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# Consumer frustrated over poor customer service
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/consumer-frustrated-over-poor-customer-service/
- Published: 2002-01-10T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T23:56:50.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Business, Santa Monica, #archive-import

responsibility if it sells a kit to support it.”

When Tanzini installed the system in mid-1998, the phones were anything but free. His $811 StarTrac was top of the line at the time, he said. But he lost whatever sentimental attachment he might have had when it repeatedly broke. It was when he brought in his latest model for replacement, at less than a year old, that he learned Cingular no longer had a phone which would work in his car.

Cingular tried to satisfy Tanzini, although he testified he had to come to the store in person and waited an hour to be helped on two different occasions.

Edwin Reese, a Cingular service coordinator, said the company was happy to replace the phone, but balked at replacing a hands-free kit made almost four years ago.

Tanzini said he has now soured on Cingular, adding “what am I going to do when this one breaks?”

He noted the “freebie Nokia” he has been using is sturdier than his former equipment. But Judge Cislo softened complaints about the quality of Cingular’s service. After Tanzini said he “didn’t like being beholden to a company with bad customer service,” the judge had the last word.

“I take judicial notice that all (cellular) companies are similar in this society,” he declared.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 10, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011002.pdf?ref=smdp.com)