The Wirefly / T-Mobile DISASTER!

[xsmileyx]

This goes as a warning for Wirefly and T-mobile. I'm angry so please forgive any lack of coherence.

So I signed up for a new T-Mobile family share plan through Wirefly and have been utterly miserable ever since. When I signed up I thought that I was making the right choice to curb my cell phone costs. Now, 4 months and almost $1,000 later, I know I was wrong. So here's the skinny:

After I signed up for a new two year contract Wirefly messed up the shipping address and the billing address. That meant that it took over a week of constant calling to straighten out where the phones even were. About a month after that was resolved, I noticed that I never received a statement from T-mobile. I was starting a new business at the time so I didn't give it too much thought. Eventually, service got interrupted and I checked the web and found out why. Wirefly put the wrong billing address down and now my account was overdue.

Upon calling T-mobile to discuss the problem I stumbled across and interesting fact of their billing cycle: they bill 30 days AFTER the month closes. No big deal right? Wrong! Here's why:

My first bill was pretty normal ($130). A little higher than it should have been because of text messaging and set up charges. So I added a text message package and thought nothing of it. Then right after I get a second bill ($230). WTF!? So I call again and find out that I went over my minutes. I ask what we can do to alleviate that in the future and the pleasant (but totally not interested in helping the situation) girl on the phone. She tells me to keep better track of my minutes and if I call them BEFORE A BILLING CYCLE ENDS then they can retroactively fix things.

That's the rub - I don't have time to be constantly checking my minutes so the first time I notice trouble is when I pay my bill. The problem is that once I see the crazy bill, if I make any changes they will happen in TWO bills due to the billing delay as the current billing cycle is already closed and won't be billed for another month. So guess what? My current bill is $384!!!

I just got off the phone with one of their supervisors and the conversation went something like this (as it did with the previous people I talked to): It's not our fault - watch your minutes.

Sure, that's a valid argument to someone who didn't specifically ask to change their plan to avoid having this happen in the future. Sure, if they didn't have delayed billing, I would have changed the plan myself to avoid this in the NEXT billing cycle.

When I confronted them with this all I got was a bunch of happy scripted attitudes but no desire to alleviate my frustration. In the end, I asked if they were going to help me with this ridiculous bill or if I should just pay the $400 cancellation fee and be done with T-mobile. The answer I got was: Sir you can check your minutes any time.

In other words - NO!

I have never been this frustrated after 20 years of cell phone use. And this coming from the company who is supposed to have the best customer service in the industry.

I expect to cancel my service in the next week. GRRRRR!

[seabass2781]

Hello... first of all, wow. I kind of can't believe you created an account here just to post this.

Anyway, it sounds like you've been through a lot of frustration, and as a fellow consumer, I can sympathize with that - especially the business with Wirefly screwing up your information. But... (and please don't GRRR at me, I'm not trying to antagonize you here) I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a customer to be responsible for monitoring their own usage, especially in the beginning of a contract when you might be unsure of how many minutes you typically use in a month. You don't even have to go online or call customer service to do it, T-Mobile puts a number in your cell phone for you that you can dial to have your current usage show up directly on your phone.

I'm also having a little trouble wrapping my mind around your description of the billing cycles. I've personally had situations in the past where I noticed in the middle of the billing cycle that I was going to go over on minutes or messaging - all I had to do was call customer service (or go online) and change my plan or text messaging bundle, and everything was just prorated from the day the new services began... it was never an issue for me. Unless you're talking about trying to change your plan to apply for the finished month where you went over on minutes - what's done is done there, I don't think T-Mobile (or any wireless carrier) has any obligation to retroactively change your plan for you.

Anyway, I'm just curious; you say you've been using cell phones for 20 years. Which provider were you using in the past, and what prompted you to give T-Mobile a try? And by the way, I just want to qualify that I don't work for T-Mobile, and I'm not trying to be an apologist for them (although I will admit that I've been a customer for over 6 years and I've been pretty happy with the experience).

[xsmileyx]

I agree that it is not unreasonable for a customer to monitor their usage. My problem lies with A) That when I notice my usage is off after seeing a bill and then make changes, they are not reflected in the next bill but the one after it due to the month delay in billing after cycle close and B) that when I spoke to customer service last week and asked what I could do to alleviate this type of bill they told me that the next bill was fine and not to worry about it. I have trouble believing that they didn't know it was over $100 higher and then didn't let me know.

There are few times in my life where I have felt this angry. In the past when I saw a high bill I analyzed to see if it was an anomaly and made changes that would be reflected in the NEXT bill. This is just killing me. I chose T-mobile because of their highest rating in customer service. Because of that, (and the fact that I've spent $400 with them in 2 months for a $70 account) I would have expected someone to throw me a bone. Hell if the supervisor would have said, "Look, i'll give you $20 credit on your next bill for the confusion" instead of "Watch your minutes" the situation would have been lessened significantly.

I've spent most of my life doing customer service and that is not the way to do it. The super-happy, delighted to help, you call center employees really don't seem to be there to help you so much as to tell you it's your fault and that there's nothing they can do when it comes to billing.

[Telekom]

This won't give you any joy, but you should be aware that wirefly has had loads of problems.

Is it safe to buy from www.wirefly.com? - Yahoo! Answers

The Office of the Attorney General for the City of Washington, DC filed suit in Superior Court of the District of Colmbia seeking permanent injunction and other equitable relief, restitution and civil penalties versus Inphonic, Inc. The suit alleges that the company discloses terms and conditions of its rebate procedures far from its on-line advertising, utilizes restrictive rebate conditions, fails to disclose hidden charges, and does not provide advertised customer service.

http://www.dc.bbb.org/report.html?na...ompid=23004111

[tmobileman]

Originally Posted by xsmileyx

I agree that it is not unreasonable for a customer to monitor their usage. My problem lies with A) That when I notice my usage is off after seeing a bill and then make changes, they are not reflected in the next bill but the one after it due to the month delay in billing after cycle close and B) that when I spoke to customer service last week and asked what I could do to alleviate this type of bill they told me that the next bill was fine and not to worry about it. I have trouble believing that they didn't know it was over $100 higher and then didn't let me know.

There are few times in my life where I have felt this angry. In the past when I saw a high bill I analyzed to see if it was an anomaly and made changes that would be reflected in the NEXT bill. This is just killing me. I chose T-mobile because of their highest rating in customer service. Because of that, (and the fact that I've spent $400 with them in 2 months for a $70 account) I would have expected someone to throw me a bone. Hell if the supervisor would have said, "Look, i'll give you $20 credit on your next bill for the confusion" instead of "Watch your minutes" the situation would have been lessened significantly.

I've spent most of my life doing customer service and that is not the way to do it. The super-happy, delighted to help, you call center employees really don't seem to be there to help you so much as to tell you it's your fault and that there's nothing they can do when it comes to billing.

I work for tmobile so I am going to try and explain, hopefully to clear up a few points that you've made and I think the supervisor that you spoke with should have done better to explain:

1. we do bill you after your cycle, i.e. say your cycle starts on the 2nd of the month that meants it ends on the 1st, so from july 2-aug 1 that is one billing cycle. Those charges are due on the 28th of August, now lets say today is aug 1, and you check your min (#646# send, or mytombile, or 611 all of which are free) and you realize that you are 200 min over your plan, all you have to do is call that day and change your plan, as a courtesy the rep you speak with will backdate the start of the rate plan to july 2nd therefore erasing your overage. Now if you don't monitor your min, and wait until your receive your bill yes it's too late to change that., as long as you call anyday before or the day of your bill cycle end date changes can be made.

2. You don't have to wait two months for changes to happen, as stated in point #1 you can make changes to your plan anytime, you just have to be aware of your min usage. Also if you do the #646#, or #min# min messanger from your phone it will tell your cycle close date and if you're on a family shared plan that feature tells you total shared usage for both your lines so it is a great and easy way for you to check on how your plan is working.

3. This is not your fault, most customers that activate any service through a third party with any company tend to have problems because they are not owned by the company they are strictly there to earn a buck, and honestly wirefly hopes you do cancel because if you do you pay tmobile 200 per line and you pay wirefly 250 per line, so that is how they offer you an expensive phone for free, they are banking on you cancelling.

4. Now if you're new with a company you should always activate through the company, if you had activated with tmobile directly through a corp store, I am sure all of this would have been explained to you before you left the store. Hind sight is always 20/20. Lesson learned. Tmobile does have great customer service, but we are human too. Call back and let us prove this to you. Remember though if your charges are valid, we may not offer to give you a credit, but it may happen if you call and accept that you have a plan that isn't working for you and you need help finding one that does work then we may be a little more willing to work with you.

Thanks Good luck and remember if you cancel wirefly wins, let's not let them win, I am sure that you and tmobile can work together to make the plan better for you and our goal is to put you on a plan that works well for you. Overage is frustrating but that is how we and all companies make a lot of money, so monitor your usage carefully and change your plan if you need to.

[tmobileman]

any updates or is this another post and go type thing, man I sure would like to know what happened to this guy.