tlarkin
07-10-2006, 03:35 PM
So, I have had this problem with T-mobile which totally shocked me. I have been with them for almost 5 years now and never had a problem. They have always upgraded my phone if I had an ancient cheap one for free, and they have always swapped my phones out of warranty no problem.
Until about Feburary of this year, I started having problems with my phone (motorola v300 series - newest rev) which I purchased as a brand new phone in like September of 05. So it is still under warranty. My first problem was dropped signal. I first noticed it while driving on the highway. I would frequently drop signal completely and then re-establish it a few moments later. After talking with my co-worker (who used to work for t-mobile), he says that it is more than likely a problem with the phone not being able to switch towers fast enough and that is why it drops and reestablishes signal so often when driving on the highway. Okay, well that is fine I thought I really don't need to be jabbering on my phone on the highway, but what if I got into an accident or something similiar and needed to use my phone and was in that dead spot between towers?
So, I called t-mobile and they said there was nothing they could do and that I should just reboot my phone everytime I have a problem with it. So thats what I did and like 5 weeks goes by and the problem starts to get worse.
I now drop signal inside buildings and more frequently where it used to work just fine. I have an old nokia phone from 1999 that I keep as a back up and it works fantastic. it was a free phone i got when i frist signed up with tmobile. So, why does my old free phone work a lot better than my new 200 dollar phone?
I call t-mobile again and this time they have an 'engineer' test out my towers. I give them the zip code I live in and the zip code I work in and they do a tower check and are suppose to call me back with in 72 hours. 1 week goes by no call back, no voicemail, no email from them at all. I did however get a text msg that my bill was three days overdue:mad:
So, I call them back again and this time they get me to their help desk. I run through some basic troubleshooting and nothing gets better. The phone at this point locks up while in use, and now also does not hang up calls when I hang up. Instead the calls stays connected for about 30 seconds after i hang up. They run me through some more steps and say thats all they can do and still will not exchange the phone.
Finally its june and the problem has gotten worse and worse over the last few months and is to the point where the phone is now useless. So i call t-mobile for like the 6th time and have to explain my story all over again. I just ask for a supervisor at this point and they end up sending me to some help desk specialist who is going to fix my phone over the phone (i was on a land line). so he finds out i have IT background and asks if I am cofortable taking apart the phone. i said yes, I have no problem with that. So we take it apart and he asks me about this white sticker under my battery. I look around for it and notice a white sticker that has a slight shade of pink in the middle of it (about 1/8 of the sticker is slighly pink) and ask him if its the one with the pink center. he tells me its a liquid sticker and that I have had liquid damage to my phone and have voided all warranty. so i look up this whole red sticker business on the internet and find, well a ton of people who have had the same problem.
so now i am pretty ticked off and i call back and talk to a supervisor directly. i told them that there was no way it had liquid damage that it was barely pink due to some sort of moisture. After all i live in Kansas city where it can get pretty dang humid in the summer. the supervisor admitted to me over the phone that it was probably some sort of moisture due to sweat through my pocket or I had it in the bathroom while showering or from the humidity outside. they even admitted to me over the phone that those things can cause it. i have never had a liquid spill on any of my electronics, let alone my cell phone. they told me to go in to a tmobile store and have one of their csrs or specialists or whomever look at it. then they could call back and demtermine there was no liquid damage and they could exchange the phone.
finally I thought after tons of my time wasted they were finally going to help me out. so i went to the tmobile store at the great mall which is near my office kind of and talk with one of their reps. he tells me that he can't do anything and has no idea why a tmobile manager sent me in to the store to get help. i explain it to him so he looks at my phone and notices the slight pink spot in the middle of the sticker (i mean it is totally white around the edges). he says its liquid damage. i told him it was due to moisture and that i already established this with a tmobile help desk (or tech support or whatever they are) person. then i explained that when you have liquid damage on electronics there is always some sort of calcium lime or rust deposits somewhere on it, or something similiar to show that there is liquid damage. i told him to take the phone apart and verify that none of that evidence is there. he responded that any of that can be brushed off with a tooth brush in a matter of seconds. i grabbed my pos phone and left. Mind you i have never raised my voice to anyone at this point, and I have remained calm and expressed my opinions on this matter in a very calm way. I used to work customer service waaaay back in the day and I hated every hot headed customer. every nice customer i ever had i went out of my way to help since they were cool. I know that keeping your cool goes a way longer way than yelling and screaming and crying, unless you are complaining to someone high up or whatever then it can work to your advantage.
so i call t-mobile again and explain this again and explain how i am not happy because they sent me to a tmobile store and the guy at the store was not helpful, had an attitude with me, and basically told me it was pointless for me to have even stepped in there. tmobile says i can mail them in my phone and they will service it, and give me a loaner, but if they find any evidence of abuse in any way i will be charged 80 dollars for a refurbished phone. I immediately ask if i have the choice of getting a refurbished phone and she said no. she said that if they find abuse they will mail me a refurb and it will be tagged on to my bill. so i was like, so i get no say in this? Nope, she replied thats how it goes. Can I talk to a tech first? Nope! Can i at least pay the difference and upgrade my phone? Nope, you can't upgrade your phone until the middle of august, unless you want to pay full price.
so my 5+ years with them is ending in august. they wouldn't even give me a free working phone. I asked for the lowest, least featured, cheapest phone and they said no. Then I asked to pay them money for an upgrade and they said I can't until august, which, well was like 5 weeks away when i was on the phone with the manager at tmobile. so then the manager on the phone says one last time go to another tmobile store and tell them to look to see if there is liquid damage, if they can confirm it we will swap out your phone.
so i went to the tmobile store on johnson drive and was talking with this younger dude, he seemed cool at first. he looked at my phone and showed me some upgrade options but then realized i couldn't get an upgrade. then i asked him why would they not do that with a customer that has over 5 years loyalty with tmobile? he said that they wouldn't even do it for him, and he is an employee. Then I asked him why they won't exchange it under warranty and showed him there was no liquid damage on the phone (at this point i was taking it apart). His response is pretty much what made me give up on tmobile 100%.
he said:
"Well, I can see if that was like a cheeseburger from like mcdonalds and it was defective or made wrong you could probably go back to mcdonalds and get a new one for free, but this is a cell phone and not mcdonalds"
well for one, I have worked sales in the past and he totallly ****** up that analogy, two, how in the world can you acutally compare a 200 dollar cell phone to a 99 cent cheeseburger? I don't understand. My cell phone came with a 1 year warranty (which expires in september) and my cheeseburger cost me a buck, and if I didn't like it, I would probably just throw it away. Really what that sales guy told me is - go to my competitor.
I get no signal at all on my block and in my apartment I get singal only outside on the third floor, and I live on the first floor. so my tmobile phone is currently forwarded to my nextel blackberry and come mid august I am canceling my tmobile account and going with cingular. I have already been to a cingular store and talked over with their sales rep and read through their whole agreement. Plus I have several friends on cingular whose phones have been exchanged under warranty no questions asked. I remember a time with tmobile was like this and they replaced my defective phones under warranty, and they gave me free upgrade options after my second year for being such a loyal customer. Where did that all go, and how in the hell is tmobile ranked #1 in customer service? That has to be a bold faced lie, at least not after the experience I had with them.
Just thought I would share, I am so fed up with them that I think everyone should switch to their competitor.
Until about Feburary of this year, I started having problems with my phone (motorola v300 series - newest rev) which I purchased as a brand new phone in like September of 05. So it is still under warranty. My first problem was dropped signal. I first noticed it while driving on the highway. I would frequently drop signal completely and then re-establish it a few moments later. After talking with my co-worker (who used to work for t-mobile), he says that it is more than likely a problem with the phone not being able to switch towers fast enough and that is why it drops and reestablishes signal so often when driving on the highway. Okay, well that is fine I thought I really don't need to be jabbering on my phone on the highway, but what if I got into an accident or something similiar and needed to use my phone and was in that dead spot between towers?
So, I called t-mobile and they said there was nothing they could do and that I should just reboot my phone everytime I have a problem with it. So thats what I did and like 5 weeks goes by and the problem starts to get worse.
I now drop signal inside buildings and more frequently where it used to work just fine. I have an old nokia phone from 1999 that I keep as a back up and it works fantastic. it was a free phone i got when i frist signed up with tmobile. So, why does my old free phone work a lot better than my new 200 dollar phone?
I call t-mobile again and this time they have an 'engineer' test out my towers. I give them the zip code I live in and the zip code I work in and they do a tower check and are suppose to call me back with in 72 hours. 1 week goes by no call back, no voicemail, no email from them at all. I did however get a text msg that my bill was three days overdue:mad:
So, I call them back again and this time they get me to their help desk. I run through some basic troubleshooting and nothing gets better. The phone at this point locks up while in use, and now also does not hang up calls when I hang up. Instead the calls stays connected for about 30 seconds after i hang up. They run me through some more steps and say thats all they can do and still will not exchange the phone.
Finally its june and the problem has gotten worse and worse over the last few months and is to the point where the phone is now useless. So i call t-mobile for like the 6th time and have to explain my story all over again. I just ask for a supervisor at this point and they end up sending me to some help desk specialist who is going to fix my phone over the phone (i was on a land line). so he finds out i have IT background and asks if I am cofortable taking apart the phone. i said yes, I have no problem with that. So we take it apart and he asks me about this white sticker under my battery. I look around for it and notice a white sticker that has a slight shade of pink in the middle of it (about 1/8 of the sticker is slighly pink) and ask him if its the one with the pink center. he tells me its a liquid sticker and that I have had liquid damage to my phone and have voided all warranty. so i look up this whole red sticker business on the internet and find, well a ton of people who have had the same problem.
so now i am pretty ticked off and i call back and talk to a supervisor directly. i told them that there was no way it had liquid damage that it was barely pink due to some sort of moisture. After all i live in Kansas city where it can get pretty dang humid in the summer. the supervisor admitted to me over the phone that it was probably some sort of moisture due to sweat through my pocket or I had it in the bathroom while showering or from the humidity outside. they even admitted to me over the phone that those things can cause it. i have never had a liquid spill on any of my electronics, let alone my cell phone. they told me to go in to a tmobile store and have one of their csrs or specialists or whomever look at it. then they could call back and demtermine there was no liquid damage and they could exchange the phone.
finally I thought after tons of my time wasted they were finally going to help me out. so i went to the tmobile store at the great mall which is near my office kind of and talk with one of their reps. he tells me that he can't do anything and has no idea why a tmobile manager sent me in to the store to get help. i explain it to him so he looks at my phone and notices the slight pink spot in the middle of the sticker (i mean it is totally white around the edges). he says its liquid damage. i told him it was due to moisture and that i already established this with a tmobile help desk (or tech support or whatever they are) person. then i explained that when you have liquid damage on electronics there is always some sort of calcium lime or rust deposits somewhere on it, or something similiar to show that there is liquid damage. i told him to take the phone apart and verify that none of that evidence is there. he responded that any of that can be brushed off with a tooth brush in a matter of seconds. i grabbed my pos phone and left. Mind you i have never raised my voice to anyone at this point, and I have remained calm and expressed my opinions on this matter in a very calm way. I used to work customer service waaaay back in the day and I hated every hot headed customer. every nice customer i ever had i went out of my way to help since they were cool. I know that keeping your cool goes a way longer way than yelling and screaming and crying, unless you are complaining to someone high up or whatever then it can work to your advantage.
so i call t-mobile again and explain this again and explain how i am not happy because they sent me to a tmobile store and the guy at the store was not helpful, had an attitude with me, and basically told me it was pointless for me to have even stepped in there. tmobile says i can mail them in my phone and they will service it, and give me a loaner, but if they find any evidence of abuse in any way i will be charged 80 dollars for a refurbished phone. I immediately ask if i have the choice of getting a refurbished phone and she said no. she said that if they find abuse they will mail me a refurb and it will be tagged on to my bill. so i was like, so i get no say in this? Nope, she replied thats how it goes. Can I talk to a tech first? Nope! Can i at least pay the difference and upgrade my phone? Nope, you can't upgrade your phone until the middle of august, unless you want to pay full price.
so my 5+ years with them is ending in august. they wouldn't even give me a free working phone. I asked for the lowest, least featured, cheapest phone and they said no. Then I asked to pay them money for an upgrade and they said I can't until august, which, well was like 5 weeks away when i was on the phone with the manager at tmobile. so then the manager on the phone says one last time go to another tmobile store and tell them to look to see if there is liquid damage, if they can confirm it we will swap out your phone.
so i went to the tmobile store on johnson drive and was talking with this younger dude, he seemed cool at first. he looked at my phone and showed me some upgrade options but then realized i couldn't get an upgrade. then i asked him why would they not do that with a customer that has over 5 years loyalty with tmobile? he said that they wouldn't even do it for him, and he is an employee. Then I asked him why they won't exchange it under warranty and showed him there was no liquid damage on the phone (at this point i was taking it apart). His response is pretty much what made me give up on tmobile 100%.
he said:
"Well, I can see if that was like a cheeseburger from like mcdonalds and it was defective or made wrong you could probably go back to mcdonalds and get a new one for free, but this is a cell phone and not mcdonalds"
well for one, I have worked sales in the past and he totallly ****** up that analogy, two, how in the world can you acutally compare a 200 dollar cell phone to a 99 cent cheeseburger? I don't understand. My cell phone came with a 1 year warranty (which expires in september) and my cheeseburger cost me a buck, and if I didn't like it, I would probably just throw it away. Really what that sales guy told me is - go to my competitor.
I get no signal at all on my block and in my apartment I get singal only outside on the third floor, and I live on the first floor. so my tmobile phone is currently forwarded to my nextel blackberry and come mid august I am canceling my tmobile account and going with cingular. I have already been to a cingular store and talked over with their sales rep and read through their whole agreement. Plus I have several friends on cingular whose phones have been exchanged under warranty no questions asked. I remember a time with tmobile was like this and they replaced my defective phones under warranty, and they gave me free upgrade options after my second year for being such a loyal customer. Where did that all go, and how in the hell is tmobile ranked #1 in customer service? That has to be a bold faced lie, at least not after the experience I had with them.
Just thought I would share, I am so fed up with them that I think everyone should switch to their competitor.