There is an old theory that if you had enough monkeys banging away on typewriters long enough, you would eventually get a Shakespear play out of them.

I've come to the conclusion that Cingular has attempted to adapt that theory to the realm of customer service. Enough monkeys on phones should provide at least one customer with decent service right? Well maybe, but that one customer was not me.

Last week I ordered the new Treo 650 and was told it would arrive two days later. Four days later I called and was told it would now arrive three days after that. Again, four days later, I call. The phone is now out of stock and on backorder. They are unable to tell me when the phone will be in stock. I ask if another phone, the Sony s710a is in stock. It is. I ask that they cancel my treo order and send me the sony instead - they are the same price after all.

This is where it gets infuriating. I was told that they cannot cancel the order for the Treo. Even though it hasn't been shipped. Even though don't even have it in their own warehouse and are unable to tell me when they might have it. The only way to cancel the order is to refuse the shipment when it arrives via Fedex on some unknown date. Once the phone makes it all the way back to Cingular, I can then, and only then, phone to cancel the order. In the meantime they are keeping the $500 the phone cost me as well as the $500 deposit required due to my lack of credit in the US.

Needless to say I wil be going with another provider. Thus far the T-Mobile customer service people have been much more helpful.

More evidence to support the monkeys on phones theory:

• hold times were never less than 10 minutes and often up to 20 minutes
• one monkey asked me my name four times during a ten minute conversation (every time he had to look something up)
• every phone call required me to be transferred from one monkey to another an average of three times, and sometimes, I would be told I was transferred in error and that I should call back.
• another monkey required instructions from ME on how to navigate their own customer service website to locate the page detailing my order status.

It's too bad really, they do have the coolest phones.