Note that I’ve added a new feature in the second bar – the “Adversaries and Allies” box. Here, each time I deal with a corporate monster, I will outline my experience. Also, when I find that rare special corporate somebody who is helpful and positive, I will give them their propers. And, as much as I’d like to devote the first first space to United Airlines, T-Mobile wins the inaugural spot!
T-Mobile did a lot to rope me in with a deal the gave us a phone that would allow calls from Europe. We got the free phone, their costs were comparable, and the phone was a three-band phone. Later we added a phone, and everything was going swimminingly. Then we had two problems. The first problem came when I was using their website to follow our billing. See, their website tells you how many minutes your phone is using. This is a helpful tool because T-Mobile allows you to switch your rate-plan any month you wish in order to accommodate a higher or lower call volume prior to the end of the billing period. So, you have a 750 minute package and find you will be making 1000 minutes of calls? You can call ahead and change the plan before you are billed. This isn’t helpful, however, if you have two phones. If you go to the website to check your minutes, it will only tell you the minutes used by YOUR phone, not the others on the plan. As such, I had no reason to be alarmed by the minutes shown on their website. Then, I was socked with a $230.00 bill that incorporated my wife’s minutes into the bill. Well, ultimately I called their headquarters in the Netherlands and corporate allowed me to have my minutes billed at a different rate. That was fair, but I had to spend a lot of time on the phone to do it. Until corporate resolved it, their customer service was unempathetic and indifferent.
More recently, upon our move to Long Island, we found that T-Mobile’s cell coverage just plain sucked. At times I had to walk into the street in front of my house to make phone calls. So, we opted for a Verizon land-line. I called T-Mobile to cancel and they explained to me that my contract had been extended for an additional year. I asked how, and the woman explained that when I changed my rate plan they automatically, and with out informing me, extended my contract for a year. I explained that they couldn’t do that, that my contract enabled me to change my rate plan provided I didn’t accept a promotional rate plan. Now, this is funny because I adjusted my rateplan over the summer and caught their agent changing my plan to a promotion rateplan. I put a supervisor on the phone and explained that the person tried to quietly extend my contract by changing my rateplan to a promotion rateplan without offering standard rate. He assured me that the person would be talked with and changed my plan to a standard plan. However, when I called in July to find out when my plan would end, I was told that my contract had been extended an additional year. I happened to know that doing this to my contract actually voided the contract, and I told a supervisor this. She agreed that it did, so I asked that my service be ended mid-July. Instead, they kept it active for me an additional two weeks, until the end of July, at a very high rateplan. So, now, I’m debating paying this extra $30.00 they’ve charged me.
T-Mobile, Spring, and ESPECIALLY AT&T are corporate monsters from from a ring of hell only shared with dead members of Dick Cheney’s family.
2 responses so far ↓
Email Support // October 11, 2008 at 8:45 am |
T-Mobile has outsourced their email customer care to a company named NCO. NCO’s center in Nanaimo, British
Columbia, Canada has been where ALL your emails have been coming from for a long time.
Now they have sent all the emails to the PHILIPPINES! Get ready for your email and webchat customer care to be
coming from Filipino people! HAHA. I thought T-Mobile would never go offshore? They do through NCO. You thought
your customer care was bad before?!
Dianna // October 15, 2008 at 10:20 pm |
I understand where you are coming from by keeping tabs on minutes used via the website. I also had an experience about minutes and billing when I realized it was only showing the primary line. When I called customer service, I actually got a rep that knew what they were talking about, she walked me through the process of being able to access BOTH lines at the same time along with the billing and minute information.
I currently have Verizon, whom I love and have never ever ever ever had any issues with. The limited issues I have had were resolved with short phone calls and things set the way I wanted them to be set. My boyfriend and his daughter however, have shiT-Mobile. ( I apologize for the language but that’s what they are!) I have recently had to deal with THEM many many many times over the last two months for billing issues, phone issues and various other issues. I’ve spoken with 17 different reps within this time… and yes, I write their names down every time I get someone new.
They have also extended our contract when my stepdaughter outright purchased a new phone… not an upgrade, just a purchase. We received the notice in the mail ONE day after the 15 day acceptance period was over and they would not do anything. We are currently dealing with “overages” from what they say we downloaded on one of the lines but, believe it or not, doesn’t work in the area we are in and the other line doesn’t have T-Zones access in order to download anything! When I asked the rep where I could find the applications that were downloaded…. the response was….I don’t know where to find it on the phone…….WONDERFUL!
I’m in the process of searching the web to find a legitimate way of getting out of the remainder of this contract…. any ideas will be helpful!