Alltel MEID help! Outrageous bills!

[eye_rule]

I live in an area where Alltel and Verizon did not Merge. We still have Alltel here.

I purchased a Droid Razr Maxx with a bad ESN and hooked it up on my Alltel line. It took a couple of tried to get a rep to hook up the "99..." IMEI (had to leave off last digit) and all has been well.

Until the bill came in. For some reason, I kept having DATA CL,X calls going to a 000-000-0000 number showing up in my bill detail as calls. Some of them lasting for hours, and occurring 24/7, round the clock. So I called Alltel to complain.

The first lady I talked to acted like she'd seen it before, and it wasn't a big deal. She opened a case. I called back a few days later, and she claims that the case came back that the charges were valid. So I spoke to a supervisor. Now she is telling me that because I have a "99..." ESN instead of an "A0000..." ESN, my phone is listed as a "feature" phone and not a smartphone, so I'm being charged for the minutes.

They want me to go to an Alltel store and show them my phone, etc, and I'm trying to avoid that. I'd go crazy having to charge my phone like the rest of the poor SOB's who don't have this phone. I just want my bill fixed.

I know nobody frequents the Alltel forums anymore, but does anyone have any advice on how to either A) convince them that this is an Alltel phone, or B) that there's a perfectly good reason why I would have an Alltel phone that has a 99 IMEI?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[brad15]

why not just add unlimited feature phone data since that should be cheaper, right?

nvm, it seems as they even dumped unlimited data.. sucks as alltel used to be amazing

[fraydog]

Eye rule, which divested area do you live in?

I know for a fact here in Southern Illinois Verizon has amazing coverage and LTE over almost the entire region. I'd just get a new MAXX HD when it hits the street and see if you can't sell the Bad ESN MAXX so it can find a home on Cricket, Metro, or another carrier that looks the other way on ESN's.

Alltel shouldn't look the other way anyway as the bad ESN phones have a way of jacking up networks, and they need to have really good network service to compete with Verizon at all. At this point, I wish someone like US Cellular or AT&T would buy the remaining six properties and ATNI would just go back to misrunning Commnet.

[roadrunner9368]

Try contacting "Alltel Ashley" on facebook. She seems to be pretty good at getting things done for customers. If that doesn't work then figure you tried you're luck and lost.

Verizon LTE in S. IL still needs a little work to cover the whole region. My thinking is more like Alltel's remaining properties being bought by cspire. They seem to more fairly price their services and they're moving forward more quickly. ATT couldn't buy S. IL because when Alltel acquired the area First Cellular owned CDMA and GSM networks, the same still holds true.