Complaint Review: T-Mobile - Bellevue Washington

I am writing to complain about billing problems and customer service issues with T-Mobile. Here is a detailed account of the problem.

Back 07/15, our T-Mobile employee discount expired, because we were not notified to send over a current paystub to re-verify employment. We realized there was a problem in August when the bill went up, so my wife contacted customer service. The customer service rep, Morgan, advised my wife to send my paystub to [email protected]. In addition, she requested Morgan remove a third phone line, since this person had acquired service of their own through T-Mobile, and Morgan stated I would need to contact T-Mobile to remove the line. He also stated it needed to be done within 24 hours or we would be charged $10 for the line. She sent the paystub to this address on 08/21/2015, we received notification that the e-mail went through, and I called T-Mobile to have the line removed within 24 hours. I even received a text message that the phone was removed, so we assumed all the problems had been taken care of. In the e-mail, she also requested the employee discount to be backdated, primarily because T-Mobile never sent us a notification that the employee discount was expiring. In September, when we looked at the bill, we saw that the discount had still not been applied and that we were still charged for the phone line, a $10 charge. My wife called T-Mobile again, spoke to another representative (we have misplaced her name), and this rep assured us that she would contact the department who received the paycheck stub, would make sure the bill was credited for the employee discount (including backdating), and that the $10 charge would be removed. In October, when the bill was still incorrect, we filed a BBB complaint. In the complaint, we requested the employee discount to be processed and the credit backdated to 07/15; plus, we requested a one-time bill credit of $100 for T-Mobile to keep our service, primarily because we have experienced numerous billing , technical, and customer service problems over the last couple of years, some of which had to be cleared up through the BBB. We received an e-mail from Ruben Amore through T-Mobile corporate soon after the report was filed. We re-sent the paystub, sent a print screen of the original e-mail sent, and he agreed to backdate the employee discount. But he misread the BBB complaint and stated he would give us a total bill credit of $100 as requested. My wife e-mailed him back and stated that was not what she had requested, and she re-explained the request. In addition, she asked him to break down the bill in writing, because the bill still looked off. We should be billed $60 a month for my phone line and $30 for hers before the employee discount. The employee discount is about $12 a month, so before taxes, the bill should be around $78. When he e-mailed her back, the itemization reflected warranties on both phones. I only authorized a warranty on my phone for $3.99 a month, because I have a $400 phone. My wife still carries a flip phone that is worth about $30. So needless to say, it would be ridiculous to warranty her phone for $3.99 a month, because we could go out and replace it for less. Therefore, she requested a bill credit for the $3.99 a month on her phone going back to the original date of billing, because neither of us authorized the charge.

On 11/9/2015, we received a response from Ruben Amore through the BBB. He now states they refuse to give us the compensation as requested because they have to refund the warranty charge. Moreover, he states they are only going to give us a $100 total credit. This doesn’t even cover the warranty and backdating the employee discount. If the warranty was first billed 02/13, this is about 33 months of $3.99 a month or about $135 total for just the warranty refund. In addition, they agreed to backdate the employee discount. Since this goes back to 07/15, it is about four months of charges or around $50. So based on the refund alone, T-Mobile should be giving us a bill credit of around $195 (not counting what they should have to refund us in sales tax). This amount also includes the $10 for the phone line that was never credited properly. Finally, because Ruben originally agreed to compensating us for all the problems, I don’t see how it is legal from a billing perspective to go back on the bill credit for the billing problems, previous technical problems, and poor customer service (including this experience). So we are still asking for the $100 credit for all the problems in order to keep our business, for a total adjustment of about $285. Finally, it is worthy to note that each month T-Mobile billed us for the warranty that we didn’t agree to is billing fraud. It is also mail fraud. So it isn’t legal for T-Mobile to not credit the account for the full amount of warranty. Moreover, if they agreed to backdate the employee discount due to their own error on more than one occasion, and we have records of the original e-mail sent, this also should qualify as billing and mail fraud, because they should have processed the discount as agreed. Finally, if they agreed to give us compensation for all of the problems experienced in writing through the BBB, I don’t see how it is legal to renege on the agreement after they found out that they also have to refund for a warranty that was never agreed to.

I've turned this problem over to our state attorney general and the FCC. If you've had similar billing problems, I'd suggest filing your own reports. Here is an itemized listing of all the billing problems we've had in the last two years:

1) Billing for directory assistance charges when they were notified that they gave a wrong phone number

2) Billing us for an incorrect rate plan and failing to fix the problem or to credit for the error

3) Failing to promptly apply a corporate discount to the account on two seperate occasions even after employment was verified

4) Billing us for warranty charges on one phone when a warranty was not purchased

5) Other strange billing amounts on items never purchased or ordered (see online class action lawsuits)

Other problems have included:

1) Sending defective replacement phones on a warrantied line on at least three seperate occasions, all within 3 months of each other 

2) Problems with our local T-Mobile store (e.g. entering wrong rate plans, incorrectly updating Galaxy phone, etc)

3) Poor customer service