EDIT: An update to this article has been posted here. Jason Ellis, CEO of Spring Communications has contacted me and resolved the issue.

The title of this article was carefully chosen to include the words "moron" and "cingular." Whether the moron is me, for picking Cingular, or the moron is whatever Cingular employee I happen to be talking to remains to be seen.

One needs only scroll down a few articles to see that I have been searching for a new phone recently. My jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none Treo 650 has run it's course from initial excitement, to toleration, to annoyance, to hatred. I can't stand using this thing much longer.

And, so I set out on my quest Saturday afternoon to buy the most expensive phone I could possibly buy (from my carrier): the Cingular 8525. You would think that when you walk into a store prepared to drop $500, they would make it a pleasant experience for you. But oh no, dear reader, venture onward to find your expectation dashed and your dreams of fine customer service crushed.

I first visited a Cingular reseller in South Provo. The store is owned by Spring, so even though everyone there is wearing Cingular shirts you're really talking to Spring employees. This is usually a dangerous bet, but I had had good luck at this store before. These people work on commission, and so they tend to be a little nicer than the uncaring corporate store employees, even if it isn't genuine. You can work out their kindness to your own favor.

When I walked in, I was greeted as usual, by the store manager. A month earlier I had dealt with a different store manager - so either he had been fired, they had two store managers, or they just give everyone the title "store manager" so you can't ask to speak to anyone higher when you're pissed off (which happens a lot around cell phone company employees for some reason).

Within 30 seconds it was clear I would not buy a phone from this guy. I told him what I was looking for, what I had tried, and what I intended to buy. He went into a lengthy explanation about why I was wrong, why I should have liked the phones that I didn't like, how I was wrong about what had happened when I used various models, and on and on. I was a little surprised - I already told the guy I was going to buy the 8525, why did he need to attack me? It was the best possible phone I could buy from him.

Well, if there's one thing I won't do, it's buy something from a rude employee. I thanked him for his time and left. Jake was with me (and was driving) and agreed to stop by the corporate store up in Orem. I didn't know what to expect, as it seems employees are hit and miss wherever you go. Fortunately the guy I talked to at the corporate store was nice enough, but they were out of stock on the phone.

There was another reseller nearby, so we stopped by to see if they had any in stock. Again, the guy was nice enough, but they were out. He checked his computer and told me of a store a few miles away that had one in stock. So we headed over to the fourth and last store of the day.

Sure enough, the girl at the store (another one owned by Spring) confirmed they had one in stock. I told her I would like to buy it. As I was talking with her, her boyfriend (or someone) walked in. She completely left what she was doing and her conversation with me to greet, hug, and kiss her boyfriend. They had a nice long conversation about some band, and he gave her a CD (god and the devil are raging inside me or something like that). It was all very lovely and I'm glad that I could witness such a joyous reunion.

Finally the girl came back to me, but only long enough to tell me she would need to go in back to get the phone. She disappeared in back, but not after motioning to her boyfriend to follow.

She was gone for some minutes. Apparently it's hard to locate a phone in the stock room. Or maybe it's just hard when you're getting felt up by your skeezy boyfriend whose shoving his tounge down your throat. Whatever the reason, she finally returned with the phone, and her boyfriend left.

I was annoyed, but still friendly. I joked with her a little bit as she updated my account information and renewed my contract. Finally she rung me up. The total came to something well over $500. My initial reaction was that this was a mistake, and I asked her what the price of the phone was. She told me it was $30 more than what any of the other stores were charging.

I told her of the discrepancy in price and she said "I don't care. I'm not going to give you that price. I would have to pay that $30 out of my own pocket." What she meant was that she would miss out on $30 of her commission. Not wanting to work on her definition of opportunity cost, I asked if anyone else in the store could sell it to me. She said no and became very rude. She had an attitude like she didn't care and was annoyed that I was even talking to her in the first place - interrupting precious make out time with her boyfriend.

You would think given the choice of selling a phone and making profit for your company, and not seling a phone and pissing off a customer - you would just sell the phone, even if you had to discount it a little bit. Every other employee at every other store was willing to do it, even the first rude guy. But no, this girl told me she didn't care, and wouldn't do it. She seemed offended that I would even want the same price that the other stores said they would give me.

She told me if I wanted that price, I would have to go to another store and buy it from them and she would have to mail them the phone and then I could pick it up.

I was annoyed enough at this point, and just told her to forget about it. I'll wait until one of the other stores is in stock.

Now this is where it gets really good.

I asked her to reverse the changes she had just made to my account. After all, she had updated my contract for another 2 years, and changed the device that my account was associated with. She FLAT OUT REFUSED to change my account back, even though I told her I was no longer going to buy the phone. She said I could change it back myself if I wanted.

It was clear I was getting nowhere with this girl, and the more frustrated I became, the more satisfied she seemed. Finally I just said "fine, I'll take care of it, but can I take a card so they will know who to call and verify this with?"

She said "No, we don't have cards - they don't need to talk to me anyway."

I asked how they would verify I was telling them the truth about not actually signing up for a new plan and she just shrugged her shoulders. I couldn't believe it. I turned around to walk out and noticed a little tray of business cards sitting on the table. I took one and held it up as I walked out the door.

So I decided to cancel my account. Cingular is smug and the employees could care less about anything you say to them, and even seem to get pleasure from aggravating you. There's not a whole lot you can do besides watch them sit back and laugh, and try to warn your friend to stay away.

The only thing you can do is give them the $175 early termination middle finger. And at this point, I would have literally paid $175 to simultaneously flip off everyone in the company. Screw them, this is the last money you're getting from me. Ever. Suckers.

As I called to cancel my account I found out something interesting. Cingular suddenly starts being really nice and responsive when you're about to give them your credit card number for your final payment. The people on the cancelations line know it's not a good idea to piss off customers - if only they could send out a memo to everyone else.

The lady I talked to asked what they had quoted me for the phone I wanted. I told her $450 and she said "oh, pssshh.. I can do better than that! How about $409!" I told her that didn't really impress me and I would rather cancel my account. Then she said "Let's see... how about $250?"

I asked her to repeat herself because I couldn't believe my ears. I was on a Sprint phone at the time, and the call was much clearer than anything I've heard on Cingular (wait a sec...) so it was true - she was going to sell me the phone for $250. I told her that would make me happy and I would stay with Cingular.

I never really wanted to leave in the first place. I've mostly liked Cingular, except for my crappy Treo. But at the time, the $175 middle finger was worth it.

She put a note on my account with the quote for the phone and told me to call in Monday to place the order (they were out of stock at the time). I called in and placed the order with no problem and should be getting my new phone tomorrow. No mention of renewing my contract either, which I'm pretty sure they have to get you to verbally agree to. So I'd say there's a good chance they sold me the phone for a great price and didn't even make me renew my contract!