Complaint Review: T-Mobile Wireless - Albuquerque New Mexico

Hello, let me just get to the point.  I have been a customer with T-Mobile since January 2009.  I was a brand new customer, never had T-Mobile prior to this.  My girlfriend and I wanted the new Google G1 cell phones, and made the switch to T-Mobile.

The plan that I signed up for is their Family MyFav 400 minutes plan.  It is $69.99 for two lines, 400 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited mobile to mobile, and unlimited to your top 5 "favs" per line.

Since they are G1's you have to get a data plan.  The data plan that I went with is the Unlimited Web plus 400 text messages for $24.99 per line.  Due to my credit I had to go with what T-Mobile calls a "Flex Pay" account.  To pay my bill, I have it automatically deducted from my bank account.

So I signed a contract with the plan that I described above.  Everything was going great till about June.  I noticed at the beginning of my new billing cycle my text messages were not refreshed back to 400, neither line.  Both lines were at 0, however my minutes refreshed back to 400.

I called into the customer service number and told them that my text messages were missing and they were part of my service plan.  The operator apologized and added them to my lines.

Fast forward to today.  Ever since that first phone call to report that they forgot to add my text messages to my phones, I have been calling in every month at the beginning of the new billing cycle.  Every month they have forgotten to add the text messages that are part of my $24.99 data plan. 

So the new billing cycle that started on August 28th was nothing new.  I once again had to call in, but this time my internet along with my text messages were gone.  On both lines.  This whole time since June I have been trying to get them to fix the problem and every time I get the same thing, "sir we have opened a trouble ticket". 

So new billing cycle and now my internet and my text messages are gone on both lines.  I once again call the customer support number.  I speak to a woman who has a strong accent.  I preceded to explain to her that I have a data plan that is $24.99 per line and has unlimited internet with 400 text messages per month.  I told her that they billed me for it, but I don't have my internet nor do I have my text messages. 

She told me that I never had this plan.  She told me that no such plan existed.  I asked her then what was the $49.98 ($24.99 per line) that I have been paying since day one.  She said it was just for internet not for text messages.  She said it was a mistake that the internet was not on my phones this time, but I do not get any text messages since the plan does not include that.

I told her that it does and that is what it says on my contract.  She said that she could see that they use to have a plan like that, but since I changed to a Family Plan, that it can not be used, and they do not offer that plan anymore.  I told her that does not make sense since I have never had anything but the family plan.  After of going around in circles for about two hours I decided to call it quites.

I hoped on the internet to do some research and found out that T-Mobile had changed the data plans that they offer.  The new Data Plan for the G1 is $24.99 for unlimited web or $34.99 for unlimited web with unlimited text messages.  So the data plan that I have no longer exist.  I found posts on T-Mobile's message board about people who had the same problem and they were just grandfathered in.  I wondered why I was different and how come my plan was not grandfathered in?

I decided to take a drive down to the store where I got my phone.  I spoke with the manager there who looked up my account and saw that yes I did have the old data plan.  He then saw that in June the automatic billing confused the old data plan with the new one, hence why I had to keep calling in for my text messages.  So the operators were just adding them and not fixing the problem.  He agreed that this was  a breach of contract on T-Mobiles part and I should have been grandfathered in just like everyone else who had my same data plan.

He called customer support, gave them his dealer ID and explained the situation.  He then handed the phone to me.  The operator said that they were going to fix the problem.  He said that he saw that I was billed for the internet and the fact that I did not have it was a mistake on their end.  I reminded him that I was also missing the text messages.  Once I mentioned that, we lost understanding of each other.  The operator said no such data plan existed. 

After the operator said that no such data plan existed I handed the phone back to the sales rep.  The T-Mobile sales rep explained to the T-Mobile operator that that plan did exist, though it no longer exist since they changed the data plans.  That seemed to confuse the operator.  The sales rep explained that my data plan should have been grandfathered in.  I don't think the Indian call center operators knew what this term meant.  After an hour an a half of going back and fourth with the T-Mobile operator and his supervisor, and handing the phone back and fourth between I and the T-Mobile sales rep it was decided that no such plan existed and the only option was for me to have the $24.99 new data plan.  If I wanted text messages I would have to pay extra for that.

So here we are.  A T-Mobile sales rep sees that I had this old data plan that was unlimited web with 400 text messages.  A glitch in the computer system, and my plan is not grandfathered in.  T-Mobile takes away my data plans that I have on my two G1 phones.  The operator denies that any such data plan ever existed.  They will put a data plan back on my phones, but it will not be the data plan that is on my contract (since they claim it never existed).  This new data plan is the same price but does not include text messages, if I want those I have to pay extra.

To get me by until I can contact someone who can fix this, I have them put this new data plan on the phones with the text messages that I have to pay for.  I need to have web and text messages for work and can not have them while I wait for this to be fixed by t-mobile.  So now I am paying an extra $15 to my original contact monthly price, just to get the service that I am suppose to have.  This is wrong on so many levels.  They would not honor what is on my contact and forced me into a more expensive plan.  Beware of T-Mobile.  They will call you a lier.  I would like to thank the store sales rep for helping me as much as he did.