

Now, they want to pull this stunt? I'd rather cancel everything altogether and get a straight talk phone. I don't need their ** anyways. And what makes me even angrier is I know a girl who has USC in the same area as me, and she will go literally two months without paying a dime and they leave her phone turned on! Ughh! What kind of business are they trying to run? Their prices are outrageous anyways. The only one who is going to be suffering any consequences is U.S. Cellular because I'm going to cancel my service. Oh, and by the way, I wish I could give them zero stars. That's the service I received.

U.S. Cellular should be made to provide the consumer with a clear understanding that they do make a profit from such third-party businesses, and they take no responsibility for whether it was authorized or not, and they should be made to give the consumer explicit notice when such a charge is being added to a consumer's monthly charges. U.S. Cellular should be required to obtain consumer's prior consent to add third party charges of any nature. Now what congressman or administrative agency could be against that?

On October 26th, when we traded my phone in, the girl who helped us was rude, and was on her phone half the time. She kept wiping her running nose with her hand, and touching our new phones. She downloaded apps, we didn't want or need, on the phones. We spent over two hours there, waiting for her to figure everything out. She was very stuck up, ignored our questions by going on about what she wanted to talk about. She asked me if I had a Google account set up, and I said yes, but I couldn't remember it right then and there. She replied with a dirty look and sighed and said, I guess we will make you another one.

After the grueling process of dealing with her attitude for 2 hours we left the store with the swapped phone. From October 26th through November 15th I tried using the HTC Wildfire. It is the one of the worst phones I have ever had! My boyfriend who has the same phone experienced the same problems; calls being dropped, predictive texts is horrible, volume drops out, touch screen doesn't work half the time, doesn't save messages, or new contacts, voice on GPS getting softer and louder, memory storage alert comes up whenever downloading an app, saying we couldn't do it because of lack of phone memory (the phones had nothing on them), phone freezes, and all sorts of error messages would pop up.

I thought all of this could be corrected by what the salesmen told me. That I could swap out the phones within the thirty days of the initial purchase. My boyfriend and I decided, that we both wanted to switch our phones (HTC Wildfire), to the phone I originally wanted (Motorola Electrify). So, on November 15th, we went back to the same US Cellular store that we had gone to, when we purchased the phone. When we walked in, there were two workers there with a customer each. They did not greet us or anything. So my boyfriend and I, looked at other phones to occupy our time.

After waiting for over half an hour we decided to sit on the floor and wait, being as there were no chairs for waiting customers to sit. 15 minutes later, a guy who said he was the store's assistant manager, one of the two people working, came over and asked how he could help us. We told him our situation about disliking the phones, and all the problems we had with it, and that we wanted to trade them in for different ones. He then told my boyfriend that only he could trade in his phone, and I was out of luck because I had already traded mine in once.

I told him what his co-worker said to us the first day about how we could trade them in, within the thirty day period, and after that, we could only trade it in once, and he said that his co-worker was new and must have gotten it mixed up! How is it our fault for his trained co-worker's mistake? Also, when I traded my phone in the first time, the salesperson made no comment about how that would be my final trade in allowed. So I told him I would ask customer service about this and he said go ahead.

After the whole conversation we decided to go with just trading in one phone for the time being so one of us could avoid the stress of having a horrible phone. The assistant manager started working with us, then other customers came in, so he went and helped them, and had his female co-worker take over. Apparently, she was training still, even though on our last 2 visits, she was already training! She had no clue what she was doing and had to keep calling over the manager. It took us 2 and a half hours dealing with them, before we finally were able to leave the store. The girl who was dealing with us was extremely rude. She interrupted the manager, speaking with us multiple times. She also interrupted me when I tried speaking, and when my boyfriend and I were talking, she would interrupt. She talked about how she thought the world was going to end in 2012, and how she was bummed she wouldn't be 21 to drink.

It may have been a conversation starter, but not with irritated customers on the whole situation, and people she didn't know. I told my boyfriend how tired I was from work, and she butted in saying I shouldn't be, and she was tired cause she worked last night and had three jobs, and her whopping 1pm to 9pm shift was killing her. Are you kidding me? By that time, I was extremely furious, as well as my boyfriend. I would've have complained to the assistant manager right then and there, but I just wanted to get out of that store, and he wasn't much help either. The assistant manager and her, rather than listening and helping us, argued with us about the problems we were having with the phones, and asked if we could prove it.

Throughout our 2 and half hours there, they also mingled together, and were talking under their breath and pointing at us. Complaining in the store would've made our visit more awkward and annoying, than it already was. Our whole night was wasted in a US cellular store with rude, attitude filled people. Three nights in total now. We were recommended to US Cellular by co-workers and friends, who said it was way better then the competitors.

I cancelled my Verizon Contract for $300 because I was so sure I would have a good experience with US Cellular. If something isn't done about this, then I am afraid I will have to cancel my contract, and go with someone else. With Verizon, their sales representatives were always so nice and helpful. US Cellular has proven not once, but three times, to be not so great. Your plans are great and the Motorola Electrify is a very nice phone. I would like to know about how to switch our HTC Wildfire to the Motorola Electrify we were told we could do, that we still have that we tried to trade-in.

We have no problem paying the $200 difference of the phones. Please let us know how you can help us with our phone, and with the horrible customer service we received. All of this happened at the US Cellular Store located at ** Madison, WI 53719. I am truly appalled by the whole situation. I have worked in customer service for many years, and would never act as they did, or treat my customers the way they did.

Thank you so much for the time you took to read this letter and for your patience. Any questions and with a resolution to this probably feel free to email or call me.

I received my next bill and once again they were showing a past due amount for the phone and late charges. I called again and waited on hold for 20+ mins. They said they would correct and I have yet to see any results. This is embarrassing and time consuming for nothing more than buying a new phone on an existing account. What a mess. I need help with making sure they don't report past dues to credit report and correct my account properly.

US Cellular, you guys need to do something about these service waiting times. Two hours before it's even your turn is insane. I want to scream right now. My best friend has Verizon cell service and he said he has never had to wait for more than 10 minutes. I have been with US cellular for over 18 years and this is a deal breaker! Right now, there are 15 customers waiting and only 2 service technicians.

Plus, I had this plan for two years now and I moved to a new house--there is no signal at all, always roaming or nothing. I called them more than six times regarding this problem and all I got was lies, telling me that they had a problem in our area with the towers and that they fixed it. But nothing changed for 30 days. I had no service and they didn't even apologize, as if it was my fault.

I pay $86 (that's plus tax) per month for nothing! I even lost two job interviews because of their crappy service and costumer service. I can't wait to switch to something better. I wish they'd go bankrupt! If you go US Cellular, you are out of your mind!

Then I struggled to pay the bill every month. It took 5 months to receive my rebate for the HTC Touch Pro 2 that I purchased in November 2010 for various reasons, resulting from incompetence on US Cellular's part. I finally convinced them to issue a rebate card after several phone calls. Five months, I've been more than patient. I walk into the Brookfield, WI store to upgrade my children's phones with my hard-earned belief rewards points and was told I could not add the $100 charge to my bill because I had a suspension on my service within the last six months.

I also will receive a rebate of $100 making the phones free. What's the big deal? I've been with US Cellular almost 2 years and it would have never been suspended had I not been gouged monthly. I plan to exercise every action possible against the company and against the sales associates in the form of complaints at this Brookfield, WI location. This policy that's to be used at the manager's discretion. Since my bill is paid in full with a credit, I am loyal despite their robberies, and I have 5 lines. I can only assume that it was biased.

My bill isn't due, the phones are a penny with mail-in rebate, and I've been loyal for approximately two years. They've made an above average profit off of me, and I am a customer. I'm appalled and this company will not prosper for long. I have spent hours of my time over the past 3 days with incompetent representatives for one issue or another. I also just heard that the HTC Touch Pro 2 has a glitch that drains data. I'd be very, very upset if I find out I've been over charged in excess of $1000 by this company.

I then informed them that I never authorized this. They stated that since I modified the plan, that I agreed to extend the contract. When in fact I asked several times during the conversation that by making this changed that it would not extend my contract. The representative that I spoke to assured me each time I asked that question that it would not, so I made the change. Now, I am being told that it did indeed extend my contract.

Most recently, I spoke to Sherice in customer service, again then stated that I did agree to extend the contract. I then asked to speak to a supervisor named Michelle, who followed the same line. Michelle then transferred me to Chloe in customer relations, who continued to state that I did I agree to this extension. She then reviewed the notes on the account and states that she would have to go with the proof of the notes documented by their representatives that I was wrong and that I did agree to this extension.

All the information that they reviewed again was based on the documentation collected by their representatives. Through further conversation, she stated that she could reverse the changes and that I would have to pay the $150 I "saved" in addition to the early termination would then cause my $277.50. She states that based off her documentation, I was incorrect. That I verbally agreed to this as noted by their representatives. When I asked for documentation with my signature that I was informed that this would extend my contract, they stated that could not produce that since this occurred over the phone. So basically people, if you're going to change your plan, don't do it over the phone. Get it in writing.

This was about 7:30 am. Again, I told the rep that the remaining $27 would be paid this afternoon. I called US Cell when I got home today and was told that my promise-to-pay had not been noted in the file and the only way our phones would be turned back on is to pay not only the $27 but also the current month bill. It definitely isn't my fault that you have nitwits working customer service that cannot note files correctly and I will not pay a $25 per line reconnect fee. I did tell the rep that today, so just in case he failed to note that you're aware of it. As soon as we can, we will be switching carriers. You disconnect 3 phone lines for a $27 balance. Unreal! You are the worst. I will also publish this on the US Cell complaint blog.

She told me if the past due amount isn't in by 10pm, my services will then become interrupted and then she told me to hold on while she set up the arrangement then she stated to me again what we discussed. I wake up on today, November 12th, morning and my services is disconnected. I spoke to financial services, customer service and customer relations. They all had the same thing to say that there's nothing in my account stating any payment arrangement. I've been with them a long time and have never had someone make a big mistake like this.

Customer relations tells me that, "If you make the payment right now, I can lower your monthly bill and waive the $125 reconnection fees." Well, I had already got $250 reconnection fees added to my next month bill and I explained to her it wasn't about lowering my monthly bill but because this lady made a big mistake like this and will cost me money because this is my business phone. She told me 10pm. That's the whole issue and I should have been give 10pm not "If you pay the bill now. Oh, well what she did this is what we will do for you."

You guys made the arrangement with me and you broke it. I guess now, I will still be charged a $25.00 restoration fee when my services should have never been interrupted. This problem needs to be solved in a timely manner and there should not be any fees for my inconvenience. So unfair.

I was totally confused because it was set up identical too as a US Cellular store inside as well as out and did not sell anything but US Cellular products. I could not return the cell phone. I then called customer service and spoke with a supervisor named Ashley, who informed me that the independent stores do not have to follow the same guideline as US Cellular corporate and I just basically have to keep the phone.

I would like for someone to explain to me, how can a cell phone company have one name and two different policies and how do the consumer suppose to know the difference between the two companies when they look identical and sell the exact same items. If US Cellular care to look into my account they will see we have been very loyal and we have never been late on one payment. The account is in my husband name (Arthur **) Acct# is **, my cell phone # is **. Thank You.

The first few months, we paid it assuming we had done something to cause those charges. I contacted US Cellular and asked them to block easy edge on all the phones on our account so we wouldn't do anything to cause those charges but each month, there is still either 3 or 6 dollar extra charge on the bill saying we have used easy edge. I contacted them each month and they claimed that it is a computer glitch and will remove the charges but I believe they are doing the same thing with Verizon. I talked to a few other friends that have accounts with them and they have experienced the same problem.

I would like someone to investigate them also because I believe more companies are doing the same thing that Verizon did.

Basically, they have what people are looking for. Also, they have better phones, and better plans. When my contract is up. You can bet I will be leaving US Cellular. The only reason I'm with US Cellular is because they offer free incoming, and free after seven. But my suggestion to US Cellular is to offer all those things in a package to become competitive.