Complaint Review: T-Mobile USA - Internet

Allow me to explain: a couple months back, I received an over the air update for one of my handsets on my family plan to upgrade the OS to Ice Cream Sandwich. 

The update appeared to install successfully and the phone rebooted like it said it would.

Then it rebooted again, which I found odd because it said it'd only do that once. Maybe it had to install other stuff while booting and had to restart, I'd consoled myself, but the phone rebooted again, and then again ad infinitum.

Something was definitely wrong.

I should explain that I have accepted OTA updates on my tablets and other handsets before, so I've got a pretty good idea how this stuff is supposed to go--and this wasn't it. In fact,  I knew exactly what this was--the bootloader was trying to load Android, but for some reason couldn't, and therefore it did the only thing it was programmed to do: try again until the end of time.

I was stuck in a boot loop, with a soft bricked device.

Having bought this handset only a few months earlier, I took it to the T-Mobile store where I got it and told them what's up. The customer service representative that I spoke to, who seemed super friendly, told me not to worry about it and that they'd send the handset to their warranty department, after which I'd receive a working replacement.

I walked out the store, and a week later I received a working replacement as promised and actually felt quite satisfied I'd made a good choice to stick with T-Mobile after so many years instead of shopping around for another carrier.

A couple months pass, and everything seems peachy until I notice my usual hundred twenty dollar bill is suddenly four hundred. Obviously some sort of mistake, I told myself as I phoned customer service to find out what the hell is going on. I waited, and waited...then finally got someone. Their customer service representative explained to me that there's a surcharge for a smart phone that wasn't returned to their warranty department.

The same bloody handset that I had to give to their store rep so a warranty claim could be initiated for my replacement. The replacement I'm at at moment using to talk to the customer service rep.

I explained the situation calmly, but the drone on the other end was limited to basically say "we offer reasonable payment plans to pay your outstanding balance." It was the same spiel, awkwardly rephrased, over and over until I demanded a supervisor.

For that I was punished to wait forty more minutes, but I remained persistent. When I got a manager on the line, I explained the situation that the minion customer rep drone couldn't resolve, and she said she'll look into it. I wait a bit more, but then she comes back and tells me to go back to that store and speak with the supervisor there.

All that waiting, and all I get is being deflected to someone else.

This being a store that's twenty miles away from my house, with gas prices the way they are.

I try again, this time with another customer representative who was able to do SOMETHING. She said she'd open an investigation report on my account at the store I bought/returned the defective handset from, and then temporarily reactivated my line so she could call me back with the report. I wait a week--nothing. I call them again, speak to yet another customer representative who detailed the same payment plan drivel to me with a disturbingly clinical detachment to the fact they were trying to screw me out of hundreds of dollars for TWO mistakes made on their end. 

I demand a manager, who also ultimately tries to cleverly deflect me back to the store after I wasted so much time, and after their rep lying to me about opening an investigation she said she would. I explained that I was basically giving 75% effort to get this resolved, and if they couldn't even meet me at 25%, I couldn't possibly see any way I can do business with them.

She offers to put me to customer loyalty and see what they can do for me, and perhaps in a desperate bid to make me give up by sheer frustration, I was punished to a bloody HOUR AND EIGHTEEN MINUTES on hold--after which the drone on the other end explained the customer reps on the store aren't meant to initiate any warranty claim on my behalf and are supposed to tell me to personally ship any defective handsets to their warranty department for an exchange.

Then--get this--he says go and speak to the manager at that store again!

So, basically T-Mobile:

1.) Soft bricked my handset with a faulty OTA update that clearly wasn't thoroughly tested.

2.) Then their store rep lied to me and probably stole the defective handset from me.

3.) Deflected me and made me play phone tag with their customer representative drones--and then they expected me to pay them five hundred bucks for inconveniencing them after so many years of silence.

I was beyond hysterical and simply laughed in honest horror, and then asked my service with them be terminated immediately.

The only thing that stopped me from telling the loyalty drone, or any other drone I came across, is the fact I knew at the end of the day they were just that--regular people like you and me who were only cogs in a bureaucracy, following a travesty of a script ill wrought by C-Level executives--fat and lofty in their ivory towers with only a tangential interest in human affairs.

Perhaps I should have been more careful and shouldn't have trusted the OTA update, or what their store rep told me about the warranty claim--but why in the hell should I construct a measure for testing an OTA update and have to basically screen the trustworthiness of THEIR store employees every time I must enact a transaction at THEIR places of business, and then be expected to pay for THEIR mistakes?

I'm taking my money elsewhere.