i want to preface this by saying that i have loved being on tmobile. there are very few places where i don't get reception, and the data is fast. in fact, they've always been rated very highly for customer service.
i can see now that things have changed.
i had a blackberry that started acting funny. i had had it for over a year, and i just figured it was time for it to start acting up. it began losing battery power rapidly, sending blank e-mails at the rate of 3 per second, and showing the white screen of death.
luckily, i had purchased the protection plan, so they sent out a new phone right away. put it all together, loved it, three weeks later, same thing happens.
so i sent it BACK. they sent me yet another replacement. at this point, i have been without a smartphone for two months, but i keep paying for all the service. i hook this one up, and almost immediately get a white screen of death.
i called customer care, and a very nice woman named shelby helped me do an app uploader. that didn't work, so i did a wipe. a complete, restore factory settings wipe. that didn't work. i was told it must be something with my data card. i followed the directions to fix that, and the phone was up and running.
i was stoked, until an hour into work when the phone just went dead. i did the battery pull, and it came back on for two seconds...then, white screen of death!
on my lunch break, i went to the local t-mobile store. they've usually been pretty helpful in the stores. i was told there was nothing they could do there, except make some notes on the account. oh, and i was ALSO informed that they post-dated my new contract, so i couldn't get a new phone until the 27th.
um...
so i called customer service AGAIN. i was talking with a really nice gentleman who agreed that i had exhausted all my options, and they would be happy to send out a new phone. that's when we got disconnected, and i almost cried.
i called BACK. i got another gentleman who asked me all the same questions, twice, then tried to "trick" me.
"where and when did you do the wipe?"
"did you wipe it before or after you turned it on?"
"if you did a wipe, why was there music on your phone?"
he had a hard time ennunciating his words, making conversation unbearable. half the time i had to guess at what he was saying. finally, he managed to make it through his written instructions (after telling me several times to hold on, because he was reading through his papers to give me the right responses.)
do you know what they offered me?
the same. damn. phone. the same one! that i've had replaced twice! they want to do THE EXACT SAME THING THAT HASN'T BEEN WORKING. definition for insanity, anyone?
that, or i could have a nokia phone that was "sort of modeled to look like a blackberry. it has a keyboard." (exact quote.)
i asked for an escalation manager. i was told, "yeah, well, uh, you could do that ma'am, or i could send out this blackberry or this nokia!"
i asked why my only options were either the same damn phone, or a substandard ones.
it's because i'm not eligible for an upgrade until the 27th, of course! because they POSTDATED MY CONTRACT.
see, i'm not trying to get a BETTER phone out of the deal. i want what i'm paying for, and that is for a functioning blackberry. and tmobile is unwilling to do that. i'm expected to cool my heels, WHILE THEY CHARGE ME, with no phone until my contract kicks in.
this is something they should be taking care of. i am not asking for better treatment than the average customer. i am asking to be treated as a paying customer.
it breaks my heart, but i'm seriously looking into paying the penalties for early out on my contract. i can't work with a company who isn't taking my needs as a customer seriously.
and honestly? tmobile? as a customer since 2002, you WANT my business. i guess verizon gets it now!
