#tmobilehelp

@DanGordon @JohnLegere We're committed to finding a resolution. We'll fix this. We'll be sending a message shortly. *JakeFord

@DanGordon @JohnLegere Having consistent billing is extremely important. We'll be sending you a DM shortly. *JakeFord

@DanGordon Thank you. I am sending you a DM now! *AmberGr

So, funny story....

I've been tweeting back and forth with @TMobileHelp.  Now they're just completely ignoring me.  That's pretty awesome, considering that I've been paying them at least $100 a month for YEARS, since they took over SunCom.  One of my big complaints has been the abundance of "dead zones" in town, all these wonderful gaps in coverage that have been "SOS ONLY" for years, and that I've reported to TMobile many, many times in the past.  They always want to blame it on my phone, but unfortunately for them, it happens on every other phone I've tried (I've gone through quite a few, from 3G to EDGE to GSM to CDMA to GPRS), and it happens for everyone else I know that still uses TMobile (I used to know about 50, but that number has dwindled to 3 since they ate up SunCom).  In a previous post, I mentioned that a TMobile representative informed me that they have no distinguishing level for "Crap Signal," but rather that it goes from "Moderate" to "Nothing there, buddy," so I guess it makes people feel warm and fuzzy that they've still got "Moderate" signal even if they have to hike to the highest mountain and hold their head sideways to get one single GSM bar.  I've also mentioned that "roaming" doesn't seem to exist in my area, despite the fact that my plan includes free roaming.  It's easy to make it "free" if it just isn't possible, because I can never be charged for something that doesn't exist!

But tonight, I had a wonderful experience that I just had to share......

On my way home from work this evening, my car had issues.  I felt a strange twitch in the gas pedal, and my thermostat immediately spiked to the top, indicating that my car was overheating.  I pulled over to see what was wrong.  I still haven't completely diagnosed the problem, but I believe that the thermostat just needs to be replaced.

Not wanting to drive the remaining 10-or-so miles home with an overheating car, I pulled out my phone to call AAA to get it towed.  But much to my chagrin, my Blackberry showed a familiar thing in the signal area.  Rather than a few bars, it said simply "SOS ONLY."  So, no calling AAA from there!!  So I let the car cool down for 20-30 minutes, and then gently continued my journey home knowing that I would come out of the "dead zone" in a few hundred yards.  I drove until the car was overheating again, and pulled over.  Luckily at this point I did have phone signal!  Having signal in one spot, just a few hundred yards from a familiar dead zone, leads me to believe that perhaps it's not a problem with MY phone, but I've never been able to make anyone at TMobile believe me.

So I called AAA and explained the situation.  I was told that it would be approximately one hour before a towtruck arrived, and I let them know that I was going to attempt to get a bit further down the road once my car had cooled down.  And that's exactly what I did.  I would drive a short distance, pull over, wait for the car to cool down, and repeat the process.  I figured I would get as close as I could to my house, so it would be less distance for the tow.  I think I did my little drive-stop adventure five or six times before I finally decided to stop and wait for the truck.

I bet you'll never guess what happened.....

When I finally stopped to wait, I decided to pull out my laptop, thinking I could get a bit of work done while waiting for a tow.  After about fifteen minutes (that I had been stopped, although it was well over an hour since I had called AAA), I decided to call and check the status of my roadside assistance.  But thanks to the wonders of TMobile, I had been unknowingly sitting in ANOTHER DEAD ZONE!!!  So once again, it was back to starting the car and driving to the next moment of overheating!

When I reached my next cooling-down-destination, I called to check the status of my roadside assistance, only to learn that they had tried to call me, but my phone wasn't working.

Finally, after a few more short trips and longer waits for the car to cool down, I managed to make it home.  Tomorrow, I will spend my morning repairing my car.  I would love to follow that up by cancelling my TMobile service, but since I've already covered the mysterious "extra taxes" that would cost me (and since I'm going to be spending money fixing my car), that isn't really an option for me right now.

I know that T-Mobile obviously doesn't care, either about the various dead zones in town or the fact that I am amazingly dissatisfied with both their phone service AND their customer service, but I still felt this needed to be said, since it just happened to me tonight.  I'm going to once again tweet this to @TMobileHelp, but I'm guessing they aren't going to read it, and I doubt they'll even bother to reply to the tweet.  But this is just another one of my T-Mobile nightmare experiences, so I feel it's only right that I share it with everyone.

I know what you’re all probably thinking: if TMobile is so horribly terrible, why do I still use them?  Why have I stuck with this one company for so long, even though they swallowed up SunCom a few years ago?  Well, I’m going to tell you.  It’s a combination of factors, really, but the overwhelming one is money.  Specifically, the “Early Termination Fee.”  I hadn’t planned on this being the next part in the series, but after browsing through the TMobile website, it convinced me now was as good a time as any.  So let’s take a look, below the fold…..

As I mentioned in the first post, I’m under contract with TMobile because I extended my contract another two years in order to get a shiny new Blackberry, which has been busted for 16 months.  But you can read that over here.  In order to cancel my TMobile service, I would have to pay an “Early Termination Fee,” because I agreed to a contract.  I understand that.  I’m not challenging that, by any means.  They “gave me a deal” on a new phone, and if I didn’t have to stick with them for a while, it wouldn’t make sense.  So they have a $200 “Early Termination Fee” for cancelling the service before the contract expires.  Every phone company has this.

Earlier this year, I’d had enough.  I had endured enough horrible customer service and downright dismal telephone service that I was finally willing to pay up, deal with the $200 early termination fee, and switch companies.  I went two or three rounds with their “Customer Retention Department,” which is basically a group of people willing to apologize and offer tiny little extras in hopes that you will stay with them.  Each time I spoke with Customer Retention, we failed to reach an agreement.  And before you assume that I was asking for tons of free stuff, let me clear that up.  I did say, ONE TIME, that “I probably wouldn’t even be willing to stick with you guys if you gave me a free phone to replace the one I bought when I was lied to about the insurance deductible.”  Every other time, my requests were not monetary, but educational.  I asked for an explanation about whether or not they actually had “roaming agreements.”  I asked them to explain what recourse they had when a representative “misspoke” to someone.  And the one that seemed most unlikely, I asked them to admit that they had made mistakes and mishandled my issues in the past.  I was offered a credit toward a new phone, but only if I was willing to re-sign a new two-year contract.  So, of all the things I asked for, the only one that got a counter-offer was the one that would have actually cost them money.  Considering the issues I’ve had for years (and continue to have now), I declined their offer to extend my contract for another 24 months.

So I called TMobile, and after being greeted with the “TMobile, America’s Largest 4G network, and ranked first in customer service by JD Power and Associates” message, I told the cheerfully-creepy automated system that I wanted “CUSTOMER RETENTION!!”  I didn’t scream it at first, but I did result to that after hearing, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that” two or three times.  When the representative answered the call and asked me how he could help, I said, “I want to cancel my account, and I just need to know how much that’s going to cost me.  I know my contract expires in February, I just need to know if I have to pay the full $200 early termination fee or if it’s less than that.”  Although I can’t remember exactly when I called (it was around 12:30pm, but it could have been anytime between March and June of 2011), I could probably go back and find out if I really tried.

The representative told me that I would have to pay the full $200 early termination fee.  I had already come to terms with that.  “So I can cancel my service right now, go to the store and give them $200, and then head over to Sprint and get a new account?  Can you tell me how much my bill is up to right now?  I need to know exactly how much I have to pay to cut you guys loose.”  He replied, “You can cancel the account now, but you will receive a final bill that includes the early termination fee and the remainder of your bill and the taxes.”  I know that every bill includes taxes, so I didn’t give that much thought.  I asked what day my billing cycle ended, and made a few quick calculations.  “So, if I cancel my account on the 20th or whatever, I can walk into the store, hand them the roughly $102 for my bill and the $200 early termination fee, and I’m done with you guys, right?”

“You will also have to pay the taxes, which are anywhere from $30 to $100.”

To which I somewhat calmly replied, “I’m sorry, WHAT?  Why would I have to pay that much in taxes??  I’ve never paid that much in taxes for my bill, and you can’t legally charge taxes on a cancellation ‘fee,’ because it’s not a product or service!!  What are these taxes?”

“They are taxes, you can’t just NOT pay taxes!”

Me:  “But what are these taxes for?  Why will I be charged so much for taxes?  That’s crap!”

TMobile Representative: “You have to pay them.  They are taxes!  When you buy something, you have to pay taxes!”

Me:  “No, I mean, what are these taxes FOR?  You can’t charge tax on fee for early termination.  I’m not buying anything new.  I know I have to pay taxes for my phone bill, but I’m not paying taxes for a termination fee!  What am I being taxed on??”

TMobile Representative:  “What do you mean? It’s taxes! You have to pay taxes!  It doesn’t matter where you live you still have to pay taxes! Why can’t you get this through your head? Call the president and tell him you don’t want to pay taxes and see what happens to you!!”

I immediately demanded to speak with a supervisor.  The TMobile representative said, “Okay, fine, I’ll get the supervisor, but they’ll tell you the same thing!  You have to pay taxes! You can’t just not pay the taxes!!”  After waiting on hold (with my anger only continuing to grow) for nearly five minutes, the supervisor finally took over the call.  And as if I wasn’t already shocked enough, her first words (after “Hello Mr. Customer”) were “I was listening in on that call, and I’m sorry, he shouldn’t have handled it that way.”  While I did appreciate her candor in the matter, I was still looking for the answer.

“I’m just trying to figure out what these mysterious extra taxes are that I have to pay just to cancel my account.  I’m pretty sure that you can’t charge taxes on cancellation fees, so I want to know why I have to pay an extra $30-$100 in taxes just to cancel my account, and all the last guy would tell me was that I had to pay taxes, and he was berating me about how everyone has to pay taxes.  I know everyone has to pay taxes, I’m just trying to figure out what THESE taxes are for.”

She put me on hold “for a brief moment while [she found] that out.”  When she came back on the line, she had an explanation.

“The extra taxes are for the phone that you got when you extended your contract.  They are for the sales tax on the actual cost of the phone.”

I asked what that meant, because I knew I had paid the sales tax on the phone when I bought it.

“You were given a discount on the cost of the phone because you extended your contract.  Because you are cancelling early, you are responsible for paying the taxes on the full retail price of the phone.  Normally we would recoup those taxes over the length of the contract, but because you are cancelling early, you are responsible for the additional sales tax.”

I asked her to clarify that.  I said I had already paid sales tax, and I asked if that meant that TMobile had actually paid the state of North Carolina the total sales tax amount on the full retail price of the phone.  If they didn’t actually pay the state the full tax on the retail price of the phone, I shouldn’t be responsible for the extra tax.  I still don’t understand how this is even possible, because they pay sales tax based on the sale amount, and if they really paid the sales tax on the full retail price of the phone, it would be an absolute nightmare of calculations and paperwork.  If I buy a phone for $200, but the “full retail price” of the phone is $700, they have to pay the state the sales tax on $200, because that’s what I paid for the phone, not the imaginary “retail price.”  If that were the case, any time a store ran a sale, they would still have to pay the sales tax on the imaginary retail number, despite not actually getting that amount for the sale.  I would love more clarification on this, but I’m not a tax attorney.  But when I asked her to clarify this, and told her everything I wrote here, she said,

“Yes, we pay sales tax on the full retail price of the phone, regardless of how much you actually pay for the phone.”

I told her that this sounded “very fishy to me,” and I asked where I could read this information on the TMobile website, or where I could see this explanation in writing.  She stumbled over her words for a minute before putting me on hold again.  She came back on the line once to let me know that she was “still trying to track that down,” but when she finally did return to the line she told me that she woud “have someone give me a return call with that information,” because her system was “running slow” and she couldn’t find it “at the moment.”

Tonight, just before starting this, I went through the TMobile site to look for this information.  I finally found a completely ambiguous explanation. 

In case you can’t read the screen capture for any reason, it says:

“An Early Termination Fee (ETF) is a charge made to your account when you cancel service and end your contract with T-Mobile early. The ETF is intended to provide reasonable compensation to T-Mobile for the losses it suffers when a customer does not remain a customer for the full term of their contract.

 Taxes may apply to an ETF.  The event or product that created the contract (such as an equipment upgrade purchase or rate plan change) combined with the applicable taxing authority for the state where you live determines if taxes apply. These taxes are valid and not a result of a billing issue.”

Is that clear enough for everyone???  Luckily TMobile assures us that “[t]hese taxes are valid and not a result of a billing issue,” which totally puts my mind at ease, considering how honest and forthcoming TMobile has always been with me, as evident from all my complaints.  It is also important to note that this “Support Topic” was “Created on: Nov 14, 2011 12:27 PM by michellev” and “- Last Modified:  Nov 14, 2011 12:32 PM by michellev” and according to the post, it is “VERSION 1.”  I never got an answer about where I could find the “taxes” answer in writing on the TMobile site, because this support topic didn’t exist when I called them many months ago.

So, for everyone wondering why I didn’t just bag this account a long time ago and pay the $200 Early Termination Fee, well, it’s because I refuse to pay anything that (at the time) they didn’t have IN WRITING and ACCESSIBLE TO THE CUSTOMER.  I still think it is amazingly questionable.  If they are charging me additional taxes because they have already paid the sales tax on the “retail price” of the phone, I don’t see how those are “taxes,” because it seems like I’m just reimbursing them.  If they haven’t actually paid sales tax on the “retail price” of the phone, then I would expect they can show me documentation of where they pay NC an extra amount for back taxes when I cancel the account.  If I bought the phone in 2010, and I’m charged sales tax again in 2012, where does this tax figure get reported?  Does that mean that they overpaid their NC sales tax in 2012?  Underpaid their sales tax in 2010?  It’s tax code, so it’s actually not THAT cryptic, and I’m trying to fathom how this works out with their accounting.

Otherwise, I would have already cancelled my TMobile service and switched to another carrier.

So, @TMobileHelp, if you’re still reading along, can you give me an answer on any of these issues?  Have you already paid the sales tax on the amount of a sale that didn’t actually take place?  Is the additional money I’m expected to pay you handed directly over to NC because it’s sales tax?  Why was it impossible for the representative to point me to a place where I could read a clear explanation of this tax thing?  Was it publicly available on your website before June of 2011?  Why did your representative go out of his way to imply that I was an idiot for not understanding taxes?  Why isn’t it spelled out CLEARLY in the support document?  Can you give me a more clear explanation of why I’m expected to pay more taxes, using ONLY the information provided in that support document?

I’m still waiting on your reply from my earlier post of Part 2, my dear friend @TMobileHelp, so please let me know!  I don’t even know if you guys are still manning the “T-Squad,” but I thought you said it was monitored until 1:00am EST.  You offered to help solve my many TMobile issues, so at least do me the courtesy of letting me know that you’re reading the issues that I’m painstakingly detailing for you!!

Well, I never heard back from @TMobileHelp about which point they would like me to cover next, so let’s go with signal/coverage issues!  Ten years ago, when I was paying SunCom, a customer came into the store and said, “I just moved into a new house. It’s near the corner of Holly Tree and Pine Grove Road.  What am I getting ready to say?”  And the SunCom representative said, “Yeah, that’s a dead zone right now, but we’re expecting that to be fixed in the next 12-18 months.”  The gentleman still cancelled his service, because it didn’t make sense for him to have a phone that he couldn’t even use in his own home.

After TMobile swallowed up SunCom, I was in the new TMobile store and a lady came in complaining that she didn’t get signal at her house.  “Where do you live?” asked the representative.  “I live right by the Lowes Foods on Pine Grove and Greenville Loop Road.”  The reply from the representative was pretty interesting….

“We used to have problems in that area, but I believe they have been fixed.  What kind of phone do you have?  Is it 3G?”  The lady replied that no, it wasn’t 3G, it was an old Nokia that her husband got her.  “Well the easiest thing would be to upgrade you to a new 3G phone!  The 3G signal is stronger and carries farther, so that’s probably your problem.  We can go ahead and set you up with that now!”  And while I sat there (I was on hold with TMobile support at the time because my own Blackberry, which I still have, wasn’t working right), this lady upgraded to a shiny new 3G phone.  I never saw her again, but I’m pretty sure she probably came back, because that area is STILL a dead zone, regardless of whether your phone uses EDGE or GSM or 3G or 2TCSA (“Two Tin Cans with String Attached”).  I know this because I drive through this area often, and it doesn’t work on my phone, and it didn’t work when I had the shiny new 3G Blackberry Bold.  Whichever phone I’m using at the time, it always drops the call right there, and the screen comes up with the happy “SOS ONLY” notice.

Now, there is one thing I should go ahead and mention here.  I have called in countless times to complain about signal issues, and I typically get the response that it “must be a problem with [my] phone.”  One time, and only one time, I was able to get through to someone who was willing to look at their coverage map and look at the exact area I was having problems with.  The area I was talking about at the time was the roughly 120-mile stretch of Interstate 40 between Wilmington, NC and Raleigh, NC.  When this helpful person looked at the coverage map, he said, “We do have service in that area.  According to the system, it has ‘moderate’ service the entire distance.”  I’m not exactly sure that he used the word “moderate,” as it may have been “average” or “satisfactory,” but I know that it wasn’t “poor.”  When I asked why the system said they have service there, but I’m never able to stay on a phone call when I’m driving through there, he said, “Well it’s possible that you won’t be able to get signal when you are inside a structure, if the area is obstructed, but there is absolutely ‘moderate’ signal in that area.”  I explained that I’m not inside a building, I’m in my car.  And he said, “That’s the problem, you may not be able to get signal while you are inside a vehicle.  But if you were to pull over and stop, you should get at least one bar of signal.”

Now, the drive from Wilmington to Raleigh is a pretty popular route, because it’s the easiest and most direct route to get from point A to point B (and the other routes get NO SERVICE along the way).  But if you are a TMobile customer, and you are making that drive, the only way you can be certain that you can make or receive calls is to pull over and get out of the car.  On the side of the Interstate.  So I asked him what the next level below “average” or “moderate” service was, and he said, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I mean, if it’s one step below ‘average,’ what does your system call that?  Because I would think that ‘average’ wouldn’t require me to pull over and get out of the car in order to get signal.  ‘Average’ is usually the middle-ground on something, that’s what ‘average’ kinda means.”  And he replied, “Well, below ‘average’ is just ‘no coverage.’”  So, according to what the representative told me, TMobile has a few levels of signal quality.  They include “Excellent, Good, Average and No Signal.”  On most scales, it would have another one in there somewhere for “poor” or “below average,” but don’t you worry!  TMobile doesn’t have “Below Average” or “Poor Service” anywhere!  Their dials must go to 11, but they have 11-9 and then skip down to 1-0, apparently.  Branding is one thing, like how maybe someone wants to be called “Big and Tall” instead of “Overweight,” but if you take something that is “Crap” and just call it “Average,” it tells me that your average service is crap, so your excellent service can’t be THAT good.

But back to Pine Grove and Holly Tree and Masonboro Loop and Greenville Loop.  They don’t even have “Average” service in some areas, and I know that because there is a gas station and a grocery store at one intersection, and I have stood there, outside of my car, not inside a building, and had “SOS ONLY” as my signal.  In more than a decade, when the population of my area has grown significantly, and that area of town has grown more than most (and with a good number of upper-middle-income houses), I still cannot use my phone there.  And this lady who was rooked into upgrading to a new 3G phone doesn’t have signal there either, but I guess it’s easier for the representative to make a sale than explain that they still don’t have service there.

So what about “Roaming” on TMobile?  Well, I’ve never seen it on my phone, ever, since TMobile took over.  My plan includes “Free Roaming,” which I think is only “Free” because it’s impossible to get, and impossible to charge for something you can’t get.  I have heard plenty of responses when I have spoken with different TMobile representatives about the “Roaming” issue.  One person, who was supposedly a “Supervisor,” informed me that “TMobile doesn’t have roaming agreements in that area.”  That made sense to me, because I know with absolute certainty that other carriers have service in a number of areas, but nobody on TMobile has been able to show me that it is possible to make phone calls.  These areas include almost all of River Road, the aforementioned Holly Tree area, portions of Castle Hayne and Wrightsboro, anything along Highway 421 when you get more than 10 miles from Wilmington (including parts of Burgaw, almost all of Wallace, Harrells, and other surrounding areas), Highway 17 just south of Leland, Acme/Delco, all of Highway 87 between Acme/Delco and Elizabethtown, and a bunch of other areas that I don’t feel like typing.  I am 100% certain that other carriers have signal in these areas, because I have been in the car with people who have Sprint or ATT or Verizon and they have been able to make calls, send texts, browse the web, etc, while TMobile just tells me “SOS ONLY” and “NO SERVICE.”

And when a tower goes down because of a hurricane, it means that my TMobile phone is useless, and I have to borrow my neighbor’s Verizon phone in order to make a phone call.  Or I can borrow my other neighbor’s Sprint phone and make a call.  I know this, because it happened just a few months ago on Carolina Beach.  I had SOS ONLY signal, but everyone around me on different carriers had plenty of signal.  Now, I understand that storms can take out equipment, so I don’t expect my phone to work 100% of the time, but if everyone else has signal, and if TMobile claims they have “Roaming Agreements,” I should be able to make phone calls.  But I could not.  I was able to make any calls at all, unless I drove off the island.  Which I finally did.  And as soon as I got signal again, I pulled over and called TMobile.  Their response?

“It’s probably an issue with your phone.  We haven’t had an outage reported in that area, so if you’re unable to make calls then it is a problem with your phone.”

Except, I was calling them on my phone.  I just had to drive 6 miles to another tower area to do it.  But I couldn’t get that across to the representative, because she was determined that it was a problem with my equipment, not TMobile’s.  The tower was finally fixed the next day, and my signal returned again, without ever doing anything to my phone.  But if my house had caught on fire, I would have watched it burn because I couldn’t make a phone call, despite other carriers having full service, because I couldn’t roam.

I have mentioned this to many other representatives over time.  They go between insisting that they “do have roaming agreements” and changing the subject.  I have never spoken with another representative who has said they have no roaming agreements, although one former employee said that it was correct.  However, when I complain that I can’t roam, I’m told it’s a problem with my phone, or a problem with my SIM card, or some other mysterious problem that is supposedly unique to me only.  I know that is not true.  But I’ve still replaced my SIM card multiple times, sat through multiple attempts to “reboot” and “hard reboot” and “send service books” and “reconfigure the phone to the network” and such, but I still cannot roam, and I still go to plenty of places with absolutely no signal whatsoever (both driving and standing on the side of the road).

So, my dear @TMobileHelp, does TMobile have roaming agreements in my area?  And if so, why have I never met anyone who is able to roam?  And why am I still not able to roam in other areas?  If it’s my phone or my SIM card or something else, why did I have these exact same problems with every phone I have ever used with TMobile?  And why does every other TMobile customer I know have the same problem with their phones (most of which are far more current than mine)?

So there’s Part 2 – NO SIGNAL.  I tried to keep this one at least a LITTLE bit shorter, but if you need more information, I’m happy to provide it for you!  Let me know what you would like to read for Part 3!!