I recently switched from Sprint to T-Mobile and I am regretting it more and more with each passing hour.
I ordered 2 Android phones with a family voice, text, and data plan. I gave them the two numbers to port from Sprint. And I waited. The phones shipped a day later than I hoped, but that was not a big issue.
On the morning of the delivery day, problem 1 occurred. They ported my number off my Sprint account and to my new phone before it was delivered. For the next 6 hours, I had no cell service. It's been my experience in the past that you order the phones, you get them, you call to activate them, and the number is ported then. This was new... and annoying.
When the phones arrived, there was no indication which had which number. In fact, the Android phone identity screen in the settings said the phone number was unknown on both phones. I called T-Mobile and they told me to call #6# to find my number. This is where we encountered problem 2: they had ported my number, but had not ported my wife's. They put my wife's number through the porting system and got it from Sprint, but then there was an issue with the SIM card being "reserved" and they couldn't issue my wife's number to her phone. They said they could request the reservation be removed, but that would take 24 hours and might not work.
What were my other options, I asked. They asked if I had a spare SIM card. Yeah, I'm coming from Sprint which doesn't use SIMs, so how would I have a spare SIM lying around? I asked what I was supposed to tell my wife when her phone was basically out of commission for two or more days. They suggested I call Sprint and ask them to port her number back until they'd run the fix through their system. "Um, hi Sprint. I know I just tried to leave you, but could I come back for a day or two while T-Mobile gets their asses in gear?" Seriously?
I asked if I could go to a T-Mobile store and get a new SIM from them. Yes. So off I went to the closest store. First thing that happened was I pissed off the manager... not intentionally. See, web orders started 8 days before the stores were supposed to get the phone, but T-Mobile had told the manager they wouldn't be shipping until close to the store release date. Instead, I had mine 6 days before store release. But he assigned me a service guy who took the phone, put in a new SIM, called T-Mobile and got my wife's number put on the phone.
If only it had ended there...
Problem 3 occurred when we discovered that somehow in all that craziness from problem 2, my wife's data plan got stripped off her phone. We never really noticed because she mostly used the data features at home when the phone was getting its data from our WiFi, not T-Mobile. But when she was out with the kids on Sunday and trying to Google something, she was told she did not have a data plan and would need to upgrade to one.
I called T-Mobile that night, after we got back from "Captain America", and they told me that was correct. She had no data plan. I'd have to add one for $20 a month. I said I'd signed up for a family plan with voice, messaging, and data for both phones... just give me the plan I signed up for. No, they said, we had to upgrade her data plan. I gave in, figuring if the numbers didn't add up, I'd haggle it out with billing. They said it would take 2 hours for the data plan to kick in.
At this point, the stress of them switching my plan without my authorization and the rest of this bull gave me a massive stress headache. So when the 2 hours was up, a bit after midnight, I was still awake, because I had this terrible headache that wouldn't respond to ibuprofen and wouldn't let me sleep, and I could determine that it wasn't fixed. Luckily I was still awake from the headache at 3 a.m. when their east coast customer service opened for the day. I was too worn out to be upset, and yelling would have made my headache worse. I got on with a rep who tested various things, escalated it when they didn't work, and basically got it fixed. Somewhere around 5 a.m. I got to sleep, but I had to call in sick to work, and since I'm a contractor, I have no paid sick days.
Today, I checked my account to see how they'd screwed up my service and encountered problem 4. According to their web site, whatever messed-up stuff they'd done had raised my monthly charge by $40. So I got on chat with customer support. They said the web site was wrong and I was on the plan I signed up for at the rate I signed up for. So why was the web site wrong? Maybe I'd briefly been shuffled onto something more expensive, but it was corrected, and the web site can take 72 hours to update.
They also mentioned I had two activation fees pending. I said they should pay me activation fees for all the trouble I'd had to go through cleaning up their mistakes. They said they couldn't do anything.
I pressed. This had taken so much time, been such a series of screw-ups on their part, why shouldn't I just return the phones, demand my money back and be done with them? They hemmed and hawed, then said since they messed up the activation on my wife's phone, they'd give me a $35 credit for the activation fee, but that I was only allowed one "goodwill credit" on my account, and if I accepted it, I would not be able to ask them to compensate me for anything for the rest of my contract term. I tell him that it's not enough and their massive series of screw-ups demanded a greater level of consideration.
Then the guy addressed me as Richard (my name's Greg) and I asked him if he was trying, in a veiled way, to call me a dick. I demand to talk to his supervisor. He said his supervisor had reviewed the account and approved the $35. I reiterated it wasn't enough. He said that's all they would offer. I said it wasn't enough. He asked if there was anything more they could help me with, and I said "I think you've done more than enough to alienate me, Richard."
The problem is I love this phone. There is no phone currently on the market that presses my buttons like this one does. But I've got a 14 day return window that I'm only 5 days into.
T-Mobile insists on not only screwing up this badly, then low-balling me on the "goodwill credit" AND telling me that if I take it, they're free to screw up as much and as badly as they want and I can't ask for anything again.
I'd have to switch to a phone I wasn't as wild about on a more expensive carrier, but I am so gobsmacked by T-Mobile's unparalleled combination of incompetence and arrogance, it's really hard to justify staying. I mean when I had a problem with my DVR on Verizon FiOS, they comped me a whole month of my cable bill to say "sorry". They showed they meant it and I stayed.
T-Mobile says "sorry" too, but an offer of $35 to cover what they put me through PLUS a stipulation I can't ask for another credit if they screw up again? They're not sorry, and they're either telling me that I'm a grinder who they think will try to get a credit at every turn or they're so sure they'll screw up again that they want to make sure they cover their butts.
Either way, I've got 9 days to decide if I'm returning these phones. Unless T-Mobile has a serious attitude adjustment, I can't see why I'd reward this kind of mistreatment by keeping them.
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