T- Mobile from Boston and back Sucks! UPDATE
Written: Aug 21 '04 (Updated Sep 26 '04)
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Pros: One very helpful level 3 technical person.
Cons: Terrible customer service; lack of reception on a $200 phone.
The Bottom Line: Do not subscribe to T-Mobile. Since this review money will be credited to my account.
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| jo.com's Full Review: T-Mobile Phone Service in Boston |
This is very long. I have attempted to bold pieces of information but if you have the time you might want to read it. I can't express strongly enough how inept T-Mobile is or how strongly I feel that you should go with any other service. It is also long because this is being sent to them with the url of the review.
We used Cingular for a couple of years but found the reception in one area of our town to be non existent. In addition the only reception we had in our house was in one room. Two years ago T-Mobile added a tower where we lived so we switched when our contract with Cingular was up. For a year we had no problems with our phones or service. We still only had reception at home in certain areas but we had full reception in town and decent reception in most areas of Massachusetts. We never needed customer service. The phones were inexpensive or free and worked.
Overview:
In April we renewed our contract for another year. We did this in a T-Mobile store in a fairly large store just south of Boston. At the time we knew we were going on a 3-month trip so I bought a phone that we were told by two T-Mobile employees could be used as a modem. This was the Blackberry PDA.
For almost the entire 2 weeks that I had it I used both the BlackBerry and T-Mobile websites to learn how to use it. T-Mobile’s site was helpful but it just covered the basics. Customer service wasn’t helpful. Finally after calling many times, someone knew definitively that the BlackBerry couldn’t be used as a modem. This was after I went into two other T-Mobile stores to ask for help. I was told by the young people working that they consider the BlackBerry a computer not a phone and knew nothing about it or how it works!
We went back to the original Boston-based store, returned the Blackberry and bought the Motorola V300. I needed some help but found customer service and the interactive site just borderline helpful. Eventually I figured out how to use the phone.
The first time I was away I subscribed to what is called t-zones. This allowed me presumably to be able to check my e-mail, write e-mails and other services such as getting the weather and movies in my area. More often than not I would write an e-mail, send it and get a message saying "network service unavailable." I called customer service and was told that they were having problems and unfortunately unlike my computer my e-mails were lost. I stopped writing e-mails. Shortly after that I checked my account which can be done via the phone and heard that I had a balance of about $15.00. I called and was told that I used my Instant Message feature while outside the t-zones and every time I did that it cost me money.
I was paying $4.99 a month for t-zones. During this call I was told that I could have had a package. This consists of 100 free minutes for $6.99 which would have allowed me to use AIM and other features if I were out of the t-zone mode. No one at the store explained that to me. In fact when I asked about e-mailing capability I was told that although one of the clerks had the phone he didn't know much about using e-mail on it. For my aggravation they gave me 100 extra minutes.
We pay a lot of money for our phones. The Motorola costs $200. We had 400 hours with free nights and weekends which cost $49.99. When we left in May we upgraded to 800 hours paying $69.99. We pay an extra $20.00 for Internet service. For $90 a month I would expect to have a phone that works, an Internet connection that is reliable (unless we are deep in a valley or high in a mountain – I do understand that there may not be any cell towers!) and have gotten neither of those and customer service has been a nightmare. My husband worked during this trip and had to have a connection so it was more than just “fun” that had us calling and spending sometimes over 2 hours a day talking with customer service, technical people at all levels including level 3 techies which are the highest it seems.
The rates:
I have mentioned what we are paying. I will add some information so this review won't be off topic and then my review will consist of a letter I am sending to T-Mobile’s Corporate office via Planet Feedback. Some of it may have been said above. I am sorry for any repetition.
There were so many weeks of frustration and plans to sightsee that had to be put off because of time spent with customer service that I felt it was time to let others know that T-Mobile is not a service I would recommend and as soon as we can get out of our contract we will. Not only won't I recommend it, I can say that I have had many dealings with companies but none as bad, literally at times crazy, as this one.
There are a multitude of plans available as there are with any service.
Our family plan which we now pay $69.99 for each month includes two lines of service. That means my husband and I can talk any time and not use minutes. In addition though we have not done this up to three additional lines can be added to the Family Time plan for $10.00 per line, per month. There is a one-time activation fee of $35.00 per line.
One benefit to T-Mobile are their hot spots. You can find hot spots (areas where you can get service if you don’t have a modem phone for $29.99 a month. You subscribe to this service, bring your laptop to Borders or Starbucks for example and you are on. You can also connect at various hot spots for an hourly rate of $6.00 as pay as you go. One hot spot we found (Remember we should not have needed a hot spot since I have a $200 modem phone.) was free. This is a great service if T-Mobile is working. If they are having network problems all the hot spots in the country will not get you connected.
I think it crucial that the letter below be read. I have changed my rating of the phone from 4 stars to 2 because the phone for me rarely acted as a modem. Hours spent with customer service reconfiguring my phone and our laptop was fairly futile.
To Whom It May Concern:
We have been T-Mobile customers for quite awhile. In March/April we bought a Motorola V300 which cost $200. We chose this phone because we were going to be traveling for 3 months. We work on the road. My husband has projects that have to be done over the summer. His work is all Internet based. The V300 is a modem phone. We bought it so he would always be connected to his workplace.
It is the phone I primarily use. I liked it very much at first but had problems with it within a few weeks. When I went to Florida I had trouble with text messaging and that was the first of many calls logged into T-Mobile because of problems.
I would text message a long e-mail and hit send. The response was “network not available” or “server not working.” This is not a desktop or laptop. These e-mails aren’t saved so I spent a lot of time for nothing. I learned to not send e-mails that were more than a few words. In the meantime we were paying for t-zone service.
We learned that we were being charged an additional fee. I go into this in the letter below.
Other calls were made to you because of calls being dropped too frequently. We were told that the e-mails and dropped calls were T-Mobile’s fault and there was nothing they could do but that you were trying to correct the problem. In the meantime we were paying for service and much of the time couldn’t use it. One call had us removing the cover and battery to see if that was the problem but it wasn’t.
We tested the phone at home to make sure it was working as a modem and it was. Our first problem happened while we were starting out on our summer trip. In Ohio the $200 phone was not getting reception while the free after rebate one – a Nokia - was. This was quite frustrating because without reception we couldn’t use the Internet. This was the reason we got the Motorola V300. The Nokia could be used for phone calls but it isn’t a modem phone. The expensive phone could be used for nothing. Again we called technical assistance. We were told to change SIMS cards with the Nokia but that didn’t change the Motorola’s status.
We were actually told twice during this summer that because the Motorola is a fancier phone, reception would be worse! I remember sitting in the car at Yellowstone National Park. There was service in one area of the Park only on my husband's phone. It took so long to explain to the rep. who kept saying we must be out of a service area thus I couldn't use my Motorola, that I was talking to him on another cell phone so there was reception!
A young man with whom we spoke could do nothing for us. He talked about us finding a T-Mobile store and maybe they would give us a loaner but he wasn’t sure. He talked about sending us a phone but it was back ordered and since we were on the road not only getting it somewhere but getting it quickly was impossible. In addition having it sent was possible only if someone signed for it. This young man, when I asked for the corporate office's phone number, told me they had no phone but I could e-mail them. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry since the reason we were having this conversation was lack of reception. We were quite frustrated.
Somehow it started working the next day and it was fine for a couple of weeks. One day we went to charge it and it was dead. It wouldn’t take a charge nor would it turn on. We called T-Mobile again. The first representative with whom we spoke was very nice and saw that our phone would not take a charge. She said it was essentially broken and she would send us out a new one. We had only planned on being at this campground in Sedona, Arizona for 2 days so we decided to see if we could extend our stay, bypassing our trip to the Grand Canyon, paying a $108.00 non-refundable fee just to get this phone. This was based on this rep's promise that for a $15.00 charge, which we were more than willing to pay, we would have the phone in two days. She also promised us a $5.00 credit for lack of use.
We had to call back to give you the campground's address. Each time (and I'll estimate 50 calls) we called we had to repeat our entire history. I don't understand why the reps can't go into their computers and look up our last call or two so we don't have to go through a 10 minute process just to be put on hold, transferred to a supervisor, transferred to a technical person, etc. etc. But we did and she took down the campground’s address and said that the order would be put through but it had to go through the supervisor. We asked to talk to the supervisor because we didn’t have time to waste while they passed paperwork around. She told us that talking with him wouldn’t accomplish anything because she would immediately send the request to him and she promised he would call back within ½ hour to confirm that the Motorola was sent.
A couple of hours later there was no message (At least 3 times promised calls back were not followed through on.) on the Nokia so we called and spoke to a third person. The whole story had to be told over again. I will reiterate that we don’t understand why this isn’t logged into the computer or why we are told that the call might be monitored or recorded. It seems it never is, though we would like our calls to be. That call got dropped and she didn’t call back so we called a fourth time and went through the whole story again.
The rep was very nice, looked up the information and said there was a confirmation number and the Nokia would be sent out. THE NOKIA!! Where did that come from? All along we had been talking about our modem phone, the Motorola V300, but now we were told that it had been a mistake. Since we called from the Nokia that’s the one they ordered. We had been very clear that the Motorola was dead and noted by the first rep so how we could even be calling on the Nokia boggles my mind. She checked and said the Motorola was backordered and it couldn’t be shipped out. We were beside ourselves. We had extended days at this campground at both financial cost and cost to our itinerary; my husband’s work for which he gets paid would be put on hold (Who will pay him?) and our $200 phone for which we are paying for Internet service along with regular cell service were being charged to us for nothing.
We asked to talk to a Supervisor. Ken 04 got on the phone. He was rude, non-compliant, not at all helpful, would not problem solve what we could do and basically grunted and continued to say “There’s nothing I can do, blame the Post Office.” He commented that he had 15 minutes before meal time. He told us we could e-mail (WE HAD NO INTERNET.) the corporate office or fax them. (WE WERE IN THE MOUNTAINS.) He told us there was no phone number for the corporate office. We asked if he could send us a loaner modem phone. The answer was “There aren’t any.” We asked if he could check; there must be one Motorola V300 somewhere in the U.S. that could be sent to our campground. He said there isn’t. We asked him what would happen if this campground got the phone in a month. They have no forwarding address for us. He told us it would go back to you. The only option was to buy a new phone at our cost. He did agree to give us $60 toward the campground. I asked if we could pay for the difference between another modem phone and our $200 phone if it was more money and he said it would be too complicated. We asked to talk with another supervisor. He put us on hold and after too long a time we hung up.
We then called again and we got Jenny, a customer service rep. She was the most helpful attempting to locate a phone in Arizona. She called Phoenix- an hour and half away- and said “maybe” we could get one at Sam’s in Flagstaff, though it is not a T-Mobile store. She was really trying to problem solve. Finally she said she had no authority so she passed us on to a supervisor in training, Will, to whom we explained the story over and over again and he just didn’t get it. He started asking for the serial number. When we asked why he said because he needed it to order the Motorola. We explained that if it was backordered, ordering it made no sense because we would be long gone. We got very angry and we hung up. He called back and got nowhere and lost him and he never called back.
We are considering canceling T-Mobile. The only reason we will not possibly cancel at this point is a financial one. I will let everyone know that we have had terrible service from this company for quite some time. I would never recommend T-Mobile. Your customer service is abominable and frankly, you should be ashamed of how your service reps talk with your customers. Although many of the reps and the techies with whom we have talked with have been very nice, they are only nice when there isn’t a problem that can’t be fixed with shutting the phone on and off, taking out the battery or resetting some settings.
The phone is unpredictable. We were able to charge it and tried to get online. We couldn’t. More than one call to T-Mobile got us answers such as "there was a nationwide problem." So not only have we paid a lot of money for this phone to use while on the road we couldn't use the Internet which we are paying for.
We finally got a second phone in San Francisco which worked for awhile. As far as the nationwide lack of being able to access the Internet we were told that they had NO idea when we would gain access.
Postscript…on June 20, 2004 we called again. We were given to the 2nd tier supervisor who thought it might be our location or it could be our phone. We were told that the 3rd tier techie who might be able to locate the problem leaves early on Sunday and they would call us first thing Monday. When I was writing this part of the story which has been written in phases it was 10:30AM and we had not heard from them. On top of that (This is unbelievable.) if you go back to the beginning you will see that we could not be promised, as previously promised because it was backordered, that the Motorola V300 would arrive before we left our campground. We went into the office before we left the campground only to find out that the Nokia had in fact been ordered by mistake and it was in the office.
We were also told during one of the many calls that the backorder was 5 days, not "I have no idea how long it will be" as we had been told and with the 3 day priority that we had been willing to pay for the Motorola we could have had it before we left Sedona, Arizona. Ken 04, the very unhelpful supervisor, never told us that.
Finally, during the last couple of weeks I had no reception. Once again I was told to take out the SIMS card and battery. The technical person decided it must be my phone so I will be getting a third Motorola V300. I suppose some might say "Well at least they are sending you new phones." The point is that for $200 plus $90.00 a month I shouldn't need new phones and I should be able to use the phone when my husband's Nokia shows full service and I show none!
I think I will end this here though I want to comment briefly on a current charge to Winnepeg, Canada which we never made. In addition since we knew we would have no service in Canada we called and asked what the best thing would be. We were told to get a calling card and go to a pay phone to access our messages. We were told that this wouldn't cost us anything except the cost of the calling card. We did just that and now have a charge of $27.00 because the phone logged in our retrieval of messages as calls!
You are about to lose good customers and hopefully you will not gain more.
PLEASE READ:Update 1 On August 30 a rep from T-Mobile called me. She got my letter from Planet Feedback and told me she would be investigating. On September 1 she called and I am getting $51.30 back for the lack of being able to use the Internet connection I paid for; 1/2 of monthly access charges amounting to another $114.96; removal of our contract from our account so we can cancel without paying the $200 penalty and I am able to return for a full refund my phone or they will help me find another one at a discount.
T-Mobile did come through with all the requests I asked for via Planet Feedback. Do I change my rating? I would love feedback on this. I can't recommend them because although they did respond to my letter we went through 3 terrible months with them. I will raise my rating though to average.
Update 2 This letter was sent again via planet feedback:
Here's my complaint: This is my second letter. My first letter's reference number is 2193010
It was sent on August 24. The next night I got a call from a very nice person saying she would investigate. A few days later she called and said she was refunding my money, getting me out of my contract and that I could send back my phone and get my money back or I could buy another one at a discount.
I called customer care and spoke with Cody who told me that I could send my phone back and he would follow up in the next couple of days to make sure it was received. I got a tracking number at his suggestion.
I then went into a T-Mobile store thinking I could buy a phone and get reimbursed for it. A very nice young man called customer care and was told that this all had to go through the corporate office and they hadn't received the phone yet. Cody never called- that was a week ago.
I cannot go without a phone because I use it for work and am losing jobs without it!
(Not in the letter: I went on a bit about what I would like to see happen but it has been one week since that phone was sent and I haven't heard from anyone at T-Mobile. I am so furious.)
UPDATE: September 26, 2004
Within 2 hours of my letter via planetfeedback I was called by the corporate office. They honored my request for an upgraded phone. It was sent to me by overnight mail.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 90.00/mo
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