For the last and final time, I wish to not deal with T-Mobile as they are a greedy and bigoted ripoff of a company. Poorest record keepers I have ever had.
Even after explaining to Karla on the phone, that I did NOT wish to keep international roaming charges as soon as I activated roaming....they still kept the roaming turned on for more than two weeks after I KNEW that the whole d**n thing was a scam.
The story is as follows once again!
I met someone on January 1, 2006 at a mainstream dating website who I felt for unexplained reasons may have been part of a criminal scam.
At the time I was not aware of enough of the details to rush to judgment, other than I knew their real name and a lot of what they told me about themselves and other details and for the time being trusted them as a friend.
I trusted them as a friend enough, to go ahead and get the person on the other end a phone. I felt the risk would be much lower, if I could actually verify who is over there or who is working with the girl. The person had posted their profile at one or more websites, and the address was listed just off 3650 South in Salt Lake City according to records.
So on January 2, 2006 I ordered the phone after changing my plan and explaining that the phone was a gift for my friend. I spoke to two different people, including Rebecca, indicating that I wanted to ship the phone to my address.
They were fully aware of the fact the phone was a gift, and that it would be shipped overseas which is an area known for suspicious activity and crime. Rebecca told me the phone would arrive and be shipped in 3- 4 business days.
This would make it easy to transport over to where the person was. I had wanted to speak to the person directly, and so I arranged to. At this point the person who the phone was for was growing impatient.
I asked her more about her life and received more information, including a story about a family who had died in a car crash. I then deliberately asked for the shipping address to send it.
The person proceeded to tell me where exactly to send it. The name of the Hotel Manager there was given, which was Adisa Lanre. A Nigerian name in Africa.
The address was given to be 1 Araromi Street Isabo, Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigeria Zipcode 23439 NG which is the location of the Hotel according to my research.
On the date of January 4, 2006 the phone I had purchased from t-mobile was being delivered to our residence in Saint George, Utah. For 3 days I checked the logs and watched the phones travel time myself. I managed to travel over to the UPS shipping storage area where I talked right to Steve and received it.
I then talked directly to Sarah at t-mobile, asking her specifically about international calls. I wanted to know as quickly as possible, how we could talk to each other and t-mobile said it would be impossible without activating roaming.
I copied all the information, and then talked to the recipient again. The recipient kept asking for other gifts and items, of which I wrote down also, such as money or other things. I paid special attention to what she was asking for, and what the voice I talked to, called Adisa Lanre told me about the hotel.
The way I was able to speak to Mr. Adisa Lanre, was he gave someone the Hotels phone number and then I asked for the phone number so I could call it on a collect call to obtain information. The number that was given was +23408021900000 and the only way you could call it was by a collect call.
The man I spoke to indicated that the person I wished to speak to i.e. the girl from Salt Lake City, which their real address is in America, could not speak because they are in trouble with the Hotel. He Adisa repeated to say that the person must pay the Hotel for the trouble of staying there, and they can not pay the phone bill for them to use the phone. I asked many various times about what Adisa meant. He repeated the same information.
I had purchased said phone for the recipient of the message whom, at that time I was under the direct impression was affiliated with something suspicious. I next talked to Karla who was at t-mobile, and asked her repeatedly all the facts relating to international calling and how you make a call overseas.
I wanted to verify who was on the other end for myself, which I at the time was not sure of and I informed t-mobile that I wanted to cancel this phone if there was any problems.
After speaking with Karla for over an hour, we determined the following. If there was any problems at all with the phone it could be shut off she said. This was on the 17th. I asked if she, Karla knew of any other possible way to talk to this person without using roaming. She proceeded to tell me there was none.
I said to the t-mobile representative repeatedly, that if I activate this plan I wish to be able to cancel the phone. They said that would be possible. I asked if the contract would allow roaming to be turned off and they said it could.
I did not ask for the rates. Instead, I called back t-mobile again later and compared the calling rates for the two plans to see if making a phone call would be possible.
I talked to Karla or her assistant and this time, after it being strictly understood that I did not want to keep roaming, they then activated the roaming.
After that point, I continued talking to the individual. The phone would not work. I could not get the phone to be called and pick up, it interrupted or just went to a busy signal with a Phone is currently out of zone. Standard message.
I then talked to Anita on the 20th, and said point blank the phone doesnt work. No calls could be made from it, no calls received to it. I told Anita at t-mobile that I wanted the phone cancelled.
She stated the policy does not allow for the phone to be cancelled, even though it is only a day after the deadline. I did not receive the actual phone until the 7th or 8th, because UPS are the ones who sent it to the wrong post box. Which is why I ended up going there myself, talking to Steve and picking the cell phone up.
I continued talking to Anita, who did not give a last name and she stated that it would no matter what be $250 to terminate. I asked why, and how the international calling can be deactivated. She said that rather than cancel, I should place what is called the Bar on the phone.
This would block and bar the phone from use, she said. She explained it while I was on the phone with her for 35 minutes. By this time it was 2:00 PM MT. I ordered her to Bar and block the phone then, and repeated to her just as I had repeated to Karla to make sure it was understood. She had written down something, and given me the phone number for t-mobile SIM activation in America and in Nigeria.
Before hanging up, I made sure she and the staff understood the phone was to be blocked. The information in Nigeria, Africa was new. Tara, who I spoke with next had never heard of it. I spoke to Tara the same day or on the morning of the 21st.
Tara said that the 505 number is the number for SIM activation, and there is not an additional number she could see. Nevertheless, I just wanted to call the phone myself and verify who was there. She asked me for the SIM card number. I took it from the recipient I had sent the phone too. She inserted the code into the system and at this time, we thought the phone would work. However the same message went on when I called the phone.
Tara understood that I just wanted to make sure the phone worked to speak to the person on the other end, and wanted the phone plan cancelled. My only purpose here was to speak to the person involved with this Adisa Lanre.
The problem was Tara had the code activated, but did not say she saw any suspicious activity. I wanted to know if any activity had been reported. But the problem was not Taras fault either, as what I discovered is that any calls made from the cell phone have a time-delay.
At the time no one said anything. But I then received a suspension notice and the account was deactivated due to high volume activity. They told me that calls overseas, and everywhere had been going on since the 17th.
I talked to the supervisor for over 30 minutes indicating that they had likely defrauded t-mobile because I had ordered the Bar to block the phone. And as long as the Bar blocks the phone, Anita had explained, no calls can be made or dialed out.
Apparently and according to his notations, the supervisor had no record of the entire conversation. It appeared to them that I actually wanted the phone to be able to call everyone and dial out. But what I had explained to Tara repeatedly, is I only wanted to dial in, or talk to the person on the other end!
The supervisor had no record of this. It is documented in the case file, that I did not want to take a chance. That is why I wrote down Adisas name, his address, and whatever I could about the phone. I spoke to t-mobile who expect me to fit the bill for a phone I never even authorized for this.
Dozens of calls were made to people overseas, and t-mobile has all the records. Since the 17th the phone had been handed over to Adisa according to the recipient. Adisa had used the phone ever since t-mobile apparently turned on the roaming which I had never known.
Even and still in spite of the fact I documented that I ordered to make sure the phone is barred, t-mobile denies those records. And the company of t-mobile applied this to the billing records which is futile.
There was no way to even see the records of the calls, because it took one week for the calls to show up starting on the 17th. Therefore t-mobile knew, and had my full testimony and information that I was likely defrauded.
The proven costs and bill should be dropped to a reasonable payment, the contract either terminated or ended and written off as a loss.
90% of the calls were made overseas to locations I would never have heard of, authorized, or known about on top of that. Thousands of cases like this are reported, and the bill amount rose to an unbelievable $2000 which indicates defrauding, the action of defrauding or at the least criminal activity.
Dated: January 26, 2007
Signed,
The Undersigned
Jeremy
Saint George, Utah
U.S.A.