We hate phone companies

Company: T-Mobile

Date: January 23, 2015

Nature of encounter: Upgrade Handset

Level of satisfaction: Dissatisfied.

I went into T-Mobile a few months after the iPhone 6 was released. I wanted to upgrade my iPhone 5s to the 6. The T-Mobile representative said that this would be no problem. I was told that they had just a few of the phones that I wanted in stock and I was lucky because they weren’t going to get anymore for a few more days. I was happy because I had already been to a few other stores and they said that they were out of stock. They brought the phone from the back and told me that I could set it up on my computer when I got home. They said that if I took the SIM that came with the phone out and just put in the SIM that I had in my existing phone that it would be fine and work. I was elated because I had shattered the screen on the phone I had about a week earlier and little by little the screen was becoming black and I couldn’t see any of my messages. I couldn’t wait to get home and transfer all my information from one phone to the other. I got home, transferred everything and it worked perfectly.

In store I didn’t pay anything and the representative said that I could pay on a monthly plan for the device. About two weeks later I got my first bill, I could see no charge on it for the phone and I thought this was weird.  I figured that maybe it took a while to sync with my bill and it may be on the following months bill. The next month there was still no change to my bill.

A few days later I decided I would call the T-Mobile customer care center just to make sure everything was in order. I was passed around to about three people and had to explain my situation every time I spoke to someone new. They couldn’t find anything that said I visited the store and had purchased this new phone. I ended up speaking with a supervisor. She asked me if I had the SIM card that I had taken out of the new phone and asked me to give her the number on the back. She found the account that they had made with that number. It turns out they had set up a completely new plan with no link to my existing plan that I already had with them. This new plan had accumulated about $250 worth of unpaid charges. The representative on the phone couldn’t justify why the representative in store had done this and said they should have combined the two accounts.  To fix this issue they would have to send me a new SIM in the mail and I would have to call in to activate the new SIM. I was extremely upset at this point but there was no other option.

The following morning I woke up to absolutely no service on my phone. I had to use my roommate’s phone to contact a customer care representative to see why my service had already been cut.  I had to explain the whole situation to them again. They seemed as if they had no idea what I was talking about initially. After a few minutes they said all I could do was wait for the SIM card to arrive in the mail.

The next afternoon I received the SIM in the mail. I immediately used my roommates phone to call them and activate the SIM. I expressed how upset I was with the service that I received. The representative apologized for the inconvenience. She said that she would reverse the charges that had accumulated and she would credit my account so that I wouldn’t have to pay my bill for the next three months.

All in all I was dissatisfied with the outcome because this is a problem that should not have occurred. What I asked the representative in the store was nothing rare for them. Any representative should have been able to complete this task seamlessly. Out of all the representatives I talked to in the store and on the phone, which was about 6 only 2 of them were able to provide a solution. The one who figured out where this mysterious account was and sent me a new SIM and the representative that gave me the credit. Everyone else I spoke to didn’t know how to help and seemingly didn’t want to, they just passed me onto the next person. Secondly, I had to explain my situation to every single person I talked to! Seemingly if you are transferring me to another representative wouldn’t you brief them on the customers problem?

The company should have been more understanding from the beginning. They also should train the staff! Implement a checklist when doing procedures such as this one to make sure it was done correctly. Though I got some money back the situation it was very stressful and took about a week to be completely resolved. Everyone that I spoke to sounded like a robot when I was expressing how upset I was. They clearly were reading from a script. Surely they track phone conversations that they’ve had with customers.