Last June, I wrote a post called “Yes, You Can Spend $750 in International Data Roaming in One Minute on AT&T” which quickly went viral. In it, I mentioned my plan to switch to T-Mobile which led to this tweet by T-Mobile CEO John Legere to his 250,000+ followers:
Hey @reifman, love that you’ve discovered how crappy @ATT is, #SimpleGlobal and @TMobile welcome you!! http://t.co/rpEhGzpFGs
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) June 7, 2014
It turned out that AT&T was rolling up data traffic in time-based intervals that frequently combined U.S. and International usage. Then, they fraudulently demanded that customers pay for an international pass to have their data plan reactivated.
My Struggle with T-Mobile
Unfortunately, now it’s TMobile that’s having trouble tracking data; it seems to be related to the rollout of their new DataStash promotion. Just like AT&T, they’re blaming the customer. Here’s what happened.
In January, I noticed that I’d exceeded my 3 GB data plan for the first time after five months of using less than 3 GB of data. I called in to learn of my options and had one of the best customer service experiences I’d had in a while. The tech acknowledged that T-Mobile had a bug affecting some accounts that failed to reset the data usage. He said the only way to fix it was to set my phone to unlimited usage in January. He told me to use as much data as I wanted in January and he set an account note to switch it back to 3 GB for February.
But just two weeks into my February plan, my phone went over 3 GB again and data usage began to slow. I was a bit suspicious and finally called in again today. I was greeted with one of the worst customer experiences I’ve had in many years.
I had to speak to three different customer support representatives: the first overseas, the second a U.S.-based tech specialist and the third his supervisor.
The Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan
Here are the ten lies they told me during the course of the more than hour long call:
1. The first two reps told me that there was never a bug affecting data usage. Eventually, the supervisor acknowledged that yes there had been (as I’d been told in January) but that it had been fixed.
2. They said maybe it was my fault – that I just didn’t realize how much data the iPhone 6 uses despite having had it on my account since September 2014 with four consecutive months under 3 GB.
3. They told me my phone had slowed because I’d already used my 3 GB plan data and 3.5GB of my 10 GB data stash (which activated at the end of January). But their website showed this was clearly not the case.
What the T-Mobile Website Showed
Perhaps he mistakenly was combining the plan data and data stash usage (3.45 GB) but he continued to repeat that it was 3.5 GB from my data stash. Still later, he told me I had used up 6.5 GB of my data stash.
4. Then, they told me their website usage data was up to 3 days behind. When I told them that the website was already including most all of the data from today (2/20), my call was at noon, he said it was up to 24 hrs behind.
Data usage on 2/20 from T-Mobile Website during the call
Here’s what it says tonight:
and
5. Then, they told me that my entire data stash was gone because when I switched plans from Unlimited to 3 GB, I lost my data stash – ignoring my pleas that their January account tech had made the plan switch to fix the bug with billing in January.
6. They told me there might be a problem with my iPhone which they would help me troubleshoot. I told him I was hesitant to begin troubleshooting with someone who was quoting me statistics that didn’t reflect the reality shown on their website.
7. Then, the supervisor told me that perhaps I didn’t need to worry about this because the plan would reset tomorrow on the 21st because it’s a short month, not on the 26th as it always has. Here’s what the website showed:
What The T-Mobile Website Showed
8. Then, the supervisor told me my phone has only been using my DataStash (not my plan data). Again, the website:
9. They told me that my phone has been using up my entire DataStash over the past several months. The DataStash didn’t begin until late January.
10. And perhaps the last lie came at the beginning of the call, a voice said the call would be recorded for quality assurance. The jury’s still out on that one.
The Issue Remains Unresolved
The issue remains unresolved. I have an open ticket with T-Mobile. One example of my downgraded data access showed up during the call – simultaneous phone and data usage was atypically blocked (see right). Even if I am over my plan data and into my DataStash, my data access shouldn’t be slowed or have reduced functionality. T-Mobile describes the DataStash as “10GB of Free 4G LTE data.”
There is a possibility that my data usage naturally increased in January and February but given what the January technician and the supervisor today said about the bug with data tracking, I’m still skeptical. And, of course my data increased in January because I knew I had unlimited data. Here’s a chart of my data by day from July to February for reference.
It also remains a bit frustrating to me that the carriers are allowed to bill you for data amounts without actually having to show you the URL endpoints related to each data packet. They say it’s for privacy – but perhaps it would be more clear for them to say, “We don’t think we can secure that data well enough to keep it private.”
Update: T-Mobile Help says, “We do need to allow for some time for this ticket to be worked before we can take the next steps. In reviewing the account, I did see that your usage is not yet over 3 GB for this month, and that your data stash was added on 1/26. It does seem very odd that we’d show you being throttled without the usage to support that, and it’s my hope that this ticket will help provide us with more insight into what’s causing this. I’m going to follow up in your account on the morning of the 25th.“
I would imagine they can’t secure that information – least of all from themselves. Even if they did, there is – at best – a loose correlation between usage and the URLs you hit as the amount of data you get back is highly variable. Doing so also ignores VPN and other non-web usage and https traffic (unless you are advocating intercepting https to accomplish this).
It appears to be more difficult to measure data usage than water, gas, or electricity. I’m not sure why.
Even with VPN’s, non-web page usage and https traffic, you still know ip address endpoints. So, it’s still useful information to know.
Agreed that the information is available, but what is it’s usefulness?
Good metaphor.
I just surged in my data usage over the past week-and-a-half and looking at the data usage information T-Mobile provides, I don’t even get a rough time-stamp – just a date and how much. It would be nice to know *when* I was really grinding into my data usage – with even a loose time-stamp, I would likely be able to pinpoint what I was doing on my phone to guzzle the Gigs (as it were). Wouldn’t that be a prudent solution to the issue of privacy? I mean, isn’t it the government’s purview to subpoena phone records which include a time-stamp and a number but not a recording of the call itself (which would require a wire-tap or listening device be present beforehand)?
At any rate, I only just recently noticed T-Mobile’s new companion app (?) (for checking one’s data usage, device alerts, etc.) has a rather nifty page which displays your data usage across applications which could very well be helpful determining the proverbial gas-guzzler apps on one’s phone, however I can’t be sure whether it’s being used in the background by these apps and it would certainly clear things up somewhat if I could see (in a graph or graphical device) when those most rapacious of apps were doing the Hungry, Hungry Hippo.
I think the discord between our desire to receive information in “real-time” (i.e. push notifications) and our necessity to limit data usage (especially in the mystical unknown that is “The Background”) has become more than problematic and needs to be addressed in a practical way – I’ll give T-Mobile some credit here for it’s incredibly unusual (and honestly, pretty sweet) Binge On service, which strives to provide streaming services without punishing one’s data purse. To expound on that, it would be nice if one could assign 2-3 (better, 3-5) applications to be afforded the same treatment (within reason, to be determined by those dastardly carriers *snickers, twirling mustache*) – and you could change them every couple months or each month even, from a list of approved applications and maybe you could choose to limit the background dancing to maximize data usage on those apps *whatever*! I’m just spit-balling, here. So someone who checks the absolute crap out of Facebook or clip-binges Comedy Central to catch up on prime-time but most of all I think it would benefit the casual-to-serious phamers (phone-gamers*, and that’s mine – you can’t just take that) with likely one or maybe two dedicated phames (phone-games*, seriously don’t make me break out ALT-0169) they check on a daily basis but perhaps don’t even utilize as much Netflix-esque streaming on-the-go. I offer that loose idea as a give-and-take scenario./endwhateverthiswas
I see that block message sometimes on my iPhone, it can happen when you are attempting to use data and voice at the same time. The green bar at the top shows you are in a call, so there is nothing really going on there.
If you’re on Verizon that’s true but T-Mobile can do both when not throttled.
Not on AT&T and TMobile – generally works.
Doesn’t iOS have a data monitor like Android? Mine always shows me having used a bit more data than what T-Mobile reports but that’s thanks to their free music streaming.
I used to have one on my phone but I think it stopped working in later releases. I could dig one up again. Note the TMobile Help response confirms I’,m not over my 3GB plan – so I shouldn’t see data being used from the Stash.
I’m confused. Both of your pictures from the website show that you have used 3GB and are dipping into your DataStash. I guess I missed an update. Regardless, having your phone tracking its own usage would be a huge help in resolving this situation just in time.
Keep in mind the website rounds up. So apparently I was at 2.84 GB on my plan data – but my stash started getting used. Sounds like from the Tmobile help msg thought that was weird as well. Waiting for them to respond to the service ticket – pretty slow thus far.
That’s the great thing about smart phones, your usage pattern may not have changed, but your phones may have. Perhaps an app you recently installed started downloading a bunch of data while you were sleeping.
See updates above. Not the case.
I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it another 10 times. While T-Mobile is the least evil carrier in the US, they’re still evil. This is just one example.
Another is how the data retrieved via the cell connection is somehow different than the EXACT same data on the exact same device if Tethering is used instead.
Yeah, the tech said some other wacky stuff about tethering yesterday too which I didn’t believe but forgot to include it. Your quote is funny. Legere should pick that up: “Uncarrier 9: We’re Least Evil!”
I hate all of the carriers. I switch as often as I can just to limit how much money I give to each one >:|
Yeah they are all evil. They are evil because we all want unlimited data plans, but mobile data capacity is expensive. They are evil because we prefer an unlimited data plan lie (unsustainable) instead of an honest plan (limited).
We want to use mobile data like as if it were our DSL/Cable/Fiber broadbands (where data caps are far less reasonable, they are determined based on statistics instead of real BW costs).
The incremental cost of a GB of data to the carrier isn’t why, it’s the cost of rolling out a nationwide network (including the spectrum) that is crazy. That big network can pump billions of GB total (if not trillions), but there will be hot spots in congested areas. And all phones are designed to gobble GBs as if they were tic tacs, focused on pleasing the customer instead of being rational with data usage. It’s all cool when those GBs come through wifi.
I don’t mean to defend carriers. This one of the many issues where the more educated if facts we are, the more possibly we can have a clear conversation. Understanding facts doesn’t mean we agree with the other side. It’s necessary to have an effective discussion.
Here in Brazil we get throttled with 1 or 2 GB of data usage. Lots of morons trying to do torrent with mobile data.
No one is going to roll out a physical network using land lines i.e. Fiber/Cable/DSL to rural areas. Stop pretending like everyone has that option, and don’t use it to defend the overly greedy Wireless carriers. (or tell people they need to move, that’d be like telling you to move from Brazil to Sweden)
They shouldn’t be allowed to market their cellular data plans as true broadband services because they aren’t comparable to the landline based services. (Yes I know it applies to throughput/bandwidth, but that’s only one aspect of a connection)
Everyone has a higher demand for more online services now and the carriers just want to be the gatekeepers and charge whatever tolls they feel like.
Per the current FCC definition, DSL is no longer considered “broad band”. To get the required “up” speeds you’d have to figure out how to concatinate around 25 DSL circuits together.
I have to say it, if you have decent Sprint coverage in your area, go with Ting. I have been on them for almost 2 years now with nary a problem, great support, and clear pricing. Currently 2 smartphones (both android) ~1.5GB data usage a month and the bill is at $54. Go ebay or glyde a good phone (check compatibility 1st) and be amazed.
I’d just like to add that they now support GSM phones, so you are no longer limited to Sprint. Practically any phone you can buy, short of Verizon specific phones, will work. The customer service is amazing, and their prices are fantastic. I really can’t say enough good things about them.
I really like the Canadian free roaming – Sprint doesn’t offer that unless I’m mistaken.
I am in Canada regularly. It’s so nice post-AT&T to get/send texts to people there – and to use my data w/o wifi.
Even the Verizon phones should work if Ting supports GSM now. Or the Verizon LTE phones from 2012 on, at least.
The reason I switched to T-Mobile (now Least Evil) is because of the unlimited roaming in Canada and abroad. I’m often in Canada and it’s been awesome to text for free and browse albeit slowly without fees. AT&T turned my iPhone into a brick outside of the U.S.
I don’t know what plan you have, but I found out during a recent trip that free roaming no longer applies. Used to be my data followed my throughout the U.S. But on the trip I got a message saying i’d used all my data roaming. And it cut me off! So on my road trip I could not rely on the map function in areas without Tmobile service. it was ridiculous. I want to switch, but don’t know to which company I should change.
Expecting to much and read small print. I been with them 12 years just problems with rebates.
Even if they can “secure” data, whatever that means, they can’t withhold it from the government if they receive a national security letter, a warrant, or a civil discovery demand.
Keeping unnecessary logs is a bad idea. Privacy policies that give the user options to wipe data about them and have it completely deleted within a timeframe are good because not only is it a commitment that will get corporate money put behind implementing it, but it’s also a defense to government discovery requests.
Having ISPs log every website you go to for “billing” is a terrible idea for civil liberties and is already on the authoritarian dream-list as “mandatory data retention.”
A better thing to demand would be a data meter inside your phone that’s not controlled by the carrier. I don’t trust any of the meters in phones now because carriers control the phone software, so they’re likely to require complicated meters that receive “corrections” from the carrier billing system to avoid “confusing” the customer.
Well said. Thanks for educating me.
I firmly believe the cellular industry needs to be regulated as a public utility. The land line has gone the way of a dinosaur; cellular taking its place, and now we have 911 capability. Let’s get it done. It won’t fix all the problems, but it will change the tune and the smoke & mirrors that /every/ cellular provider is guilty of. Just my 2 cents.
Word. And Broadband.
Maybe they’re punishing you for such an unreadable website. I’m sure somewhere there’s a designer that thinks medium gray and light gray on white is oh so clever, but according to your about page, you’re into content delivery, not the fad of the week design.
Ugh, yes, this page is dreadful!
Alright alright – It’s the construct theme at mysitemyway.com – tell Elliott. But I’ll see if I can update the them soon with a much darker text color.
FWIW I had no problems reading the site. Though I could imagine that LCD’s from the 90’s would probably exhibit significant display problems with gray tones.
This is why I don’t spend my hard earned money on the non-essential-to-life services that these telecom corporations are peddling. I learned very early on when they began bringing these services to market that bringing quality/value of service was not the purpose. LIfe is too short to fumble around with being a cow for the milking for some minor conveniences like mobile data. I laugh at people who lay claim to “needing” it. Suckers.
So how are things in your candle-lit hut? No rush, get back to me whenever the horse-drawn carriage that delivers your mail comes back through the neighborhood.
They’re just fine douche!
I think what non-Americans find astonishing is that you put up with these “plans” at all. Decades ago, we were in awe of your wonderful long-distance direct-dial phone system and your free local calls. Now you seem to be being milked dry by providers who appear to have no clue what a mobile phone user actually needs.
Yes, Amerika has a lot of dysfunction and legal political corruption these days. http://jeffreifman.com/2014/05/05/its-time-for-a-populist-culture-war-on-corruption/
Some of you might have noticed the page was loading slowly. Apparently the StumbleUpon sharing widget was blocking Jscript and LinkedIn was returning a load error. I removed them and things should be fine again.
Thanks. Last experience in January was awesome.
When iPhone’s added LTE support I saw increased data usage in general. So, that’s part of it.
Good point. I stand corrected. Better privacy comment up top as well.
That was an excellent privacy comment. Kudos Gozarthiel . Data retention is today’s climate is (unfortunately) always dangerous.
The screenshot of your phone not allowing talk and data at the same time, appears to be because your phone isn’t connected to cellular data at all. You would see an E, 3G, 4G or LTE icon on the top left if it was. There are none of those in your screenshot.
yeah that was weird huh. It wasn’t clear how I was still on the phone with them. wifi icon wasn’t there either
You don’t need a data connection to make phone calls. In fact, you can turn off all cellular data, wifi and still make and receive calls. You should brush up on cellular technology.
My carrier (in Europe) has NOT enabled Voice Over LTE and thus I alwas get pushed down to 3G when I’m in a phone call, and at least my carrier doesn’t support Simultaneous Voice Data Optimized on WCDMA (i e simultaneous voice and data on european 3G), which – thus – means no data when talking (sms works though, as it piggybacks on the speech data, but mms won’t).
If they litterally defines DataStash as “10GB of Free 4G LTE data.” it might be unavailable as soon as you for whatever reason (coverage perhaps) finds yourself on 3G. While I have no interest in trying to defend a carrier on a (to me) foreign continent, I think data usage IS hard to measure, especially if certain amounts of data only is valid for, in this case, when you’re on 4G.
Still, they’ve created this whole mess by deciding we should measuse data at all. While the infrastructure certainy costs a lot, it’s not like the cell towers becomes a lot more expensive to run at full capacity compared to if they sit idle. They might use a tad more power but that’s pretty much it. They’re measuring data just because they can monetize it. Obviously there would need to be ONE standard regulating HOW to measure, and we’d be free of much of this nonsense.
2 lines for $100 unlimited talk, text, and 4G data. Everything is solved! Thanks tmobile!
2 lines for $100 unlimited talk, text, and data at 4G speed. Everything is solved…. Thanks T mobile!
4G is pretty slow these days with them. Did you want my second line?
Being this anal with Data, get Unlimited. Until then, you are just looking for plans to complain about.
Does Tmobile have unlimited? I didn’t think so.
I think the remark about your Telco not having access to the websites (URL’s) you visit seems very odd to me. There are several reasons why they must have access to that information: security (this website distributes dangerous software), judicial (this website has been ordered to be inaccessible by a judge) and commercial (this website generates so much traffic it influences all other web access, which is vary rare (or not depending on your perspective)).
Because it is obvious that your telco has access to this information, and that they *must* retain it (at least in Europe) because of specific laws which tell them to, they actually use this data to better configure their networks and services.
So sending you a report on which URL’s you have visited, or from which IP addresses you have downloaded that 2.1GB of data, is easy to do.
Citing privacy (or security) as a reason not to be able to do this is just plain wrong.
We can expect commercial offerings being rolled out in which you can get access to this data for an additional fee.
AT&T said the same thing to me “privacy” when I asked for proof I’d use so much data in 1 minute. See earlier link.
I can hear the sales reps and CEOs thinking when reading your post. “Well that’s a role model of an obnoxious customer”. You’re not wrong though. Some accountability needs to be enforced on these companies. They wont treat us better until we make them.
CEO John Legere embodies obnoxious – have you seen his uncarrier announcements? He leads the way I wrote this. So far he’s been silent.
that really sucks well I hope they fix the problem all I can say is that I signed up back in 2013when they still had the $70 unlimited internet and 3 gigabytes of hot spot and I’m so thankful that I signed up then because I don’t have to worry about this paying for gigabytes if not I would have just stayed with Verizon
thanks. I guess this if this were AT&T I’d probably have $1000 in bills right now and my data would be completely blocked 🙂
At least with tmobile, there’s no addtl charges – just your data slows way down.
Im starting to wonder if they are including my wifi and bluetooth connectivity to my headset/car system. the reason I say this is because in my home I have 0 connectivity to their network and use the WIFI calling feature to make and receive calls.
I’m a very satisfied T-Mobile user, been with them for about 7 years. Right now I’m on month to month $30.00. I don’t download a lot of data. Suits me fine.
Generally that’s been my experience. Disappointed by this terrible hour long call.
This is clearly a case of confusion and the need for additional training. I wouldn’t call it a matter of “lying,” however.
There was definitely some lying (your plan resets tomorrow, it’s a short month) and training to lie when you don’t know (the overseas agent – there’s no bugs).
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. – Hanlon’s razor
I speculate that T-Mobile is pushing your phone to GSM during a voice call to make room on their WCDMA network for other data users, which makes the most use of their sparse tower distribution. GSM does have a simultaneous voice and data feature but support is not universal, whereas that is a basic feature of WCDMA.
Eh, just get unlimited data. I have two lines, one uses about 20GB a month, the other uses well over 100GB a month. I can never understand how some can use the throttled plans. It was a bad customer experience, to be sure, but unlimited data is fairly cheap with T-Mobile.
same here t-mobile slow my data to 0.06 mbitsps
I have having the EXACT same issue. I work from home, I’m on WiFi all day. All apps are closed when I go out and yet, I somehow managed to use 10GB of data on top on my 3GB monthly allotment!?!? I have not changed phone habits in years and have never encountered this issue before. I had AT&T up until November of last year, and this issue popped up in January. As a side note, when our phones arrived in November, new and sealed in their boxes, the very first text on my sons phone was from Tmobile saying he had exceeded his data plan. This was literally within seconds of powering up. How can a new phone use 2GB of data in under two minutes?!?! Ironically, when I called TMobile, they sounds aware and confused at the same time. As though they know there is an issue, but can’t quite cough up the truth. I am contacting a lawyer for a class action. You just can’t demand that people pay for what they are not receiving. As a precaution, I am now Turning off my cellular service when I am home so that my phone only operates through WiFi, thus I will be able to conclusively know if they are charging me data when I am not connected to their service.
Let’s see… “It also remains a bit frustrating to me that the carriers are allowed to bill you for data amounts without actually having to show you the URL endpoints related to each data packet. They say it’s for privacy – but perhaps it would be more clear for them to say, “We don’t think we can secure that data well enough to keep it private.””
First of all… would a giant list of URLs actually help you? Chances are… probably not.
Secondly, for them to keep that kind of tabs on your Internet usage would be akin to having dedicated operators sitting around, listening to your every telephone conversation, and transcribing the entire thing to text.
Third, what about data that doesn’t have a URL? Skype calls, emails, etc. don’t always have URLs (or if they do, non-standard ones).
Also, packets are tiny, usually no more than 1400 bytes. Probably takes more space in a database to record information about the packet than the packet itself!
T Mobile stinks…I am having numerous issues with them. My promised plans, Loyalty assistance, credit to an account that never happened and they say that “we understand”…bogus script talk. Always vague and painfully polite. I worked in Cellular…they can do more than they say that they can.
In my experience, the general customer service representatives (not those in specific departments like financial or reimbursements) know less than any reps I have ever dealt with in any company. I have been told so many competing incorrect statements on various issues, that I don’t know what is what. They completely f-ed up my reimbursement and after much fuss by me, their reimbursement people finally admitted that they had f-ed up and it was their fault.
I switched to T-Mobile from Sprint back in April and it has been the single worst experience I’ve ever had with ANY company. I’d rather try to cancel AOL again than deal with the shit I’ve had to deal with. I would estimate that in the first week with T-Mobile, I was on the phone with them for at least 10-15 hour and I can’t tell you how many times they “fixed” the problem, but then I was forced to call back AGAIN (my reimbursement was one of those instances). I have probably done another 10 hours since then. Sometimes my voice can’t be heard when I have 5 bars and THEY will hang up on ME so that I have to go through the menu all over again. I have gotten to the point where I say “if you don’t hear me all of a sudden, please don’t hang up, my voice will return,” so I don’t have that problem. They really need to train their regular customer service people better, because they have no clue what is going on most of the time. I never thought I would miss Sprint, but at least when my phone had 4 or 5 bars, people could hear me and wifi calling worked well.
All of that being said, their reps ARE very nice while they screw things up. I can’t complain about their attitude. If I were in their position, I’m not sure I’d be able to pretend so well
John Legere is a character actor that plays a CEO on TV…
Even when the speeds are throttled to 2G, the phone can be connected to LTE or HSPA+. It’s just the speed that goes down. Like, all the network stability enhancements and such are still there when you’re throttled on LTE, it just sucks when you’re trying to stream music.
Also, I’m pretty sure T-Mobile just skipped from 2G to 4G in rural areas, which would be why you saw a jump from 2G to 4G and reverse. Sucked when I had my iPhone 5S that didn’t do VoLTE and I was in a spot where only 2G was present. Can’t navigate on Apple Maps without a constant data connection, so phone calls screwed me up big time.
Oh and that $30 plan is amazing. I had it when I entered the world of TMo, but then realized I make way too many phone calls and use way too much data. Didn’t know CM did tethering without the specific APN though.
You’re wrong on 1. I constantly make simultaneous voice/data calls on AT&T GSM network.
Tonight or I should say last night I called TMobile Customer Service. I say last night because I just got off the phone with them at 5;40 AM! Almost 4 hours of being hung up on by more than one CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE, bounced all around the globe, being put on terminal hold and being patronized. I called to disconnect service ONE of the two phones I have and apparently that is beyond the capacity of these people. They disconnect both phone, change my identification number, and switch my phone plan. None of this was done at my request. One supervisor told me they were not actually trained to reconnect my service. And then they want to charge me $50 to reconnect the phone. I they needed a credit card, just to verify my identity. I was told there would be any charges, It had better not. They mess up and I have to pay? First, there have been services added that I did not authorize and services removed that I did not authorize. There was some locating service for $9.99 a month I did not activate. I asked for a refund and that took an act of Congress. And then it was only a partial refund. I had International calling added in 2013 because my husband was seriously hospitalized numerous times in less that 3 months, his family is in the U.K. With that kind of frequent emergency I kept that service. All of a sudden it is no longer on my account and we end up with a $500 phone bill. When I called Customer Service they offered a payment plan stating I did not have that service. That was another 3 hour phone call. Finally, he took that off. Asking for a supervisor takes another act of Congress. Basically, they are stealing and ripping off consumers. They can not explain what the taxes and fees are for, one actually told me she did not know. I have 3 separate charges of taxes and fees on the latest bill and it still has not been satisfactorily explained. They are rude and most unhelpful. It is their job to fix the problem not make it worse. At what point is enough simply.enough? TMobile must be accountable for all they do. Train your people to be able to understand your own billing system, stop stealing from people by lying and hiding fees so that no one is aware of what they are. It is pathetic when your own employee, much less a supervisor cannot or will not help or explain. By the way, if I am on a set plan how can my service fluctuate so much? The name of the game is CUSTOMER SERVICE! So provide a service that is honest and reliable. I am pretty sure TMobile is financially sound, they should not conduct business with customers in such a dishonest manner. How would they react if they were the consumer receiving this treatment? Be a corporate company that stands apart from all the others by not lying, cheating and stealing. That is basically what this comes down to. You would then have customers that stay with you because of what you stand for and for the respect you show them by being straight forward. Its time one of the Fortune 500 companies stand up and stand apart from the others by making customers as important as their bottom line. Because the true bottom line is, no customers equals a bottom line no CEO wants to see,,, Treat consumers the way you want to be treated when you are paying your own personal bills. With respect.because they chose your company but they don’t have to stay with your company, As for rating the experience with .TMoble,I can’t, As of now there is no rating low enough.
Tonight or I should say last night I called TMobile Customer Service. I say last night because I just got off the phone with them at 5;40 AM! Almost 4 hours of being hung up on by more than one CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE, bounced all around the globe, being put on terminal hold and being patronized. I called to disconnect service ONE of the two phones I have and apparently that is beyond the capacity of these people. They disconnect both phone, change my identification number, and switch my phone plan. None of this was done at my request. One supervisor told me they were not actually trained to reconnect my service. And then they want to charge me $50 to reconnect the phone. I they needed a credit card, just to verify my identity. I was told there would be any charges, It had better not. They mess up and I have to pay? First, there have been services added that I did not authorize and services removed that I did not authorize. There was some locating service for $9.99 a month I did not activate. I asked for a refund and that took an act of Congress. And then it was only a partial refund. I had International calling added in 2013 because my husband was seriously hospitalized numerous times in less that 3 months, his family is in the U.K. With that kind of frequent emergency I kept that service. All of a sudden it is no longer on my account and we end up with a $500 phone bill. When I called Customer Service they offered a payment plan stating I did not have that service. That was another 3 hour phone call. Finally, he took that off. Asking for a supervisor takes another act of Congress. Basically, they are stealing and ripping off consumers. They can not explain what the taxes and fees are for, one actually told me she did not know. I have 3 separate charges of taxes and fees on the latest bill and it still has not been satisfactorily explained. They are rude and most unhelpful. It is their job to fix the problem not make it worse. At what point is enough simply.enough? TMobile must be accountable for all they do. Train your people to be able to understand your own billing system, stop stealing from people by lying and hiding fees so that no one is aware of what they are. It is pathetic when your own employee, much less a supervisor cannot or will not help or explain. By the way, if I am on a set plan how can my service fluctuate so much? The name of the game is CUSTOMER SERVICE! So provide a service that is honest and reliable. I am pretty sure TMobile is financially sound, they should not conduct business with customers in such a dishonest manner. How would they react if they were the consumer receiving this treatment? Be a corporate company that stands apart from all the others by not lying, cheating and stealing. That is basically what this comes down to. You would then have customers that stay with you because of what you stand for and for the respect you show them by being straight forward. Its time one of the Fortune 500 companies stand up and stand apart from the others by making customers as important as their bottom line. Because the true bottom line is, no customers equals a bottom line no CEO wants to see,,, Treat consumers the way you want to be treated when you are paying your own personal bills. With respect.because they chose your company but they don’t have to stay with your company, As for rating the experience with .TMobile,I can’t, As of now there is no rating low enough.
I too have been having problems with t-mobile lying lately. I downgraded my service back to the 2g that comes with the plan I’m on. I was told that I could try out the 10gb per month plan a few months back, then go back to the 2.5 gb per month plan I was in b4… First lie, had to accept 2gb per month,which clearly states according to their website, see pic, binge on supposed to be included, second lie. When I called t-mobile cs today they told me has to be over 3gb per month, so she gave me 6gb 1 month for free waiving the $15 fee. Still not satisfied, but they are making an effort. Then suddenly I see my usage spike over 2 hours by 100 mb. I was watching Directv , which is included in binge on, and it was eating up all my data. Another call to t-mobile, this time they tell me directv isn’t included, when it clearly states it’s on the binge on list. See next pic. While being transferred to t-mobile tech support, my call is disconnected. C’mon T-mobile I expected better.
This is pretty off topic, though it still pertains to Tmobile, but I am on my third phone number with them and the reason is that as soon as I get a new number from them I begin getting harrassing calls and texts for people I am not. The worst one was the number I just dumped in which a man, who I do not know since I am house bound, stuck in bed all day debilitated and I do not know anyone (just so it is clear that I am not someone who may have met them at a bar and forgotten, it is not remotely possible) who called and texted very harrassingly at all hours of the night and day thinking I was someone named Lupita which I am not. I tried texting back telling him I am not Lupita and to please stop texting my phone and at that point it just got worse. I have to keep my phone on or I may miss important calls from my many doctors usually around 7 or 8 am and I sleep a lot because of the strong pain meds I have to take. I blocked their number but it does not block texts which was this idiot’s favored form of harrassment. Bear in mind I have no income and I use the minimum plan on a flip phone since that is all my mother can afford bless her sweet heart. The thing that is bugging me about this is that they turn numbers around far too quickly. Now I am getting calls for Jose Peralta very early in the morning and most every night, automated so I cannot say I am not this man. This cuts into my minimum of calls and texts I can receive since I cannot get unlimited. My phone, twice because of this has quickly gone from $10 per month to outrageous overage billing and then I have to get on the phone with them and explain what is going on to get those charges taken off. That in itself was the equivilent of me walking on my own. Monumental acheivment award goes to me. I get the feeling that they are juggling with their number limit they own and not giving any number two minutes of “this number has been disconnected” before handing them back out. There should be, and I thought there was a time frame for any given number when a customer drops it for it to be in “not in use” mode before they can give that number out again. This is three numbers in a row causing me this grief. Now I will hand it to Tmobile, they did drop the overage charges and they did waive the fee to change my number twice now but geez Louise! This is getting ridiculous! Thanks for letting me vent. Best of luck to us all.
By the way I can see this site just fine on my dinosaur.
Late to the party here…but my wife and I have the free music and binge on streaming, which are both active when confirming online and with a rep. Two months ago we mysteriously started blowing past our 3GB cap about halfway through our bill cycles. This month I received the text that I went over while my son was steaming Netflix. Sort of weird. I’m convinced they are falsifying data usage records to urge us to increase our data caps. But of course there won’t be any proof until a whistleblower tech uncovers it.
I know this is an old post, but was issue ever resolved? I’ve also had issues like this with Tmobile, and they try to tell me my usage has changed when it has not. About 2 weeks ago I received a text saying I’d used 8GB of my 10 GB of data, when my plan is only 5 GB. Less than a day later it throttled me down to less than 2G speed until my next bill cycle. I started new billing cycle just over a week ago, and yesterday it said I’d hit 8GB data again! I KNOW this isn’t the case, as my usage has not changed, and in the past i never exceeded 5 GB in a month. Plus, with the updated Android OS, i found that the battery saver setting had changed, stopping almost all background data usage, including downloading of emails…even with tweaking settings, it won’t download attachments without permission. So no way I’m using MORE data when my phone has most background activities turned off. So what’s the deal??
Hey I know this is old but I hope you reply. I called them today to figure out why my data had been running slow since I just paid my bill. They offered me 6gb and I was hesitant..but I took it. It was still slow I call again and they told me I used it all in under 2 hours. my question is do you think I’m getting fucked over and what should I do?
Take a look at USMobile.