Good service, horrific customer service

This one might be a bit long, but I am hoping someone here can help me find a way to end this nightmare.

This all began about 18 months ago when I signed a contract with T-Mobile prior to coming down on orders for Iraq. The first issues popped up when the bill pay portion of the bill was somehow botched, and I called, or attempted to, to fix it. For some reason, the calls would not go through, and I sent an email inquiring about how to fix it. T-Mobile wanted to verify my identity before giving the information. No problem right?

Wrong. The method of verification they wanted was for me to send an unsecure email with my full name, full social security number, and phone number to verify my identity. Now, on a previous deployment, I did have my identity stolen and am fully aware of the pain that restoring your ID can be. I pointed this out to T-Mobile, along with the FCC's specific admonition to avoid using SSN for this purpose, and initially said, "you mean last four right?"

Apparently not. They refused to do anything until I gave them my FULL social security number. I even tried calling, and apparently by disagreeing earlier, they refused to address the initial issue until I verified my ID by, you guessed it, providing my full SSN. I obviously refused. This began a process of various T-Mobile agents literally yelling at me, threatening me, and finally locking down my account to the point where I had to get a military attorney involved just to be able to pay my bills while the dispute was adjudicated.

The various compromises rejected by T-Mobile: using any or even all of the FCC approved methods for ID verification. Walking into a store with a government issued ID card was not good enough. I simply had to share my SSN.

To be fair to T-Mobile, after everything above and with the complaint in to the FCC they did come around and say, "OK, we'll accept the last four." At that point, after being put through all that, I refused their belated compromise -- the exact same compromise they initially rejected.

Eventually, the FCC did step in and solve the issue. T-Mobile has now amended their policy.

I had hopes that this was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, the issues continue now that I have reurned from Iraq. What had been a $75 a month charge suddenly shot up to $88 without explanation. For the record, even in approximate amounts, that equates to an increase of more than $150 a year. Call me silly, but I figure if I earn my pay by going to combat, then I probably have more right to my salary than T-Mobile does (at least the portion in excess of the contracted amount).

Curious, I pulled up the bill and was astonished at what I found:

1. I was being billed for services that I had never signed up for.

2. Fees that were once part of the contract amount were now separated from the contract and charged as 'additional' fees. These fees had also been raised.

3. Taxes, also apparently once part of the contracted amount were now add ons as well. Additional taxes were fine, but when I tried to line them up for verification I simply could not find any matching data. In fact, it appears that T-Mobile was, and is, charging too much. However, after asking for clariying data to verify the charges, for three months no less, T-Mobile has not provided any clarification.

4. Services that I inactivated were simply turned back on a day or two later and the bill passed along.

I contacted T-Mobile and was basically told, "We can charge you whatever fees we want to, and the the tax data should match your zip code." So what exactly do I do when the tax information does NOT match my zip code? I spoke with, or rather I attempted to speak with Mrs. Masters from the executive section, and when I began to explain the situation, she quite literally huffed, told me I was wrong in mid-sentence, and then hung up on me.

The response to the Better Business Bureau from this conversation was that we had talked and the issue was settled. Obviously, that is not the case.

When I tried other sources, I have received such informative statements like, "T-Mobile can change their terms and conditions whenever they want to, and, oh BTW, it is your responsibility to keep up with them."

Perhaps this is naive, but a signed contract is just that: a contract. The entire point is that service X is delivered for cost Y for the term of the contract. Certainly, if I attempt to change those conditions, or leave the contract, there are clauses of said contract there are penalties for doing so. However, the unofficial excuse at this point is that T-Mobile can and will change the conditions whenever they feel like it, but I can pay them $200 if I don't like it. Ergo, give us an additional $150 or $200, your choice.

At this point, after the first and subsequent issues with T-Mobile I have attempted to confine the communication to forums that provide documentation, I expressed this desire quite clearly to T-Mobile. Prior to this disagreement I could use the live help section to adjust the issues. This resulted in the changes that were subsequently reversed a few days later. Now, I attempt to use it and have literally waited for up to a hour without getting through (time of day, or night, does not seem to matter). I have tried using forums like the Better Business Bureau, and T-Mobile will not respond after I disagreed with their presentation of our conversation. I have asked T-Mobile to send an e-mail, and they have refused.

Complaints to the FCC are currently pending.

However, at this point I am just fed up with the entire organization. They have literally been a source of nothing but aggravation and unprofessionalism. I have no problem paying the contracted amount for the services (which is higher than their current advertised rates for the same service), but I will not pay for Enron-esque style accounting additions and inflated taxes. If I cannot solve these issues, how the hell do I get away from these guys as quickly as possible?

More importantly, are their providers that do not treat their customers this badly? I would happily pay more for service with an organization that charged me what we agreed on without the drama.

 

Well, here is something all cusumers need to know.

ALL fees, that is right ALL, must be based on an actual service. In practice, these fees, when the proverbial wool is pulled back, can be for such things as storing paper for a customer. As a customer, I can then say, "Well, thank you very much, but I do not want you to store paper for me. Please reverse the charge."

The problem, in practice, is that many of the fees have a grain of truth to them. One example is the regulatory compliance fee. This is a $.24, 24 cent, charge that the federal government leverages per line per year. That is a valid $.24 cent charge.

T-Mobile, and indeed all carriers, have fees that incoporate these charges. In order to cover this charge, T-Mobile is charging $14.52 a year, or sixty times the government leveraged fee. Not exactly reasonable, and clearly not indicative of an actual cost to the larger organization.

In my case, these charges were neatly rolled up under the $75 monthly charge. Now, I am still paying the same rate, but the charge is an additonal charge to this original amount.

The contract clause that allows T-Mobile to raise these rates is intended to allow them to transfer costs should the government raise their tax rates. It is not intended to be a loophole to extract income unrelated to the actual provision of service.

Having to pay a fee to offset government charges is one thing. Having that charge rolled up under the contract initially is indeed acceptable. Having that charge pulled out of the terms as a separate additional charge and then tacked on is not acceptable.

I suspect the same thing is happening with the tax revenue that T-Mobile refuses to provide verification for.

Simply put, it is not honorable in either intent or action. And, quite frankly, as consumers, we do not have to 'just take it.'

 

First, I want to be clear that I have never ranted at a rep over the phone. I am fully aware that when it comes to policy disagreements, that phone reps cannot make those kinds of decisions. I would however expect executiuve agents, whom I have attempted to speak with, to be able to make compromise decisions. Furthermore, I would expect that written communication would facilitate the resolution of at least the simple portions of the disagreement.

Believe me, I have asked to be relieved from my contract with T-Mobile as this has gone on, and T-Mobile has steadfastly refused to allow that without a $200 charge AND the settling of charges for services that that were shut off but that they continue to charge for. Those charges have now been collecting for three months as I have tried to reason through this dispute. I WILL Pay for the valid protion of the debt and WILL pay fees and taxes that are accurately assessed. I WILL NOT pay excessive amounts of either.

For example, I will pay the RCF as per the contract. I will not pay the same charge as BOTH a part of the contract amount and an additional fee. I will pay legally assessed taxes, I will not pay excessive tax rates. I will pay for services that I have contracted, but will not pay for services that were added without authorization or that were turned back on after being inactivated. That just will not happen.

Which part of that is so unreasonable as to be characterized as ranting ?

Additionally, we need to stay within the scope of the problems presented. I am not, nor indeed have I ever, asked T-Mobile to lower my rate. I am asking why T-Mobile thinks they can raise my contracted rates by 20% through various 'fees', unasked for services, and unverifiable taxes. I would happily pay the contract amount for selected services, it is a contract after all, but, just as that contract binds me, so to does it bind the service provider to those rate. T-Mobile is not obliged to lower them, but neither am I required to pay them more simply because they add a slew of fees to my bills that are suddenly not part of the contract amount.

We need to be very mindful of the fact I was open to all forms of communication to settle this and get the required information to adjudicate these issues. Only after a executive level representative slammed a phone down in my ear in mid-sentence and then deliberately misrepresented the substance of the conversation to the BBB did I remove verbal communication from those options.

I would be very careful about presenting dissenting opinions from the T-Mobile line as 'rants'. Among the many positions I have held in the service of my country, part of that duty has been representing soldiers in disputes with crediters and debt collectors. Certainly not by design, but by default, I have had to become very familiar with rules and procedures in these areas.

I have been involved, either directly or indirectly with literally dozens of issues with the entire spectrum of organizations. Usually, I can talk through to a solution. There are only two types of organizations that I have not been able to reach resolution on issues with: fly by night bill collectors and T-Mobile.

Incidentally, there are a couple of red flags that should cause people to be on guard when dealing with organizations. If either of these things happens, and having been burned for not doing so with earlier issues, I immediately move communication into a written form with the intent of documenting that communication to facilitate later adjudicative processes.

1. Dishonesty. When an organization says it will do something and then either fails to follow through or does the opposite, that shows clear intent and that intent is not the honorable resolution of a issue.

When T-Mobile repeatedly refunded erroneous charges, only to reinstate them a few days later, it was clear that I needed to go beyond the front line CS reps to get a managerial billing issue addressed. Three months of inaction later, I believe T-Mobile's intent has been made clear. Whatever T-Mobile's intransigence is about, it is not about the honorable resolution of these issues.

2. Emotive manipulation. This can include yelling, threatening, or simply changing the subject from the substance of the issue and directing it toward the 'person' who is disagreeing as in, "The problem is not the billing issues, it is you the customer." Once again, addressing the actual issue with intent to solve it is clearly in abscence.

Slamming a phone down in my ear as I ask why a charge was removed from the contract portion of our agreement and then placed as a separate charge on my bill is not a professional way of establishing valid proof of debt (a legal requirement for billing I might add). Dismissing such concerns as a rant rather than a legitimate billing disagreement would also fall into this category.

So again, I have moved this dispute beyond the CS reps, who have been very polite and very professional, into the mangerial realms where it should have quickly been addressed and adjudicated. Instead, just as I found when I had senior representatives literally screaming at me for not sending them my entire SSN over an unsecure email even as I was preparing for combat, I am again finding that the policy makers within T-Mobile remain dictatorial, emotive, and vindictive.

Perhaps JD Powers should look beyond the front lines when grading organizations customer service?

 

Are there any ones out there that are particularly good or bad?

 

Well, honestly, all I really need is something I can talk on and send occassional text messages. The other nonesense I can do without.

 

Robot:
Interestingly enough, what you wrote about verifying ID is exactly what the FCC says about how to go about verifying ID. However, that was not what I was told by T-Mobile, and, back when T-Mobile still used email, I have written demands that I provide them with the full SSN. In fact, the same Mrs. Masters that slammed down the phone in my ear is the same one who who rejected me going into a T-Mobile location and showing my ID card to settle the issue. Specifically, I still needed to provide portions of my SSN.

Worse, there was a password set on the electronic portion of my account. Neverthless, when I gave T-Mobile my SSN to run a credit check at the beginning of the process, I was astounded to find that they had set my SSN as the default password on my account. There is a very specific FCC regulation about avoiding using SSN for passwords (the regulation is unspecific enough that a consumer can choose to use the SSN as a password, but that the intent is clearly to allow a the owner of the SSN to decide the amount of risk to take with that information.) When I objected to this, it went very badly.

Again, this is the reason that I begin to document disputes.

That being said, at the same time this dispute began, I had some issues pop up with a credit card. When you move upon returning from combat, and your wife is going elsewhere for schooling, statements can sometimes go here and there. In this case, when the statements caught up, there were some errors, some my fault and some not. When I found out, I called the company to get everything current so I could sit down and make document the process of what had happened to resolve the issue.

When I called, the represntative fixed the immediate issue but could tell that I was bothered about something. She inquired, and I began to explain what had happened and why I tought it had happened. To my surprise, she went through the entore process with me and fixed 90% of the issue over the phone. The remaining 10% required director approval, and she even drafted the initial review report for me over the phone.

It stands in rather stark contrast to asking T-Mobile why my tax rates do not match the tax assesments I can find and wondering what source they use to clear the matter up and receiving ... well, nothing as an answer.

For situations like these, there really is no good response for T-Mobile. I might even have some sympathy for them except for the fact that their own decisions have brought them here. If websites like this do anything, hopefully it will place pressure on T-Mobile (indeed all carriers) to clean up their acts.

 

I wish you were the one I had spoken to when these issues first popped up in T-Mobile. Everything you list above is almost a duplicate copy of the FCC regulations, and, had T-Mobile followed those procedures there would have been no problem.

Unfortunately, a few senior representatives clearly decided to take the issue personally. They continually demanded that I give them my full SSN. That was after, both verbally and in writing, giving them the FCC regulations, too which, repeatedly, they cited their internal policies (which they never bothered to pass on to me despite requesting them) as the reason they could not adopt a more reasonable position.

Quite frankly, a few of the senior reps seemed to great offense that someone would actually disagree with them and went about manipulating my account, obfuscating, and literally threatening me. I really would like to have the name of the genius at T-Mobile that thought he or she could bully an Army Ranger into divulging sensitive personal information. It literally took the involvement of an attorney to professionalize the behavior to the point that FCC resolution process could work itself out.

I do find your relevantion that their internal documents actually supported my position, and that they were clearly telling me one thing and FCC quite the opposite.

I suspect, as the current issues work their way through the resolution process that there will be similar communication incidents (hence the desire to document the communication).

However, I will try the email you gave me, and very much appreciate the help.