Complaint Review: Walmart Family Mobile

SCAM ALERT!!

Just like many of the other recent authors, I am also a victim of the "$100 bill credit" scam.  I bought a smart phone during a promotion last fall where they offered a $100 rebate on a smart phone, split across your FIRST five bills as a bill credit.

Four months in and three bills later, still there's no sign of this credit. 

I've spoken with a rep at a Walmart store and was told that they are helpless to do any bill correcting, that they call the same number I do, and then was given a bogus email address to the customer relations department that bounced.

I've spoken on the phone to customer service (which is as bad as it gets) probably a dozen times since last fall.  Half the time it's very difficult to understand the rep's English.  But much worse is that they lie.  Each time, each month, I'm promised my first credit will be on the next bill.  It's funny how I get so many different explanations from customer service, but all revolving around two main themes.

1) Theme 1: I've been told that their system made a mistake, or some such difficulty, but they can't correct the bill. Then the rep offers helpless sympathy -- "If I were you, I'd be mad too; but my hands are tied."  I'm told that only a special department can fix the bill and it is only accessible through email -- customerrelations at their website address.  I've written to it multiple times, only to get automated replies acknowledging receipt and then nothing else. 

If this is the correct explanation, it is an acknowledgement of seriously illegal practice.  Overbilling, acknowledging the error while refusing to correct the bill, but then forcing me to pay the erroneous balance under threat of being sent to a collections agency constitutes thievery and extortion.

2) Theme 2: I'm often told that I haven't had service long enough to qualify yet for the credit.  Even though no such stipulation was ever mentioned by the rep, or posted, or written in any material I was presented at the store when I bought the phone and service last fall (I read the entire agreement before signing), I'm told there are rules that I wasn't informed about that actually require me to keep service for _(fill in the blank)_ days.

That number constantly changes.  First it was 30, then 45, then 60, now it's supposedly the next bill after the cycle which contained day 60.  Just an endless runaround.  They keep moving the goal posts and changing the rules!  It's what cheaters do.

I have seen ripoff companies before, and this experience has all the red flags of a scam operation.  I am convinced that these people are thieves.  I don't know what company is behind this con game, but I doubt it's Walmart or T-Mobile.  Like another author wrote, they look like rogues.  They are refusing to honor a promotional price, then using classic scam tactics to shift blame around and keep me on a wild goose chase. 

It's scary to think about what would happen if they messed up my bill in a really expensive way.  What if they triple-debited my account, or kept billing me for service after I cancelled? Would they resolve the problem?  From what I've seen so far, the answer is clearly no.  They would be a nightmare to deal with if this happened.

Like another report author wrote, I believe the FBI needs to investigate this company.  STAY AWAY!! DO NOT LET ANYONE YOU KNOW SIGN UP TO WALMART FAMILY MOBILE!!!