T-Mobile Troubles – Which do you use?

Published by Bobby Laurie | 5 comments

Airline crewmembers are constantly on the road landing in different cities, states and countries and keeping in touch with friends and relatives is dependent upon one thing: their cell phone and service provider.

Now, for me, I tend to overnight in different cities more-so in my time away from the airline while I’m traveling as a journalist. Not only do I rely on the phone itself to collect video and photos I also rely on the service. I need a reliable service provider to help stay connected to you all via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and all of those other websites that we interact on.

Up until now I’ve been a huge advocate for T-Mobile in the US. I usually always have service, never drop calls, their allow you to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot free of charge, and have a 4G network for a faster connection. I also used to tout their customer service but that changed a bit for me today.

I have a business account with them and for something like $69 I get unlimited everything. I opened the account a little over a year ago and spent top dollar buying the HTC Sensation 4G. It has to be the best phone I’ve ever owned. It’s got a decent size screen, a large memory, expansion SD card.. without sounding like a techie blogger — it’s got everything I need to run this website, SavvyStews.com, write for Instinct, and plan out the next TV segment all jam packed into one device. So, imagine my horror when my battery stopped keeping a charge. It charges half way — then stops.

I headed over to a T-Mobile store in Glendale, California, and inquired about buying a new battery. They didn’t have any. She told me to call T-Mobile Customer Care because “they’ll exchange it for you.” I bet you can already tell where this is going — I called Customer Care and was informed that she couldn’t do an exchange because my phone is over 90 days old but my insurance company could do it. So, she transferred me over to them. There, I was told, that they don’t do battery exchanges. They can only replace the whole phone or nothing. So, since my phone wasn’t broken she couldn’t help me and proceeded to call back T-Mobile, with me on the line, and she tried to explain to the agent that I simply needed a new battery. The agent then put me in touch with the HTC manufacturer for North America. I’m not trying to have a phone specially made for god sakes, I just needed a battery! They then informed me that they didn’t have any in stock! Now what?

So I call back T-Mobile, now in my 2nd hour of trying to fix my problem and the agent, Hannah, tells me

You haven’t worked with me yet. I promise you we’ll fix this. I’m going to exchange the battery for you.

I then told her, with full disclosure, that I’m sure she can’t do that because my phone is older than 90 days. She’s sure she can, and puts me on hold to “check her resources.” Well, her resources ran out — because, shockingly, she couldn’t do it. She then tells me to call the HTC manufacturer even though I had JUST explained to her that I already had.

Now, it comes down to be buying a replacement battery through TMobile.com, spending $50 to get it here + 2.5 hours of my time + $20 in gas driving to the store all for a phone battery. Apparently, once T-Mobile stops selling the phone model that you purchase from them, they don’t care about it any longer. They don’t have spare parts or phones, can’t do exchanges, and genuinely can careless if it breaks or needs trouble shooting. It’s no longer their problem.

So, now I’m curious. If I were to leave T-Mobile.. is the grass greener? What cell phone carrier do you use and how are you treated as a customer? Do you get the run around?