- Report: #84483
Complaint Review: T-Mobile Bay Area Credit - Florida
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T-Mobile Bay Area Credit
www.tmobile.com Florida, U.S.A.
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T-Mobile, Bay Area Credit ripoff, charging for devices NOT ordered, fraudulent collections attempts; 6 months before any resolution Tampa Florida
My story may be slightly different than oithers, or may be the same.
A little background:
I activated a Merlin (PCMCIA device) a year ago, and had very good success with it. Nearly flawless operation.
When the store that I bought that at had a good deal on a PocketPC device, the owner contacted me knowing I'd be interested in that as well.
I purchased the PocketPC CASH in the store and activated, in July.
Everything was find until about October. I get a bill from Tmobile for $675 for "Equipment purchase". I contacted them explaining that I did NOT purchase the equipment from them, and even FAXED them a copy of the store receipt.
A month later, I get the SAME bill back, and I get my lines (both data devices) turned OFF for lack of paying $675 that I DONT OWE.
Thus begins nearly 6 months of going around and around with them over the billing.
They increase the bill to over $1,200 (now claiming cancellation fees on both devices, PLUS charging for a month's service, November, AFTER they had shut them off). During this time I have been forced to purchase ANOTHER PocketPC and Bluetooth enabled phone (other company) since both Tmobile devices have been off, and their O2 made PocketPC only works on their system.
Upon contacting Customer Relations, I was told "Charges are Valid", and that a REPLACEMENT device for a faulty unit was order in June (hm.. I activated in July... but had a bad unit 30 days earlier.. they should open a psychic hotline). I then ask what address they sent the unit to (they have gotten my mailing address wrong on the billing no less than THREE times in the past year.. wrong by entire CITY, not just wrong street address). I am then told that they "will not divulge customer addresses".. I ask them them, "am I NOT the customer?? WHAT is my address???"
All they will finally give (after faxing proof of who I am) is a UPS tracking number. That has no address listed, only the town and details. Problems with that are:
1 - I dont live in the town they show it sent to
2 - they track "Recipient moved, need new suit number" (I dont live in a suit, a single family residence.. have never lived in a suit, and have not moved since 1999)
3 - shows "Delivered, signed by SCOTT" on second attempt.. no last name, NO signature capture...
Then in February of this year I get letters (multiple) from Bay Area Credit demanding payment.
I call their number on their form, and explain to them what has been happening with Tmobile. AM promptly told that I "must contact Tmobile directly".. I hangup, call Tmbobil and am told that "Its been sent to collections, you must cantact BAY AREA CREDIT not us." (??!!).
At this point I am tired of being nice and cordial about this and contact the store I puirchased the unit from and tell them I want the area rep for Tmobile involved NOW.
I then proceed to explain to them, as well as the fact that my job involves a clearance, and that a collections report can cause the clearance to be revoked/reviewed. I also inform the area rep that I have already been in contact with my attorney and we have dicussed what repurcussions against Tmobile can be pursued if they continue to pursure false billing and cause a detrement to my job.
The area rep then emails Tmobile (cc to me) and gets a reply back that "upon review, we have located a discrepancy in the billing, in that a replacement was logged BEFORE the account opened. Therefore we have cleared the errors from the customers bill and show a $0 balance".
Now the final kicker!
They have deactivated BOTH devices and refused to reactivate them (I would also be required to purchase a new SIM card at over $30 a piece to reaquire new lines and start a new contract from the beginning).
So, after 6 months of fighting them, and finally nearly having them damage my job, they find THEIR error and correct it..
And part of their "Continuing customer service" is to CANCEL the CUSTOMERS lines that TMOBILE made the error on in the first place!
Also did not know what address to put for them, I have recieved bills/correspondance from no less than 4 addresses!
Scott
Hanford, California
U.S.A.
A little background:
I activated a Merlin (PCMCIA device) a year ago, and had very good success with it. Nearly flawless operation.
When the store that I bought that at had a good deal on a PocketPC device, the owner contacted me knowing I'd be interested in that as well.
I purchased the PocketPC CASH in the store and activated, in July.
Everything was find until about October. I get a bill from Tmobile for $675 for "Equipment purchase". I contacted them explaining that I did NOT purchase the equipment from them, and even FAXED them a copy of the store receipt.
A month later, I get the SAME bill back, and I get my lines (both data devices) turned OFF for lack of paying $675 that I DONT OWE.
Thus begins nearly 6 months of going around and around with them over the billing.
They increase the bill to over $1,200 (now claiming cancellation fees on both devices, PLUS charging for a month's service, November, AFTER they had shut them off). During this time I have been forced to purchase ANOTHER PocketPC and Bluetooth enabled phone (other company) since both Tmobile devices have been off, and their O2 made PocketPC only works on their system.
Upon contacting Customer Relations, I was told "Charges are Valid", and that a REPLACEMENT device for a faulty unit was order in June (hm.. I activated in July... but had a bad unit 30 days earlier.. they should open a psychic hotline). I then ask what address they sent the unit to (they have gotten my mailing address wrong on the billing no less than THREE times in the past year.. wrong by entire CITY, not just wrong street address). I am then told that they "will not divulge customer addresses".. I ask them them, "am I NOT the customer?? WHAT is my address???"
All they will finally give (after faxing proof of who I am) is a UPS tracking number. That has no address listed, only the town and details. Problems with that are:
1 - I dont live in the town they show it sent to
2 - they track "Recipient moved, need new suit number" (I dont live in a suit, a single family residence.. have never lived in a suit, and have not moved since 1999)
3 - shows "Delivered, signed by SCOTT" on second attempt.. no last name, NO signature capture...
Then in February of this year I get letters (multiple) from Bay Area Credit demanding payment.
I call their number on their form, and explain to them what has been happening with Tmobile. AM promptly told that I "must contact Tmobile directly".. I hangup, call Tmbobil and am told that "Its been sent to collections, you must cantact BAY AREA CREDIT not us." (??!!).
At this point I am tired of being nice and cordial about this and contact the store I puirchased the unit from and tell them I want the area rep for Tmobile involved NOW.
I then proceed to explain to them, as well as the fact that my job involves a clearance, and that a collections report can cause the clearance to be revoked/reviewed. I also inform the area rep that I have already been in contact with my attorney and we have dicussed what repurcussions against Tmobile can be pursued if they continue to pursure false billing and cause a detrement to my job.
The area rep then emails Tmobile (cc to me) and gets a reply back that "upon review, we have located a discrepancy in the billing, in that a replacement was logged BEFORE the account opened. Therefore we have cleared the errors from the customers bill and show a $0 balance".
Now the final kicker!
They have deactivated BOTH devices and refused to reactivate them (I would also be required to purchase a new SIM card at over $30 a piece to reaquire new lines and start a new contract from the beginning).
So, after 6 months of fighting them, and finally nearly having them damage my job, they find THEIR error and correct it..
And part of their "Continuing customer service" is to CANCEL the CUSTOMERS lines that TMOBILE made the error on in the first place!
Also did not know what address to put for them, I have recieved bills/correspondance from no less than 4 addresses!
Scott
Hanford, California
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Lena
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
BAY AREA CREDIT IS REALLY T-MOBILE
#2UPDATE Employee
Mon, November 01, 2004
I am very very sorry to hear all of your disputes with T-Mobile, and have, unfortunately, had to help many T-Mobile customers with Bay Area Credit. I don't know how much it will help, but perhaps for the person that posted about contacting an attorney, it may in some way. Bay Area Credit & Collections is NOT an outside collection agency. They are just T-Mobile financial Care Reps. T-Mobiles collections process is rather long and drawn out, and they do take some time to actually send the acct to a "real" collection agency. Should you rcv anything further from "Bay Area" blah blah blah, and there is a dispute, take the letter, as well as any receipts, etc to your local DIRECT T-Mobile dealer and find yourself a good caring sales rep (they exist, i was one till i got promoted) or an asst mgr ( i have found the actual store mgrs quite lazy and uncaring) they can call for you, and will esp. if you let them know that you already know what Bay Area Credit & Collections really is. Most of the time, if a fax or phone call is rec'vd from a sales office, disputes are resolved in a Positive way, and in a timely manner. I hope that this helps
Amy
Red Wing,Minnesota,
U.S.A.
I had a problem with Bay Area Credit and T-Mobil
#3Consumer Suggestion
Mon, August 23, 2004
We had a new cell phone which we purchase through a local t-mobil store and it was under warranty when we started having problems. We called T-mobile and the said that they would send us a new phone and to just send back the damaged phone by putting it in the box the new one came in and put the enclosed return sticker on UPS but the return sticker was for the USPS, and I dropped off the phone my self. I didn't think anything of it until I got a call and a letter from T-mobile saying that I was going to be charged for the damaged phone because they haddn't received it yet. I called them and explained to them that I had personally taken it to the post office and handed it to the postal worker. The t-mobile rep looked up the tracking number and together we looked it up on the USPS web site and it said that the tracking number didn't exist. I called the post office and the post master there said that was immpossible if it was sent and that t-mobil must have the wrong tracking number in their system. they wouldn't acknoledge any wrong doing and sent it on to Bay Area Collections who immediatly started harrassing me. I disputed the debt in writing like the letter said but it didn't stop. The kicker is they would call and I would answer the phone and would get a recording saying that I had to call them back and it gave a phone number. That is illegal in my state and I think that the Federal Fair Debt Collections act prohibits the use of a machine in calling people unless it is followed up immediatly by a live person. That wasn't the case so I complained to the Minnesota Department of Commerce and they contacted Bay Area Collection and they stopped trying to collect and T-mobile never disconnected our service through all of this and they have never tried to collect it since then. So if they still are harrassing you complain to your state department of commerce and maybe to the Federal Trade Commission because those are the two orgainizations that regulate collection agencies. I hope that helps.
