Kitsunexus, you work for T-Mobile customer service, don't you? Well, I had lots of fun with them today. And boy do I wish I had been able to speak to you instead of half of these brainless idiots.
My wife and I share 1,000 minutes on the family plan which is MORE than enough even though she uses her phone as her business line. So I get my latest bill, right? It says for the latest period we used 1,600 minutes. Since we went over our minutes, my bill is $250. Wha...WHAT?!?! (The bill is normally about $80 give or take, and we've never in history gone over our minutes.) So I think OK, she got a little chatty with her friends. I start looking a little closer and notice half the calls I'm being billed for were made between 9/29 and 10/14. This bill is for the period of 10/15 thru 11/13. Anyone else see the problem here? Yeah, those calls were paid for on the LAST bill.
So I get on the ol' horn to customer service, billing department. After the first call, which lasted about 30 minutes, I am told nothing can be done because I don't have her SS (the account is in her name). I didn't catch this first girl's name, but the number of teeth in her mouth probably totaled higher than her IQ. First of all, what a retarded policy. Sure, I can understand they do this to protect from unauthorized changes being made, but I wasn't calling to change the account. Plus, I'm CALLING FROM ONE OF THE PHONES ON THE PLAN. Third, I've got the entire bill right in front of me. And last but not least, the online My T-Mobile account is in my name. It didn't matter she refused to help me though, this first girl didn't even grasp the problem I was laying out for her. She kept saying "I hate to break bad news to good people." Bad news, honey, you're an idiot.
Her: "But it looks like there is an overage."
Me: "Yes, because you added all the calls from the LAST billing period we already paid on top of these newest calls."
Her: "Have you created a My T-Mobile account online? It shows you the breakdown of the calls there."
Me: "That's not the issue. I have a paper bill that lays all that out right in front of me.
Her: "So what's the problem? Looks like you went over your minutes."
.... OK, enough of this. I'm embarrassed I let this go on for as long as I did.
So wife gets home, get her SS. Call back. This is where the fun really starts. I get someone on the line named "Sharon" (I think...or was it Shannon?). And I swear on the holy mother it was the same f*cking girl. And this was like five hours later. After I laid out the problem and proudly presented the SS number, she started in on the exact same speil about how it looks like there is an overage. I start getting a little irritated and raise my voice a bit, laying things out so even someone with a sub-50 IQ can understand. SHE HANGS UP ON ME. This is great. I haven't even STARTED to get angry yet and I'm already getting hung up on? Wonderful!
So I call back immediately for round three. I'm on hold for 20 minutes and I still haven't gotten anyone yet. So I'm thinking maybe this chick is there alone by herself today, sees the caller ID (I can only assume they have one... They're the f*cking phone company!) and doesn't want to deal with me. So I get the house phone and call on that phone too. Picture: I've got a phone up to each ear at this point. One number she knows, the other she doesn't. Even if she's there by herself and is avoiding me purposefully, I'll get her on the number she doesn't know.
Pretty soon thereafter one of the phones gets an answer. It's someone named "Victoria." Lucky for me, this time around I'm blessed with someone that actually has a brain. She immediately understands the problem and promises to get right on it.
It's about 8:00pm right now. I'm on hold 10 minutes. She's back, just needs a few more minutes. 8:17 now, she's back. Says she has never seen anything like this before. Asks for just a couple more minutes. 8:28, back. She starts explaining about something called "late billables" and asks if I went on vacation out of the area. I reply no-- the only vacation I've taken was AFTER this bill for the Thanksgiving holiday. She's gone again, on hold. Back at 8:32. Mentions the late billables again. Mind you, by now I've been on the phone dealing with this FAR too long already. Before 8:00, I was on phone call #2 and then phone call #1 took 30 minutes earlier in the day. I tell her to add up all the calls that belong on the previous bill and subtract those minutes from this current bill. I state this pretty matter-of-factly and she says OK. On hold until 8:45.
She's back, and is telling me she's been told that unfortunately "late billables" are valid charges and they will remain on the bill. BTW, "late billables" were explained to me as calls that went through another provider's tower and weren't reported to T-Mobile in time to make the correct billing cycle. Only I never traveled anywhere, and this was for TWO WEEKS worth of calls that totaled around 700 minutes. If I never traveled anywhere away from home, then that must mean my local T-Mobile tower went out of service for this duration of time and my calls were being routed through a different tower. NOT MY PROBLEM. Why do I have to pay $200 extra because T-Mobile was having technical difficulties? I don't-- take them off my bill.
So this is where I blow my f*cking top. I unleashed on the poor girl. I became "that guy," you know, the irate customer that wants it his way, right now. Only I was right. Poor Victoria was only doing her job, but I'd wasted waaaaaay too much time on this already and needed closure. I would write down what I said to her, but I am not proud of it, and had to apologize afterwards. It's been a long time since I've gotten upset like that and I think I may have made her cry. She put me on hold quickly and after a minute or two came back and said she had removed the charges. I apologized for my outburst and thanked her.
When all is said and done I am still very put off that this had to happen at all. This is the most ridiculous fight I've ever fought, and I can't believe I had to go through so much to get anywhere when the opposing arguments are so feeble. I've had a cell phone for a long time and I've never heard of "late billables." These are not to be confused with "roaming" charges. Even if there is such a thing as "late billables" there are absolutely NO arguments that make these charges the customer's responsibility. I am in business professionally, and to me these sound like operating expenses that the service provider must either absorb or write off. It's like if I own a retail store, and my main source of power is temporarily unavailable. So I plug the cash register into generator that eats extraordinary amounts of gasoline per minute so I can ring up a customer. I ring up the customer's charges but then mark them up 300% to pay for the gasoline my generator is using.
I am still reeling from the whole thing, and I can't fathom that a company would even try to hold me financially accountable for something that had nothing to do with me, other than the fact that I am a customer. They even thought that not only would I understand, but be OK with the situation!!
And Kitsunexus, if you do indeed work for T-Mobile, no offense towards you whatsoever. Believe me when I tell you the entire time I was on the phone I was yearning for you to pick up the phone and come to my rescue.
Topic: Why T-Mobile Sucks (Read 742 times)
