"Catastrophic" outage for Payless Cellular customers

The last thing you need if you're a small business or consumer is for your cellphone carrier to experience what it calls a "catastrophic network failure." But when customers of Payless Cellular, a Southern California company, tried to make calls last week, they couldn't. They were told that their service had been disconnected. When they visited the company's website, they learned that at 10 a.m. last Tuesday, Payless had "experienced a catastrophic network failure which caused an interruption of cellular service."

No problem, you say. Phone networks go down from time to time, and then they go back up again an hour or two later. But Payless Cellular was down until Saturday, according to Steve Hodjati, a manager at Cellular Fantasy, a Santa Monica store that sells plans on the Payless network. Hodjati said he didn't know why the network went down or how to contact Payless Cellular.

"It was a glitch," he said Friday evening at his store, which was open past its normal business hours, as associates sat on desks looking tired and an older couple tried to get their phone restored. The couple didn't want to comment about Payless Cellular or Cellular Fantasy because they said they were otherwise happy with their experience.

But many customers didn't have patience for the four-day glitch. A manager at the Verizon Wireless store across the street said that "dozens" of Payless customers had come in to switch their phones to ...

... the Verizon network or to ask for help. Payless is a "reseller" of Verizon's network, according to Hodjati.

"I've lost calls, I've missed deadlines," said Mark Ryavec, a consultant who switched from Payless to Verizon on Saturday. "This is bad for my reputation."

Ryavec said he had been reasonably happy with Payless and paid only $39 a month for his service. But lately, he'd been getting frustrated with the company. His last bill was $250, but when he tried to figure out why it was so expensive, he discovered that Payless had stopped sending him records of his calls. They told him he had to look the information up online.

He was even more frustrated with Payless on Wednesday after a representative blamed Verizon for the outage. When he tried to call back later in the week, he couldn't get through to a person.

"If they'd just shown a level of professionalism, it would have been less frustrating," he said.

It's a bit of a mystery who runs Payless Cellular. Its website says it has been active in Southern California for more than 20 years, and that the outage affected "many thousands" of customers. But the voicemail of one of the contacts on its website says he works for Cellular Fantasy, the Santa Monica store, not Payless Cellular. Someone answering the phone at the Cellular Fantasy store this morning said she had no information about the relationship between the two and hung up when she was asked more questions. The California Secretary of State's Business Search website has no record of a company called Payless Cellular.

Calling any of the numbers listed on the Payless website didn't solve the mystery: Callers were sent to a message saying Payless was aware of the service disruption, but it left no options for customers to speak to a representative. The message was still live this morning.

-- Alana Semuels

Photo: Cellular Fantasy store in Santa Monica. Credit: Malingering via Flickr

Comments

[Rick Renfrow]

We've been faithful Payless Cellular Fantasy customers for over ten years. But last Tuesday, they disconnected all 3 of our phones without notice, reason or warning. We verified with our bank that our recent payments had all been processed on-time and in-full (they were paid). We cannot make outgoing calls, pick up voicemail nor receive incoming calls. The worst part is how callers (customers, tenants and patients) are told that our phone numbers have "been changed, disconnected or [are] no longer in service" implying that we have either stopped doing business or failed to pay our bills. Aside from the obvious civil damages to our businesses, we are now in the uncomfortable position of being unable to respond to emergency situations, for which we can probably be held criminally responsible.

Verizon Wireless is supposed to be taking back the affected accounts, but we've been without service (or basic answers) for several days. It appears that Payless Cellular Fantasy is not releasing any of the affected accounts for transfer to other carriers.

:Rick.

[Brad Willowson]

This outage has been bad for my business as well,and the company didn't help matters by being so unresponsive. I am switching carriers tomorrow after finally receiving a response today from Payless saying that I would not be liable for any contract cancellation fees.

Of course, I had to file a complaint with the state PUC, and with the Santa Monica BBB. Too little, too late.

[Jeffrey Angus]

Same here Rick, except I've been with them since 1995. I called Verizon direct and just went and signed up as a new customer. Not that went as smoothly as I would have liked, but I suspect the Los Angeles branch of Verizon is swamped right now. You would think that a company with "many thousands" of customers would have some kind of disaster recovery plan in place. Apparently not. And yes, I've gotten email from my customers, "Are you still in business? Your phone's been disconnected."

I have no idea why American cell phone service is so bad - and that goes across the board. I travel to Europe at least six times per year on business, and cell phone service in every European country is absolutely superior to what we have to go through in the US. There are no dropped calls anywhere in Europe. Mountains? No problem. Cell phones work without a glitch in places like Switzerland, Austria or Southern Germany, where there are many mountains 12,000 feet high. Vast open spaces in Spain or France? Zero problems. Remote areas in the Swedish or Finnish woods? Service is always at full bars. Here in the US, cell phone service doesn't work in major Metropolitan areas (ever tried to call someone from, say, the remote and isolated far away land of Palos Verdes?), let alone in rural areas.
Might it be that the cell phone companies try to jack up their profit margins to show off on Wall Street at the expense of the consumer, like every other big American Company? Nooooooooooo, how could I come up with such a diabolic thought....

[Kelley Mitchell]

I find it strange that the manager from Cellular Fantasy, Steve Hodjati, doesn't know how to contact Payless Cellular when he shares the same unique last name as the CEO from Payless Cellular who is Sia Hodjati.