How to lose a long time customer

We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.

My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).
The phone completely quit working, so she went to the local store
at the shopping center and they gave her a new duplicate phone and
the return box. Due to several severe snow and ice storms, she
did not get the return phone mailed out in time, but called and
informed T-mobile that the storm was preventing getting to the
post office. Our bad.

T-mobile billed our credit card for over $170 for the not returned
phone - that's fine, it was our fault despite extenuating
circumstances and phone notice which T-mobile acknowledges. She
called daily until they verified receipt of the phone 2 or 3 days
later I think. On March 9th, once they physically had the phone,
she asked to have the money put back into our credit card account
and was told the money had to be sent by check and that would be
done on the 12th of March, a fact verified by T-mobile.today The
credit department chose to hold the money for the March and
subsequent bills rather than return the money as promised. She
only found out today that her refund was being posted to future
billings today. We are able to absorb the financial issues, it is
the principle of taking someone's money, refusing to return it,
and keeping the use of the money for over 2 months. This would
have been devastating for her mother on fixed income, and I am
sure for other folks.

They've ticked off the wrong lady this time. She spent 45 minutes
with them this morning with no satisfaction, several people saying
the situation made no sense and was not normal policy, but in the
end, just "tough luck". A nice, "gee, I'm sorry . . " would have
gone a long way this morning, especially if there had been any
thanks for the loyalty or let us give you an accessory or
something.

One last and final tick off. They charged a restocking fee for
the returned phone. What is the restocking fee for on a returned
phone? No one could tell us this morning other than "policy".

I've always been pleased with T-mobile until this. She wanted to
switch previously, but I talked her out of it. Ain't going to
happen this time. Any recommendations or cautions about changing
carrier?

______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)
dgriff237.TakeThisOut@7cox.net

In article <ma2Oh.83631$ia7.65588@newsfe14.lga>, DanG wrote:
> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>
> My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
> ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
> unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
> and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).

Most cell phone warranties last a year. Out-of-warranty is
out-of-warranty.

> the principle of taking someone's money, refusing to return it,
> and keeping the use of the money for over 2 months. This would
> have been devastating for her mother on fixed income, and I am
> sure for other folks.

I'd be irritated too.



--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.