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Today I received word from Zeb's dad that T-Mobile has changed its mind and won't hold Zeb or his family responsible for the bogus charges. His email is below. More »
Update: Immediately after posting this, T-Mobile announced the service was back up. More »
Photo: MyGift
—>Codenamed "Project Dark," Tmobile has launched a $79.99 unlimited plan with no annual contract. More »
—>If you've been waiting impatiently to get your data back on your Sidekick, here's your opportunity. IntoMobile reports that T-Mobile has posted data retrieval instructions on its website. They note that most but not necessarily all contacts should be there, but if you're one of the unlucky few who lost all of your data, T-Mobile has a shiny $100 gift card for you. More »
—>Maybe those lawsuits over the Sidekick data outage were a little premature. Microsoft, parent company of Sidekick maker Danger Inc, reports that they have recovered most, if not all, of users' lost data. Yay! More »
—>Amber is a pre-paid Sidekick owner who has been a T-Mobile customer for 7 years. After the recent T-Mobile data disaster, she doesn't intend to get burned again. She wants to switch to a different phone, and she wants T-Mobile to buy back her Sidekick since they can't deliver the data security they promised. Initially T-Mobile agreed, but then they pulled a Sidekick Data Outage on their promise and it disappeared forever. More »
—>After T-Mobile Sidekick users lost data access for the better part of a week, then lost the information stored on their phones, it should surprise no one that the lawsuits are already flying. Though it is surprising that none of them were filed by Perez Hilton. More »
—>This time last week, we thought of the T-Mobile Sidekick data outage as a mere inconvenient outage, but a temporary one. We grossly misunderstimated how badly T-Mobile and Danger/Microsoft could screw things up. More »
—>If T-mobile's normal channels fail, you can try calling T-Mobile Executive Customer Relations. Here's a contact: Octavio Robertson, 505-341-8059. More »
—>We've been receiving mail from outraged T-Mobile Sidekick users all weekend, reporting nationwide data outages since Friday. For many users, this includes lack of access to not just e-mail and IM, but also address books unless saved to the SIM. More »
—>Sometimes, the executive e-mail carpet bomb, or EECB, is too blunt an instrument. When Joe had a problem with T-Mobile, he elected to send a LGEB, or laser-guided e-mail bomb, just to CEO Robert Dotson, with great results. More »
—>It's no secret that AT&T's cell network sucks (and, yes, that is the scientific term for the state of the company's infrastructure). Fortunately, AT&T has come up with a solution to dead zones and overtaxed circuits: The AT&T 3G MicroCell, a router-like device that will let you experience the magic of using your mobile phone in your very own home! Of course, magic doesn't come free — or cheap. AT&T is testing the MicroCell now, and is charging subscribers $150 for the box, plus $20 a month for the magic of, you know, using your own freaking phone in your own damn home. More »
—>Tmobile will be raising overage rates September 1st, and customers can use it to cancel without early termination fee. More »
—>A new survey from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compared annual costs around the world for consumers who have cellphones, and the U.S. is in the top three for most expensive. How expensive? DSLReports notes that "on average, the OECD found that Americans pay $635.85 on cell phone service, compared to $131.44 per year in the Netherlands or $137.94 per year in Sweden." More »
—>If you're a T-Mobile USA customer who likes to kick it old-school with a paper bill, checks, stamps and whatnot, bad news. Starting September 12, you'll be charged $1.50 per account for the privilege of receiving your bill by mail. More »
—>David Pogue's continuing crusade against useless voicemail instructions knocked loose an excellent suggestion for anyone willing to re-record their voicemail greeting. Too often the standard voicemail greeting is: "Hi, you've reached so-and-so. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you." Why not make it more useful, something like: "Hi, you've reached so-and-so. Please press star (or whichever command applies to your carrier) to leave a message." More »
—>Here's the secret codes for skipping long-ass cellphone voicemail intros that cellphone companies don't want you to know about: Just remember "one star pound." More »
—>Reader Greg accidentally ran his iPhone through the washing machine. Whoops. Luckily, he still had his old BlackBerry from his days with T-Mobile, so he swapped in his AT&T SIM card to the BlackBerry and fired it up. Unfortunately, his BlackBerry was still locked by T-Mobile, and they didn't feel like helping a former customer. More »
—>Fashioning itself a jolly green giant, T-Mobile USA is getting in on money-saving and environmentalist fads by offering a Green Mobile Coupon application that lets its customers access coupons they can scan at cash registers to save on environmentally friendly items. More »
If you've been a prompt-paying T-Mobile customer for 22 months or more, you can still sign up for their "Loyalty Unlimited" offering—$50/mo for unlimited calling—through the end of this month. [IntoMobile] More »
—>A T-Mobile customer in Oregon purchased a Modest Mouse ringtone from T-Mobile, but she says what was sent to her phone instead was a pornographic picture of what appeared to be a child. Everyone can calm down, though—T-Mobile assured her that they wouldn't charge her for it. More »
If you own a G1 phone from T-Mobile, Google has added a special barcode scanning feature to its Product Search page just for you. Yeah, you've already got other barcode scanning apps, but this one integrates with Google's search functionality so you can scan and see product search results in Google immediately. [Phandroid] More »
—>When a system update caused service failures and bugs in T-Mobile customers' unlocked iPhones, the users emailed T-Mobile to alert them to the issue. Even though T-Mobile doesn't offer the iPhone, they fixed the bugs and gave the users a service credit for the inconvenience. More »
—>Say you got a problem with your cellphone company and you want it solved, pronto. You've already called regular customer service and they're either unable or unwilling to help you, or you're just sick of waiting on hold. You've got things to do! That's where executive customer service comes in handy. Just about every big company has a pack of these people who can basically walk on water within the company and get any problem solved. The key is reaching them. Naturally, you won't find them in an overseas call center at the end of the 1-800 number. Rather, they're attached to the corporate headquarters executive offices. Don't worry, we did the hard part for you. Here's up-to-date phone numbers for the executive customer service departments for Sprint, Verizon, T-mobile, and AT&T: More »
T-Mobile is running a "flip your pearl" promotion right now, where you can trade in your old Blackberry for at least $75 (or another phone for $50) when you buy and activate a new Blackberry from them. Your trade-in phone will have to meet certain conditions for the offer to apply. [FlipYourPearl via IntoMobile] More »
—>Chris was surprised to find that T-Mobile didn't cancel his account as promised a few months ago. What's worse, the note on his account that mentioned his cancellation request was missing, and nobody at customer service would help him. Chri works for a "very large consumer electronics company" that he won't name (we're pretty sure it's Apple) and thinks customer service is important, so he gave up on the CSR angle and instead came to our site to find contact info for T-Mobile executives. One EECB later, Chris is free from T-Mobile and the ETF they tried to apply. More »
—>Sorry T-Mobile customers, buying a new phone will cost an extra $18 now that the telecom has resurrected the handset upgrade fee killed off last December. The telecom apparently couldn't handle going months without the cash-generating but otherwise useless fee, which T-Mobile described as "a real customer dissatisfier." More »
—>Taylor just noticed that T-Mobile has been billing him $19.99 for a data package he asked them to cancel seven months ago. Yes, Taylor should've caught the mistake sooner, but now that he's found it, he wants T-Mobile to refund the $140 in unauthorized charges. T-Mobile, citing policy, is only willing to credit him $60. More »
—>A pair of friends in Pennsylvania decided to pursue the world record for text messaging. After they reached 217,000 texts, they learned that one of their providers, T-Mobile, really had an upper limit to "unlimited" texting, and sending 217,000 texts led to a $26,000 phone bill that cost $27 just to mail. More »
—>An international cellphone giant VS the big blue monster... what is your whim? More »
—>The rumor was true—T-Mobile has started offering cheaper unlimited voice plans to existing customers. Matthew wrote to us, "The TMO loyalty plans are showing up on the site as of today...we just moved to the Unlimited Loyalty Family Plan at $89.99, which is $10 cheaper than the 2000 minute Family Plan we'd been on." More »
—>IntoMobile says that there's a leaked screenshot going around that suggests new pricing due March 1st from T-Mobile. Among the new plans: $50/month for unlimited anytime minutes, and family plans starting at $90/month with additional lines at $40/month. There's also a rumored $135 credit if you add a line and move a number over from another carrier. Is it true? We'll know in about a week. More »
T-Mobile came in first in a J.D. Power and Associates study of cellphone customer care performance, with 755 out of a possible 1,000 points. Actually, though, all the carriers came in above the 700 point range except for Sprint, which was in the 600s. [RCR Wireless] More »
—>So one of our readers posted that Tmobile complaint video (Tmobile: Pay $25.65 To Talk To Us About How We Overcharged You For $25.65) in the official Tmobile forums, where it was promptly deleted by the forum moderators because the video contains cursing. That's not the special part, the special part is that the forum mod contacted the poster and admitted that what lundyncanada is experiencing is an error and they're going to try to reach out to her and solve her problem. So for those of you who ragged on her for expressing her frustration and said that cursing doesn't get you anywhere, you were wrong. Here's Benny's post and the messages the mod sent in reply: More »
—>In a contemporary version of the safe that's locked by the key inside it, lundyncanada's YouTube [NSFW, cursing] shows and us how Tmobile won't let her speak to customer service until she pays the $25.65. What does she need to talk to them about? How they're overcharged her by $25.65. Video inside... More »
—>Hey, did you know that people who don't use their cellphone very often can save money by switching to a pre-paid cellphone plan? They're not just for people who can't get regular cellphones anymore! In fact, many smart, frugal people avoid contact hassles and save money by getting a pre-paid phone. More »
—>Wanna save on your Tmobile bill? Ask your company's partnership rep if they have an employer discount available. Then you can call Tmobile Corporate Migrations at 877-453-8824 and claim your discount. In fact, if you Google that number, you can find the names of a number of companies and organizations that give their members Tmobile discounts. Perhaps you belong to one of them. (Thanks to Romeo!) (Photo: Ed Yourdon) More »
—>A Time Out New York reporter paid nearly double MSRP for a new G1 phone she bought off Times Square from Cellular Stop. After she realized she'd been had (internet access and texting were sold to her as "add-ons"), she went back to the store asking for an explanation. Instead, she says, six clerks began circling her and her friends, screaming and cursing and threatening to "break" their "fucking faces." Her friend was tossed against a wall and another clerk tried to smash her camera. More »
—>Bill says that an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) follow up to a BBB complaint solved his $500 billing dispute with TMobile, and he couldn't be happier. More »
—>Inside, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for over 100 different companies to inject your customer service complaints into their corporate executive offices, and get it well on the way to success. More »
—>The national wireless carriers have responded to the Senate's request for information on why its text-messaging fees have doubled over the past three years. Their collective response: they haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper—and your public suspicion of our business practices has led to lots of class action lawsuits! More »
The similar price increases, coming at similar times, Kohl said, "is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace." More »
The sales rep did his song and dance and insisted that I test out the phone service for 2 weeks. I said no a few times but he wouldn’t hear it. Well, he gave me 2 phones and 2 phone numbers. No credit check, no money whatsoever. I walked out of the store with 2 free phones and some paper work. More »
—>Hate long-term cellphone contracts? Starting August 6th, Tmobile will be the first national carrier to offer month-to-month plans, straight up. More »
—>Tmobile is trying to impose certain new restrictions on people trying to cancel their contract without early termination fee (ETF) over the recent text message rate increase. Based on an email between a reader and Tmobile's executive customer service team, to qualify for ETF-free cancellation a customer: More »
—>As the second coming of the Jesusphone 3G draws near, we wanted to remind customers of other wireless carriers that there are ways to escape your existing cellphone contract free of early termination fees, and trade your piddling Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile bills for hundreds of pages of gloriously itemized AT&T charges. Or just switch carriers. More »
—>With the debut of that new super iPhone thing only a few short days away, now is the time to threaten your current cellphone company. What's that? You have no intention of switching cellphone companies for the iPhone? Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon's retention reps don't know that. Do they? More »
—>Discounting or pro-rating the early termination fees that cellphone companies love to tack on to their contracts is becoming more common, so we thought we'd make some graphs that show the strengths and weaknesses of the different policies. As you can see, T-Mobile 2-year ETF doesn't make any discounts until fairly late in the contract period — and their ETF of $200 is higher than either of the other two companies that offer discounts. (Sprint does not pro-rate or discount its ETF.) T-Mobile's ETF does, however, reach a point where their discounts are steeper than Verizon and AT&T's pro-rating. More »
—>Want to get out of your T-mobile cellphone contract without paying a $200 early termination fee? Now you can. T-mobile is raising its text message rates August 29th to 20 cents per message. This counts as what is known as a "materially adverse change of contract." Under standard contract law, if one party changes the terms of the agreement in a way that financially harms the other party, then the contract is void. If the contract is void, so is any stipulation that you be charged a fee for breaking it (especially as technically they broke it first). You will have much better success arguing its a materially adverse change of contract if you are not currently in an unlimited text message plan. You don't have to wait until August to escape, members of the Slickdeals forums are already reporting success escaping without penalty. Stay tuned to The Consumerist for more information and tips on using this money-saving tactic. More »
—>Tmobile just announced that they will let early termination fees decline over the course of a contract. Previously, you had to pay the full monty whether canceled on the first day, or last day, of your contract. This chart shows you how the new fee breaks down over time: More »
—>If you've ever received cell phone spam, you know how infuriating it can be—especially if you pay by the message. David Pogue of the New York Times recently got hit with a spate of junk text messages on his Verizon plan, and he figured out how to block most of them. If you're with AT&T or Verizon you can block any messages sent through the Internet, as well as change your text message address to an alias to thwart number-guessing spammers. Sprint will let you block specific addresses. T-Mobile lets you block email messages and set up filters based on specific phrases. Login info below. More »
—>Here is a new number to reach T-mobile Executive Customer Service: More »
—>We get a lot of questions and complaints about the cellphone shopping process, so we thought we'd put together a list of 5 things consumers say to cellphone sales reps that they really should just keep to themselves. Enjoy. More »
The Supreme Court rejected T-Mobile's appeal in 3 cases yesterday, which means an earlier federal ruling that says states "can refuse to enforce arbitration clauses if they include bans on class actions" will stand. Now T-Mobile has to go back to state courts to deal with the class action lawsuits against it. [Associated Press] More »
—>Jacob writes: More »
—>A link to the following letter to T-Mobile's president just popped into our inbox. It seems that if you receive a T-Mobile Sidekick for Christmas and it's defective... your options are fairly limited. T-Mobile's best solution to your broken phone? Sell it on eBay. More »
Kapil's brand new Blackberry arrived with a battery that won't charge. He wants T-Mobile to exchange it, but he says T-Mobile wants to replace it with a refurbished Blackberry instead of a new model. Kapil is fighting back, but even at the executive support level all he's found are rude, uncooperative T-Mobile employees who keep saying there's a process, and that someone will call him back—which never happens. Kapil refused to hang up on the fourth day and demanded to know what happens next after nobody calls back, which seemed to confuse and anger the T-Mobile rep he was speaking with. And for those of you who can't listen in, we've transcribed some of the juiciest parts. More »
—>Update on that outsourced Tmobile call center that banned paper and pens earlier this week: our insider reports that Kleenex is now verboten as well. He furthermore notes that, "paper and pens, if they are to be used, have to be signed out from a supervisor. When signed back in, the paper is shredded by the supervisor." Any reps feeling the need to cry about their vaporizing dignity can use the back of their sleeve, after their request form is approved. A comment from our previous post explains why this might be a bad idea... More »
—> More »
—>Citing trademark infringement concern, T-mobile is demanding that gadget blog site Engadget Mobile stop using magenta in its logo. In a letter posted sent to Engadget, T-Mobile pronounced, "Based on the different character of the goods and services offered by the Deusche Telekom Group and Weblogs, we assume that it is in the best interest of both of our entities to ensure that the particular services can be clearly separated and that consumers are not confused..." And it's not an early April Fool's joke, they say. It's not totally unreasonable, there is precedent for this sort of thing. Like the time T-Mobile sued a small a book-on-demand-publisher for having magenta in its logo. More »
—> In a letter to Sprint, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has asked the companies whether or not they're going to start pro-rating their Early Termination Fee policies as promised, reports RCR Wireless. "Sens. Klobuchar and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) are co-sponsors of a sweeping wireless consumer protection bill" that carriers are against. In her letter, Klobuchar writes, "It is time for the wireless companies to adhere to the assurances they made to the American consumer and start pro-rating these fees." In response, Sprint said by the end of Q2 2008, T-Mobile said the first half of 2008, and AT&T Mobility said nothing at all. (Verizon already pro-rates their ETF.) More »
—> Jason bought a couple of new Sidekick phones, but quickly discovered that he and his wife couldn't live with the abysmal battery life. He called T-Mobile and found out that he had a 14-day window during which he could return the phones for a full refund. Before he sent them back in, however, T-Mobile offered to send him two more batteries via expedited shipping to see if the experience would improve. Jason agreed and tested the new batteries, but still wanted to return the phone. But now he had a problem: he was one day outside his "Buyer's Remorse" period and T-Mobile wouldn't let him. More »
—>Tricia asks:
Tmobile is not budging regarding $1500 dollars worth of charges on a SIM card that was stolen from my lost phone and put into another device. Its so obvious the phone was stolen, my bill is typically $40 a month, the person took someone out of my "Fave 5" and put in someone named Mostofo. I called Mostofo who said he wants to help "find the criminal" but Tmobile says they don't really care about the fact that it was stolen, that I owe the total amount regardless. Super annoying! Anything I can do? I get that Tmobile says, until I officially report it stolen I'm responsible for the charges, I just think that's ridiculous when its SO obvious the charges aren't mine.More »
—> Ric L. is having problems with T-Mobile's CSRs—specifically, they don't seem capable of actually making any changes to his account or recording anything about his calls, and when that leads to $75 in extra fees, they say they can't fix it and offer him "free" text messages. Ric says he suspects the CSR he talked to "takes the responsibilities of his job about as seriously as a cat with a ball of yarn," but we all know that's incredibly disrespectful to cats everywhere, who take their various activities quite seriously. Read Ric's email to T-Mobile after the jump. More »
Katie says her Sidekick wasn't connecting to the network for the past day or so, so she "called T-Mobile and there's an outage in NYC affecting all gprs-using devices (sidekicks, blackberries, etc)." They gave her a $5 credit for compensation, so if you're in a similar situation you might want to call T-Mobile to complain. More »
Blackberry smartphones are screwed up! There's a massive outage going on in "the Americas" says RIM. More »
—>Tmobile is yet again as number one in customer care., according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Wireless Customer Care Rating. Tmobile scored 105, Verizon comes just behind at 101, Alltell and AT&T tie at 99, and Sprint puts in a poor showing at 83. The survey measures quality of interaction with customer service reps, automated response systems, in-store visits, and online chats. Tmobile consistently ranks high on the survey due to a company culture dedicated to solving problems on the first call. As for the other providers? The subheading on the rating agency's press release says it all, "When Customer Care Issues Are Handled by an Automated Response System Wireless Provider Performance Drops Dramatically" More »
—>Tmobile was hit with a class action suit yesterday over its charging customers for unwanted text messages. Unscrupulous marketers can get your cellphone number, send you "premium" texts (for dating services, daily jokes, horoscopes, etc), and then have Tmobile bill you for them. Tmobile gets to keep a piece of the profit. Other cellphone companies let you disable text messages sent from the internet, where most text spam originates, or turn off text messages all together. Tmobile has refused to give customers this option. More »
—>A class action lawsuit can proceed in Washington after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled T-Mobile's mandatory binding arbitration clause "unconscionable and unenforceable under Washington state law." More »
—>ExecutiveResponse@T-Mobile.com is the email address for Tmobile's team of high-echelon customer service specialists. One of our readers was able to use this email address to get Tmobile to give her a rebate she felt the cellphone company had unfairly denied. More »
—>Victory has found the reader reader who couldn't get any calls on his Tmobile phone, and yet they wouldn't let him leave service without paying the dreaded Early Termination Fee. First he called the Retentions department number we gave him. They said they would cut the fee in half, but still charge him. "Considering the amount of time I spent on the phone, they should be paying me," wrote Evan. Then one of Tmobile's PR people stepped in, waved a magic wand, and now Tmobile is doing what they legally should have done all along, let Evan go without charging an ETF. More »
—>Evan sent the following complaint letter to Tmobile's CEO:
I am a T-Mobile customer from Miami, FL. I am writing you to report the unconscionable treatment I have received from T-Mobile over the past six months. For the past six months I have received no cellular reception in my area. After repeated calls and technical checks, the T-Mobile technical team issued a report stating that there is no coverage in my home and T-Mobile has no intention of upgrading the service in my area. I was initially told that upgrading my equipment to a new phone may resolve my issue. After a contract renewal and significant expense for the new equipment, my service is no better than it was previously.More »
—>Worried about consuming any type of food at the former location of the infamous rat-infested KFC/Taco Bell in New York City? We are too. That's why we're glad to hear that the new tenant is non other than our giant magenta friend, T-Mobile. More »
—>If regular Tmobile customer service fails ya, you could always try faxing their executive resolution team. It might do you as much good as faxing the local Chinese store, but hey, it pays to dream. More »
—>Mike had his phone stolen and $239 in fraudulent calls made to Africa on November 4th, and even though he reported the charges on November 5th, Tmobile says he still has to pay up. Their inviolable policy is that you're responsible for the charges up until you report the phone as stolen. Mike recorded his failed attempts to get Tmobile to credit his account. More »
A reader reports that Tmobile customers can access their accounts again over the phone and internet again. Previously, the giant West Coast storm had knocked the system out of commission. More »
Hey ya'll. I just wanted to alert your readers to the fact the T-Mobile USA's customer care (1-800-937-8997) is offline right now. It has been since sometime yesterday. Apparently they house all their system stuff in Seattle, WA or Portland, OR or one of those currently waterlogged states. Well, it has caused all their stuff to crash. I called last night and then again this morning and waited past their automated system telling me that they could not view my account info thru the IVR and that the CSR's were unable to view my account info and to call back later. I spoke with a polite rep Cassie who said that they did not have an ETR on when their systems would be back up and running and that I should try calling back later on today.We called T-Mobile and sure enough they're currently unable to pull up anyone's account info due to the storms. No word on when it will be back up. More »
It was fun (though not cheap) while it lasted—a German court has reversed last month's lower court ruling against T-Mobile, meaning it can once again sell iPhones exclusively locked to its network. [Associated Press] More »
—>Verizon's next generation of devices will run on the GSM network that will be used by AT&T and T-Mobile, meaning that in a few years, customers with unlocked phones will be able to move between the three providers without purchasing new equipment. Verizon currently uses a CDMA network along with Sprint, but last week announced that it would use the GSM-protocol LTE (Long Term Evolution) for their fourth-generation data services. Note, Verizon's LTE phones will not be backwards-compatible with the current GSM networks run by AT&T and T-Mobile. Both are expected to support LTE. And don't expect to see the new phones anytime soon... More »
—>Ars Technica says that T-Mobile has been forced to sell unlocked iPhones in Germany for just under US $1,500. The (temporary?) unlocked iPhone sale is a result of a lawsuit brought by Vodaphone (which is part of Verizon here in the U.S.) that claimed locking a phone to one carrier violated German law. More »
—> We've been covering One Laptop Per Child's "Buy One Get One" deal because it's a cheap way to get a very unique, kid-friendly laptop, and because at the end of the year a lot of people are looking for places to burn off some extra tax-deductible donations. But now that OLPC is rolling in one year of free T-Mobile access, the deal just turned into a true bargain—if you meet a couple of conditions. More »
—>Starting today, Tmobile will charge existing customers $18 when they buy a new phone. In an email shared with The Consumerist by an inside source, Tmobile told dealers that the new fee will help underwrite the cost of selling subsidized phones to new customers. Tmobile told dealers that acting positive when mentioning the fee would help to discourage customers from raising objections. Oddly enough, if an existing customer upgrades their phone without extending their contract, the fee will not be assessed. More »
—>T-Mobile sent reader Ivan's account to collections after he twice cancelled his service. He first cancelled in August, but T-Mobile mysteriously lost the cancellation letter. Ivan faxed over a second cancellation letter while a CSR waited on the phone to confirm receipt. Having switched to Verizon, Ivan didn't care when in September, someone stepped on the T-Mobile phone lying in his car, breaking the screen. T-Mobile is now demanding that Ivan pay a bill that lists only a reinstatement fee. Ivan writes: More »
—>"I woke up this morning particularly frustrated and decided today was the day I was chaining myself to the local t-mobile counter. You know they make you feel like you could be capable of these things. I thought if I wore my best shoes and handbag, people would know I wasn't crazy :). Deciding against this course of action after about 3 coffee's, I searched on the internet. After about 30 minutes, I found your article." More »
Apparently, T-Mobile has trademarked the color magenta and has even sued one other company over their use of the color in an advertisement. Um, what? In other news, we're looking into trademarking kitty cats and science. [ColourLovers] More »
Nadine writes:
I recently switched to T-mobile thinking I would get better service at a fair rate. Unfortunately, since the onset of my contract with T-mobile this hasn't been the case. In the past three months I have experienced major communication difficulties. I have been unable to receive phone calls and many of my text messages are not going through. I have been calling T-Mobile's customer care to no avail regarding this problem and they informed me that they were experiencing network difficulties in New York City. They claimed that the problems were being worked on. As time passed I continued to experience the same difficulties but to a greater degree. My callers had to text me because they couldn't get through when calling. I called for help but there was a different excuse given as to why the service wasn't working... More »
—>Customer satisfaction with buying cellphones at stores fell this year, reports J.D. Power and Associates in the recently released 2007 Wireless Retail Sales Satisfaction StudySM-Volume 2. More »
—> Sprint will relinquish unlock codes to departing customers in good standing as part of proposed class action settlement.The class was formed last year by California consumers who argued that the locked phones bound them to Sprint by making it more expensive to switch carriers. Sprint claimed that releasing the codes was unnecessary since the service contract clearly informed consumers that phones would only work on Sprint's network. More »
—>T-Mobile is demanding that reader Motoko, a victim of fraud, immediately pay $1,100 before she can port her number to rival Sprint. Last month, Motoko discovered erroneous charges on her bill totaling $1,766; T-Mobile readily admitted that the charges were fraudulent, and told the BBB and Consumerist that Motoko would receive an immediate refund. Instead of a refund, T-Mobile sent Motoko's another bill and suspended her service. Now, almost a full month after T-Mobile's PR henchmen at Waggener Edstrom claimed that the company had provided a "satisfactory resolution," Motoko checked in with another update:
T-Mobile has only given me a partial amount of the credit they promised me in the BBB response. I've only gotten $454 back out of the $1,766. Their new response on the BBB website states that my October bill will reflect the full reimbursement of my credit. Unfortunately, the October bill is still $1,100+ and it shows that the second fraudulent line is still active. More »
—> Maybe the T-Mobile lawsuit has scared AT&T a bit, because they've announced that they're changing their early termination policy: they will now prorate termination fees instead of charging a flat fee. They're also removing the policy that required existing customers to extend a current agreement or sign up for a new one when changing their level of service. No word on when these changes will go into effect, but there's nothing on their website yet. More »
—>Here's the current text-message rate plans for the different cellphone providers. Most providers also offer unlimited text message plans: AT&T: $19.99 a month, Sprint: $20 a month, T-Mobile: $14.99 a month, Verizon: Unlimited messaging isn't optional feature, but it is part of the America's Choice Select Plan. More »
—> On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court refused to review two earlier findings, which killed T-Mobile's final chance at blocking a lawsuit against its early-termination fees and practice of locking phones. This is the third time T-Mobile has tried to stop the case from proceeding, and both a state trial judge and a state appeals court have already rejected T-Mobile's claims that its customers were required by the terms of their contracts to submit to binding arbitration. More »
—>Remember Motoko? T-Mobile sent her a $1,169.84 bill littered with charges from an unidentified number. When Motoko called to complain, T-Mobile admitted that the charges were likely fraudulent, but encouraged Motoko to pay the bill anyway. After posting Motoko's story, T-Mobile's PR watchdogs at Waggener Edstrom got in touch and claimed that the situation was satisfactorily resolved. We updated the post accordingly. Well, Motoko sent us a followup email, and here is her version of T-Mobile's satisfactory resolution:
T-Mobile ended up cutting my line for nonpayment. They simply refused to investigate the matter or to call me back. More »
—>According to Google, Sprint is the suckiest cellphone company. When you query "____ sucks," filling in the name of different providers, Sprint returns the most results. Here's how all the providers stacked up: More »
—>According to Google, Verizon is the coolest cellphone company. When you query "____ is cool," filling in the name of different providers, Verizon is tits. Here's how many results were returned for each company: More »
—>[Fashion Island, Newport Beach, California. Image thanks to Aubrey.] More »
—>If you're one of the 1.1 million people who use SunCom Wireless, welcome to T-Mobile. According to the Wall Street Journal, T-Mobile purchased SunCom for $1.6 billion and will take over net debt of $800 million. In doing so, T-Mobile increases its subscriber base and its network capacity. More »
—>Update: T-Mobile reports that the situation has been satisfactorily resolved. Motoko disagrees. More »
—>Cellphone text message spam is still rare, but annoying, especially as each one usually costs you. If you're experiencing a deluge, often the only way to fight it is to turn off text messaging entirely, but which providers let you? More »
—>T-Mobile refused to process reader Lucas' girlfriend's credit card because she couldn't verify some of her personal information (she's moved a lot and doesn't remember the addresses of old dorm rooms, ect.). After she was rejected she went to another company for her phone... only to find that T-Mobile decided to process her order. More »
—>Ars Technica is reporting that the iPhone has been unlocked. Good news for those of you who wanted to use it with T-Mobile or a foreign GSM carrier. More »
—>Over at Blackberry Cool they're claiming that an AT&T insider told them AT&T had bullied RIM into crippling the Blackberry's GPS features so it wouldn't make the iPhone look bad in comparison. More »
—>Crissy received some txt message spam on her cellphone and was understandably annoyed because incoming txt messages are not included in her package with T-Mobile. More »
—>David Pogue of the NYT has written a gushing article about T-Mobile's new WiFi enabled calling feature:
It's called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it's absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare. More »
—>Listen to the valiant attempt a T-mobile retention rep makes to keep Matt Haughey, Metafilter creator, from canceling and switching to an iPhone. More »
—>A California judge issued an opinion that Tmobile's contract terms forcing customers to go into arbitration instead of being able to sue were, "unconscionable and therefore not enforceable," reports BoingBoing. More »
—>Taking a page from Comcast, T-Mobile sold Shelby Hinds a phone containing 60 images from an online porn gallery associated with another user's account. Shelby purchased the phone from a T-Mobile kiosk at Walmart, where she "watched the salesman take the wrapping off two new phones and program them. " T-Mobile said the porn was Shelby's fault:
...the representative on the phone told her the only way the phone could have those images was if she took the photos herself or if the pictures were sent to her in a text message.Shelby brought the smut phone to a T-Mobile store, where the employees said they had "never seen a problem like this before." T-Mobile is now attributing the porn to a "technical glitch," and will replace the phone free of charge and waive Shelby's activation fees. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER More »
—>A T-mobile text message rate change that just went into effect means that customers can cancel their contract without early termination fee. More »
—>Joseph wanted to cancel his T-mobile contract over their raise in the text-message rates. Legally, this material change of contract voided his previous contract, but T-mobile still wanted to charge him an early termination fee. More »
—>You can get cheap calls on your T-mobile plan by hooking it up with Grand Central, reader Noah's T-mobile bill confirms. More »
—>Here's a roundup of all the contract clauses regarding "materially adverse changes" for all the major cellphone carriers. When they starting charging new fees or raise the price of a service, you can use this section to argue that you need to be let out of contract without early termination fee.... More »
—>Like Sprint, Tmobile also has an employee referral discount program. You can get savings on new plans and service cellphones by going to t-mobile.com/friendsandfamily or calling 1-866-646-4688 and mentioning promo code 4450TMOFAN. More »
—>If you're calling 911 from your house, use your land-line. If you don't have one, be prepared to give your address or location to the 911 operator. Why? From USA Today:
Owing to limitations in Emergency-911 technology, the dispatcher probably won't be able to pinpoint your location. Unless you can get to a pay phone — not an option in this case — you'll probably have to give the dispatcher detailed information about your location so emergency personnel can find you. More »
The inability of students and others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., to make cell phone calls during the April 16 shooting tragedy added to the chaos surrounding the events of the day, students and others have reported in media interviews.According to the article, Verizon is the only wireless carrier admitting to call blocking during the emergency. Cingular claims to have experienced higher volumes but no service interruptions. More »
—>Just like we told you, T-Mobile customers can cancel their cellphone contract without paying an early termination fee, but this time, T-Mobile itself actually made a public statement saying so! More »
—>Kathlene used her mad consumer skills to force T-Mobile into honoring the rebate they were supposed to give her. She slayed their bogus reasons for denying her rebate. She escalated, and escalated. Finally, she emailed an extremely well-crafted letter to CEO Robert Dotson (pictured, looking like a pile of badass). More »
—>Eighteen insider consumer tips from ex-Tmobile customer service representatives Christof and Anon. Oh no, we're not done with that series. Not by a long shot. More »
—>T-mobile has confirmed that starting in June, there will be a increase in text messaging rates for users who do not subscribe to a text messaging plan. As Consumerist readers well know, this means that if you don't have a text messaging plan the rate hike constitutes a materially adverse change and you have the legal right to terminate your contract with no ETF per T-Mobile's Terms and Conditions. More »
—>There's a chain email going around with some T-Mobile contact information attached to it claiming that if you do not register your cell phone with the "Do Not Call" list in 12 days, T-Mobile will be forced to release your number to telemarketers. More »
—>Over the past week, it's been quite a learning experience here at The Consumerist. Former and current reps from all of the major wireless companies have written in, sharing their tips and tricks and confessing their sins. It's been a fascinating look inside the daily life of a sales rep, but what have we learned? More »
—>T-Mobile doesn't want to be left out of the fun! One of their sales reps has generously and selflessly written down his innermost thoughts and sent them to the Consumerist for your personal edification. Bask in the glory of Confessions of a T-Mobile Sales Rep... More »
—>Taking a break from our whirl of ex-cellphone reps revenging themselves on their former employers, here's a current T-mobile retention rep telling you how to handle the cancellation call, as well as a perspective on their thought processes. More »
—>Having trouble finding the special number for a specific department at your cellphone provider? Just feel like bypassing the intermediary customer service reps who might end up disconnecting the call or transferring you to the janitor's closet? More »
—>Contact information for the CEOs of major cellphone companies. You'll never get to talk to them, but at least your issue will get under the noses of their near and dear underlings. More »
—>It appears that Microsoft and T-Mobile have teamed up to offer free T-Mobile HotSpot Wifi to users of Windows Vista starting January 30th through April 30th. The promotion actually goes live today, the 26th, but that's a "secret." Oooh, rumors on the internets. Check out Microsoft and T-Mobile's incredibly odd website for more details.—MEGHANN MARCO More »
So obviously Graham's next logical step was to make a nearly incomprehensible youtube cartoon with kittens, a hiphop sock puppet, and a sad and misunderstood megacorp glob. More »
Who knew that wanting to buy a whole bunch of crap from T-mobile was fraud? Reader Christine writes: More »
- I work for the big pink t, and i can confirm that My Faves will work on any phone. The difficulty lies in activating the plan. Employees at a store can't activate it in their system....Customer service can't add it if you order it for an existing account over the phone. More »
- Just a quick tip: T-Mobile is offering a set of plans that allows unlimited calling to five numbers (their "my-faves" plan). However, they advertise that you need to buy a new, compatible phone to receive this service. This is simply not true. Although the service reps claim otherwise, you can actually sign up for the service and simply use the new SIM card you receive in any phone. After confronting several service reps about this, I was told that this is in fact true, but that they are "not supposed to tell anyone."
Do you have TMobile? If you do, you might be able to use GrandCentral to forward calls to your cell phone, add your Grand Central number to your "five faves" and everyone who calls your Grand Central number counts as a "fave." More »
—>Now that your phone is your own, you can unlock it. Depending on the type of phone it is, unlocking can be as simple as getting a code from your phone company, or as difficult as "drilling into a shield over the main circuit board to tap into the right contacts and kicking the phone into a special diagnostic mode to get at the unlocking code." Uh, yeah. Thankfully there are smart people at PC Magazine who can give us the lowdown on the formerly shady practice of unlocking a cell phone.Yay! More »
—>A crinkle appeared in our once happy story of how easy it was for us to get a refund from T-mobile hotspot. More »
Reader Miss_smartypants bought a new PEBL cellphone from T-mobile, free after $50 rebate. After she sent in the rebate forms, she saw a notice on T-mobile's site for the phone free, straight up, with no rebate business. She called to request a pricematch so she wouldn't have to wait for the rebate. More »
—>T-mobile's hotspot this morning in the Charlotte airport didn't let us on the internet, but were still charged $9.99. Visions of David Berlind's similar battle dancing in our eyes, we called up T-Mobile, demanded a refund, and got it. Word. More »
—>The US Copyright office killed cellphone crippleware companies locking your phone to their sepecific service last week. We heard about this but didn't post anything, as we didn't see anything actually compelling cellphone companies to let you enjoy the full use of your phone. full phone portability. More »
Someone give this guy a medal, not just of the chocolate kind. — BEN POPKENMore »
—>Inside, the phone number and mailing address for the CEOs of every major US cellphone carrier. More »
• How does copyright work when the material is in a library? [Link] More »
—>Sometimes Ben uses the royal 'we' in confusing ways, like when he talks about 'our' appearance on 20/20 (his!), 'our' meeting with Edelmann (his!) and 'our' girlfriend (which, god willing, Ben doesn't know about). More »
—>Last week, David complained about T-Mobile charging him double what he expected. When he phoned the cellphone company, they disputed the basis of his complaint, calling him a liar. We posted the story. More »
—>Today it's Verizon, not T-mobile, that draws the ire of the Consumerist readers. Doesn't anyone have some shit to talk about U.S. Cellular? We seems to be missing them this week. Anyway, John lives in different time zone than his girlfriend. He uses T-mobile. She uses Verizon. They wanted to use in-network calling, so John, being the chivalrous guy that he is, trucked on over to a Verizon store, ported his number, bought a phone, and thought that was that. More »
—>By T-Mobile's logic, a broken phone that they sold you is your burden to bear. Is the battery faulty? You pay the shipping. $20. More »
—>David is very unhappy with T-Mobile. Last month he upgraded to a PDA phone in order to receive his emails on-the-go, as so many of us do. Anyway, after some confusion about what features are necessary to accomplish this, David added text messaging to his account via T-Mobile's website and the emails started flowing on in. More »
Our readers are so prepared for a bad outcome in their dealings with a company that they start venting their rage to us even as they simultaneously multitask listening to the meaningless verbal placations of their exotically-accented CSR. When suddenly, right before they hit send, they suddenly get a fair and considerate resolution, we — the collective Consumerist royal 'we' — can almost hear the dual wet pop of their eyeballs bugging from their sockets. More »
—>Today is a bank holiday for the Gawker Media Network but that doesn't mean that the fickle wheel of commerce stops keep spinning round. Here's some updates on consumer's stories we reported on last week. More »
Independent confirmation and the plot thickens! More »
ConsumerAvenger bought a Motorola RAZR v3i quad-band world cellphone on Ebay, with warranty. The phone had full bars wherever she went. Two months later, it stopped working completely. More »
—>Gizmoodo notes the hacker who penetrated T-mobile Sidekick servers and accessed user's private information, has been sentenced to house arrested and ordered to pay T-Mobile $10,000. Among the compromised data set was a Secret Service agent's secret documents and candids of Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Demi Moore (left) and Ashton Kutcher (right, cowboy hat). More »
Wow, this person hates T-mobile so much they plastered it on the back of their car. More »
—>Everyone in America can call Chris's Sprint voicemail for free, except for Chris. He gets charged for it, and in fact, doing so made him go over his airtime minutes. More »
—>We can record you but you can't record us, T-mobile told reader Jeff today. More »
—>On Wednesday, ZDnet blogger David Berlind posted a call of his attempts to extract a refund from T-Mobile hotspot but it's not until today that he found complete satisfaction. More »
Much like beer and hotdogs at the ballpark, airports take advantage of your momentary entrapment to bend you over for the privilege of wi-fi surfing. Against his better judgment, ZDnet's David Berlind tried to use the airport's T-Mobile hotspot and access some important and time-sensitive documents from his office. T-Mobile was more than happy to give him a high signal as he completed the transaction, only for the wifi to completely cut out after they charged his credit card. David recorded his call trying to wrest his dollars back from T-Mobile, listen below. More »
—>A seasoned traveler and journalist, Mike knows how to juggle his cellphones and avoid usurious charges while abroad. Before he leaves for international locales, he records a message on his phone instructing people to only call him on a second, pay-as-you-go mobile. Somehow he still ends up getting dinged. More »
Not just her train tunnel gaze or air of casual refinement, but Catherine Zeta Jones has certain je ne sais quois captivating us towards her ouevre, most recently her dramatic turn as spokesmodel for T-Mobile. More »
—> Shh, no one must know we have their deposits... More »
—>All it took was the force of thousands of people around the world shaming them, and a trip to the police station, but a girl has finally been reunited with her stolen Sidekick. More »
—>Back in February, we ran Sam C's complaint about a T-Mobile price increase for text messages, raising it from five cents to ten cents per message. On the page detailing the change a footnote remarked how long the "discounted" price would remain in effect. Our complainant compared it to the novel 1984, wherein, "Winston notes that people had demonstrated to thank Big Brother because their chocolate ration had been increased to 20 grams. (when it had actually be reduced to 20 from 30)." More »
—>Mat has a sad story. He's a gentleman variety show performer (pictured) who travels throughout Europe during the summer and wanted a good way to stay in contact with his wife. More »
—>Chris writes in a self-described rant about how a debt collection agency is constantly auto-dialing him on his cellphone. He called T-Mobile to see if there's any, "selective call blocking, smoke signals, or death threats" he could deploy to stop the number from harassing him. Short answer: nope. Catherine Zeta Jones is powerless against zombies. More »
My T-Mobile horror story is actually related to our business account. I work for a relatively small telecom company (we don't do wireless) and for about a year my job here was to dispute any errors in billing with our vendors (sad that that's a full time job). More »
—>One of our readers is so upset about the T-Mobile text increase that he wants to gather a coalition of the willing together for a class action lawsuit. More »
—>The extraordinarily named Widgett Walls, who may or may not be a post-modern pornographer, has managed to put an exact price tag on what his custom is worth to T-Mobile: fifty bucks. More »
—>Wondering what the beautiful people hawking an inferior product to you like a slightly more suassive, slightly less smelly used car salesman are making? Look no further. Here's the top 10 highest paid celebrities and the products they are endorsing: More »
—>Through the frosted glass, in walks this dame into our office, she says: More »
—>John Brownlee here. I just want to tell you all that I love my Mom. A four foot eleven firecracker who followed her recent stroke up with a healthy regime of climbing up twenty foot ladders to chainsaw branches down from the roof, she's a hell of a girl. More »
Here's the results of our week-long look into how long it takes humans at various cellphone companies to pick up the phone. Sprint was dead last and an old-school Nextel support line, first. Verizon and T-Mobile trailed not far behind. More »
Only two more days to go in this week's look at how long it takes a human at various mobile phone companies to pick up. More »
Today's results in our week long trial to see how long it takes mobile phone carrier's humans to pick up on the customer service line. More »
All the mobile phone carriers performed very well today. More »
Here's how long it's taking to reach a human at various mobile phone carrier customer service lines today. More »
In the wake of purple ribbons, zombies and looking up words in the dictionary, we thought we might want to try something resembling journalism. To that end, we've started the Time to Human project. More »
—>"...a David [and] Goliath story..." More »
—>Everyone's all about the Razr's "cutting edge" HAR HAR HAR super-thin construction but it looks like they might've left something out in the design, as glitches are causing phonecalls to drop. More »
We rarely link to the Amazon phone rebates, but we have from time to time, and lots of other sites flog the hell out them. For good reason, apparently. Reader John R. — who in an amazing coincidence has the same first name and middle initial as myself — wrote in to admit his foolishness in buying a rebated phone through Amazon.com. A rebate, it should be mentioned, that doesn't turn around for 9 months. More »
—>Sam C. writes in with this heads-up for T-Mobile subscribers, especially those that use a lot of SMS:
Here's a bit of marketing-speak for you. More »
—>We are delighted to have been contacted by Zachary Byron Helm [pictured], the mohawked warrior of T-Mobile's customer service, whose picture we posted just last week. More »
—>We have it on good word that this is a picture from inside a T-Mobile call center. While we want to point out that yes, he frightens us, we have to grudgingly applaud his ability to carve out his own embarrassing style in the midst of a sea of cubicles. More »
—>Lest you think your cell phone records were private—even if you are a high-profile candidate for the U.S. presidency—AMERICAblog has proved you incorrect by purchasing General Wesley Clark's cell phone records for $89.95. More »
—>David Galbraith, founder of Wists, crony of known Hungarians, and guy who can never complete a phone call, hates T-Mobile. That's not the story. Out of any random sample of American cell phone users, at least half would hate T-Mobile. Mostly out of an irrational fear that subscribing to a service hawked by Catherine Zeta Jones could somehow cause pictures of Michael Douglas's bare ass to be beamed through space into their phone, but still. More »
