Cellular phone dealers and customers around the country have found themselves burned by the quick take-off and crash of a self-proclaimed mobile virtual network operator called RockitTalk.
According to RockitTalk dealers and a recent version of the company’s Web site, the Dallas-based service launched in July, offering unlimited calling plans for as low as $50, $60 and $70 a month with no credit check or contract, with only a $125 deposit plus the price of a phone. The service first used TDMA technology and refurbished Nokia phones, then upgraded to using Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s GSM network, allowing dealers to sell handsets such as the Razr for RockitTalk activation.
Then, on Dec. 9, the company abruptly announced that it was going out of business and shutting off all customers’ phones. Deposits and payments would not be refunded and dealers would be contacted with an amount that RockitTalk felt they were owed.
“RockitTalk discovered our average customer usage was greater than what we could generate in cash flow from the service,” the company announced on its Web site. “With no way to control usage and/or minutes … the only way to stop the outrages [sic] charges from occurring was to turn off all lines of service.”
The statement apologized to customers and dealers for any inconvenience, and added, “Trust that we fully understand, all of our personal RockitTalk phones have also been disconnected.”
Almost immediately, dealers started getting complaints from angry subscribers whose phones had been deactivated. Hundreds of dealers in Dallas, Chicago and other metro areas had offered RockitTalk, if only for a few months, and had signed up several thousand subscribers.
But days after announcing that it had gone out of business and that customers and dealers were out of luck, RockitTalk’s Web page popped back up again Dec. 15. This time, the service claimed to offer unlimited calling for $100 a month on Verizon Wireless’ network, but gave virtually no other information except a page where dealers could activate CDMA phones.
Comparatively, the unlimited voice and data plan just launched by Amp’d Mobile Inc. on Verizon Wireless’ network costs $200 per month. Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said the carrier as a rule does not disclose relationships with wholesale customers so couldn’t comment on the matter.
Attempts to contact the owner and operator of RockitTalk and its parent company, Starr Wireless L.L.C., were unsuccessful. All contact numbers provided were out of service, incorrect or announced that RockitTalk was no longer in business. On Friday, a service number said only that RockitTalk CDMA service was available, but made no mention of a carrier and then disconnected callers.
Meanwhile, Cingular spokesman Clay Owen said RockitTalk was not a direct reseller on its network, and a phone call to Consumer Cellular of Oregon, which dealers said was selling Cingular minutes to the company, was not returned.
But RockitTalk dealers are willing to talk.
“We’ve had huge problems,” said Yosef Shimels, owner of Wireless Communications, a cellular retailer in the Washington, D.C., metro area that was a master dealer for RockitTalk. “I really think this whole thing is a scam.”
That’s what both John Burns and Mark Rollag have ruefully concluded-and they now hope that they might get back some of the money that they put into what now seems to have been a product too good to be true.
Burns sells cellular accessories and was RockitTalk’s master dealer for Illinois and Indiana; Rollag operates a call center in Omaha, Neb., and had three employees answering phones for RockitTalk. He also was a master dealer.
Rollag said when he first heard of RockitTalk, he tried to research the company. He found little besides the company’s claim it had been in business for 10 years, and nothing negative. But from the start, it took days for RockitTalk to fix customer problems that other carriers would handle in hours, Rollag charged. In recent weeks, he began having trouble getting in contact with Chad Hawkins, who he believes runs both RockitTalk and its parent company, Starr Wireless (which calls itself an “MVNO solution” and claims it can help customers “start your own nationwide service provider within 72 hours.”)
Both Rollag and Burns went to Dallas in the week before the implosion to meet with Hawkins, to find out what was going on, and in Rollag’s case, with the thought of buying out RockitTalk. What the men found, they said, was a young man who they thought had little knowledge of the business that he was supposed to be running.
“If there was criminal intent or if he just didn’t know what he was doing, I have no idea which one was the case,” Rollag said. “It was not very well managed and was very, very questionable, especially toward the end.”
Rollag charged that in the days leading up to the shut-off, RockitTalk tried to request unauthorized electronic transfers from the bank account Rollag used for transactions with the company. He said his bank called him before sending the money and he was able to quash the attempts.
“I’m in the call center business-I have crooks call me every day,” said Rollag, who estimates that RockitTalk owes him $18,000. “I’ve worked with the FBI and the attorney general to stop scams before they start, and I got taken by a 23-year-old who had no idea what he was doing.”
“I don’t know how he pulled it off,” said Burns, who estimated his losses in time, effort, advertising and inventory at between $70,000 and $80,000. He said roughly 2,400 customers in his area had been affected, and that one of his dealers had been assaulted by an irate RockitTalk customer. “Most of my people just want the deposit money back, so they don’t have troubles at their store,” Burns said.
Brenda Gomez, who owns a small chain of wireless stores in the Chicago area called Talk is Cheap, called the situation a nightmare. One of her customers reported the situation to police.
Yosef Shimels hopes that dealers and customers alike will beware of whatever RockitTalk’s next move is.
“It just seemed like there was something wrong, but the product was so good it kind of blurred our vision,” Shimels said. “It was great, at least until last week.”
