We added our 5th and final phone to our family plan with T-Mobile on 7/27/03, following the same procedure as the previous phone additions per instructions by T-Mobile. We placed the order online (as we had all the others) for a phone on their most basic plan: 60 anytime minutes, no long distance.
After receiving the phone, on 7/31/03 we contacted T-Mobile to "merge the new account with our established family plan account". There was to be a $35 activation fee and the additional line charge. We gave them the account number on the paperwork received with the new phone, and were told that account number is not in the system. On 8/12/03 we contacted T-Mobile again to merge the new account into the established one. Again we were told they could not find any new phone or account in their system.
In the meantime, we discovered the new phone would not receive any calls from local land line phones. It would only receive calls from our other T-Mobile family plan phones. We could call out on it as normal.
9/8/03 we received a bill for the new phone on a separate account for $137.42 consisting of long distance charges, and for minutes we had exceeded the 60 minute basic plan. It had an account number different from the one on it's original paperwork, and had not been merged with our existing family plan even though we had followed T-Mobile procedures. We contacted T-Mobile about their failure to merge the accounts, and also about the technical problem with the new phone. Customer service replied our existing account only has one phone (it had 4 phones), if we wanted to add the new phone to our family plan we would have to visit a local T-Mobile dealer or call the Activations department, and the charges on the new account number were valid. They asked for more information on the technical problem.
On 9/14/03 we contacted customer service again and were told the new account "was not created properly". We had followed T-Mobile's instructions exactly as we had when adding the previous phones.
After further study of the new bill, on 9/18/03 we noticed it stated the new phone number was based out of another town located about 40 miles away that is long distance to us. We realized this T-Mobile error was the reason the new phone would not receive calls from local land lines, and was accumulating long distance charges. We contacted customer service immediately with this information and they changed the phone number, and would correct the billing error.
9/30/03 we received another bill for the separate account with a total of $163.59. We paid $62.44 to cover the $35 activation fee and 2 months of what the rate should be for the additional family line. Customer service gave us a confirmation number and closed the account, they said.
10/30/03 another bill arrived on the "closed" account for $101.15, saying the bill "has been revised to include charges not on your bill dated 9/29/03." There were actually no additional charges, just our payment of $62.44 deducted from the previous balance due of $163.59.
T-Mobile billed us again for $101.15, threatening to put it in collections. We got nowhere with customer service, so we assembled our proof of T-Mobile's comedy of errors and faxed it all to their Customer Relations department. We received nothing further on the issue after that so assumed T-Mobile had finally corrected their records.
In January of we ordered a fancy phone on a special offer from T-Mobile to be set up on a separate account for our daughter who had moved out on her own. Even though we had maintained our family plan account all that time, the new account was denied because T-Mobile said we had a balance due in collections. We called customer service who said they could not access the account in collections, and we would have to fax Customer Relations because they were the only ones who could access the old account now. We did, and received a letter in the mail from Customer Relations that there was nothing they could do and we would have to contact the collections agency, Valentine and Kebartas.
Melody
Clive, Iowa
U.S.A.
0 comments