a thousand furnished rooms

I knew right away it was a terrible mistake. Since my wife and boys were around the house a lot, service was miserable. We had all kinds of dropped calls, calls that didn't connect, long periods where we couldn't get through to each other. I called, they tried various lame ways to troubleshoot the problem. It never got better.

So I resolved to ride out the one-year contract I agreed to and then sign up with someone else in Christmas 2005. My sons broke one phone, lost another--both times I ponied up full price for the new phones rather than take a free or discounted phone and extend the contract. I was quite specific about this in my conversations with T-Mobile. Apparently I should have got this in writing, but more on that later.

Meanwhile, I continued to have serious problems. Once on a business trip to exotic Stamford, CT, I went through about three days where I had, literally, dozens of dropped calls and dozens more calls that never went through. My wife had similar problems on several days. We would call; the T-Mobile folks would wave their arms a little. Nothing would happen. I remember the problems in Stamford went away spontaneously when I was on the hotel phone with T-Mobile technical support. The fellow suggested it was because my phone had just traveled to a new zone, but I had been sitting on my bed with the phone in my hand for an hour.

Another time, also in exotic Connecticut, I was first on the scene of a horrific truck accident. Coming around a bend, I saw a truck careen out of the lane, through the guardrail, and down a ditch. I stopped, dialed 911--nothing. I dialed again--nothing. You can guess the rest. The call never went through. I called T-Mobile technical support. Lots of arm waving. Lots of lame guesses. No resolution.

So Christmas 2005 comes around, and I know I am leaving T-Mobile. I call them, asking if any early termination charges will apply if I cancel my service on or around December 25th. I am told no. I remind them that I have a family plan with four numbers. Are they sure no early termination charges will apply? No, I am cheerily told.

So I shop, pick Verizon, pick some cool new phones for my sons. I cancel the T-Mobile phones. I make an extra point of calling T-Mobile to tell them to no longer automatically charge my credit card.

You would think this would all work, no?

Well, here is what T-Mobile has done in response to my years of business and timely payments.

-- They sent me a final bill that included two early termination fees associated with the two phone lines where I replaced phones, paid for the replacement phones in full, and was specifically told my contract would not extend beyone December 2005. The total of the two early termination fees? $400.
-- They have continued to charge my credit card, despite my express request to stop doing this.

I called them today, and after a series of calls, finally reached someone in the executive office who agreed that one of the two $200 fees was incorrect and would be deleted. She refused to agree to waive the other one, so I left a message for Sue Nokes, senior vice president of Customer Service for T-Mobile (425-378-4991 for those of you who are also having problems). I haven't heard back from her yet.

(By the way, I love how the T-Mobile, corporate person, Carsia Johnson, avoided the point about the second charge being incorrect. I pointed out, correctly, that I paid full price for the second phone in order to avoid extending my contract. She did not dispute that, but instead said repeatedly, my record was "notated" to indicate I had agreed to extend the contract. So she is implying that I both paid full price to avoid extending the contract AND agreed to extend the contract. Talk about a "lose-lose.")

American Express was just very helpful, charging T-Mobile back for the money that T-Mobile charged against my credit card after I told them to stop charging my credit card and bill me directly. Unfortunately, American Express does not have a mechanism for blocking future charges by a specific company. So I called T-Mobile and asked why they had done this, and was told it can take more than two months for this kind of automatic payment to be cancelled (they call it EasyPay--I suggest EasyGouge instead).

Two months? Why on earth would something so simple take so long? More importantly, why was I not told this on December 26, 2005 when I called T-Mobile to cancel EasyPay and bill me directly for the last payment? I specifically told the person to cancel EasyPay so I could pay the final bills myself. This person said nothing, and on January 6, 2006 T-Mobile charged my American Express card against my authorization.

So here is my offer to T-Mobile. Drop the additional incorrect $200 early termination charge, and I will pay the remaining usage charges on my phone. If not, I will not pay any additional money to T-Mobile and will refer this to arbitration at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

I eagerly await their call. They know how to reach me.

UPDATE: I emailed Sue Nokes, senior vice president of Customer Service for T-Mobile, this blog link. I also emailed their media relations folks. No word back yet. But I hope Ms. Nokes reads my explanation here. It will be the substance of my complaint to the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office and the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: In one of my initial calls with the regular customer support folks, a woman named Erin, employee #7139360 tried to tell me that I had been told about the termination fees during a call with T-Mobile in December. This is not true, of course, and she would have no way of knowing this. During this call, I specifically asked about termination fees and was told there would be none, and she is claiming the exact opposite with no proof. Why on earth would she say this then? Is this a matter of defensiveness on her part, or are they told to say such things in an attempt to get people to back off?

Also to a similar point. Why was the corporate person, Carsia Johnson, able to so quickly determine that one of the $200 early termination charges was incorrect? Why wasn't Erin able to make this same determination? And how did the original charge get on my bill if it was ultimately incorrect? And since both charges are incorrect, how did the second one get on my bill?

And to the question of why the person failed to tell me that my credit card would still be charged when I specifically said I did not want it to be charged: Was she simply unaware? Was she aware and trained to not say so?

When does this kind of "customer service" become abusive? The more I think about it, the more I see systematic problems in T-Mobile's customer billing and service--or worse.

I worked in customer support for years. You keep customers happy by empowering employees to do the right things by customers. I am guessing I spent somewhere between $5000 to $7000 over the years with T-Mobile. (I asked Carsia Johnson to look up how much I had spent on T-Mobile over the years and she said it had nothing to do with the matter at hand. That speaks volumes to me.) I have never disputed another charge with them. Wouldn't you think, given my long history as a customer and my consistent and well-documented story, they would give me the benefit of the doubt and rectify this situation?

UPDATE: I just got a call from someone else from T-Mobile, a Kelly, who sounded like she was going to take a good look at this. She promised a follow-up in 72 hours. I will keep you posted.

RESOLUTION: (2/7/06) So the corporate person, Carsia Johnson, called me today and said, on further reflection, they are going to eliminate the second early termination fee, and will send me a bill for the remaining service charges, which I will pay. She said she realized, after more digging, that I had had two accounts with T-Mobile. This explains some of their hostility, I think. When I signed up for the family plan in December 2004, it apparently kicked off a new account number. So they were treating me as someone who had service for a year and then was quitting on them, instead of someone who had service for several years (five I think, not exactly sure) who had finally had enough.

So I have to thank T-Mobile for resolving the immediate problem they created, but I suggest they look at the underlying problems that caused this series of mishaps.