I'm so tired of T Mobile! Help!

Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive October 2004: I'm so tired of T Mobile! Help!

Since Dh and I have moved on base here, there is *very* minimal coverage. We have a 2 year contract that we still have a little over a year left of. I dont know what to do. We pay over $80.00 a month for both our phones and hardly get coverage. They want to charge us an early cancellation fee for both lines which equals to $400.00!!! What am I to do? Continue paying $80.00 a month for phones that sparingly work or pay $400.00 to get out of a contract that isn't really my fault for having to do.

Is is possibly legal for them to do this? It seems very unfair and unreasonable. Any suggestions???

By Shellyg on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:16 pm:

I have T-mobile also and I agree it does SUCK! Customer service is horrible! What I did find that works is when I have a problem, I go back to the guy who sold me the phone and he fixes it for me, most of the time. After my contract is up in March I will NEVER use T-mobile again!

By Palmbchprincess on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:16 pm:

I just canceled with Sprint for that reason. We actually bargained with them to cancel without fees, because though they "say" we have coverage in our area, we had VERY spotty coverage, and were paying them over $100 a month for crappy service. Their customer service also stinks, and they actually called Nate a liar more than once when he told them we were having coverage issues. If you are under contract they can charge you the cancellation fees, but most companies will waive the fees if you are living in a non-coverage area. Try talking to them, and be firm, the squeaky wheel gets the grease!!

By Mommyathome on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:24 pm:

Some companies will pay the cancellation fee on your previous cell phones if you switch to their service.

By Jewlz on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:32 pm:

we have had tmoble and sprint and verizon ... nextell is the one that we love in our area cuz they have great customer service and worked with us ... cozts us a bit more but we can get service in any part of the area wea re in ... and even across the nation with the phone only a few spots did they drop ...

By Wandilu on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:45 pm:

I know how frustrated you feel.But there is hope.My daughter went through the same problem about three yrs ago.She was only 3 or 4 months into her contract when they moved from the city to a very small rural community.Needless to day ,she had little to no coverage.She was able to get out of her contract.I spoke with her just now to get the details.She said it took several calls,and everytime she spoke to someone(and of course they started out saying no)she always asked to speak with a supervisor.She said she told them that she had enjoyed her current service,but now they were out of range and could not get good service,and that it was futile to pay for something that she could not use.And she wanted to get permission to be let out of the contract due to circumstances out of her control.If they say you have to pay the penalty,tell them you shouldn't have to pay the penalty since their company doesn't have adequate coverage.If and when they agree to do this,make sure you ask them to put it in writing.She said they were very nice about it (after about the third or fourth person she contacted) and she recieved her conformation in the mail in just a few days.I hope this helps.If you still can't get someone to help you,let me know and I will get my daughter to see if she can remember exactly who she contacted.Good Luck.

By Wandilu on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:49 pm:

also,she said in the contract,it says something about if you move to a non-covered area,you can cancell.

By Boxzgrl on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 08:02 pm:

DH spoke with a girl who declined to waive the "early cancellation fee" but said she would give us top of the line flip phones for $35.00 a piece and they will give us better coverage. (We have the "free" advertised phones). Sounds stupid to me considering my understanding is that their coverage has to do with their satellites and whatever else they use, NOT the phones. I'm not going to give up. We want to switch to at&t who was 9 towers alone on Camp Pendleton, give military a 19% discount and has the same plan for the same price but with 100 additional minutes. The rep there was telling us that we can cancel by saying we live and work on base and there is no coverage and they should waive the fee. Easier said than done!

By Truestori on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 09:16 pm:

Melissa,

Along with your bill you should see a "Have you tried these great products and services?" insert. Look all the way on the bottom in very small fine print: "Effective Oct. 1 2004, in the U.S. 411 and More increases to $1.25 per call plus applicable airtime, roaming and long distance."

Seems like a contract breaker to me!

If you paid your September bill, that may have given them the right to say that you have agreed to their new terms. Worth a shot though. Goodluck.

By Kittycat_26 on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 09:52 am:

I believe to some extent that all cell phone companies are like this. I paid over a year's service with At&t and never used the phone becuase we moved out of the area.

Right now we are fighting with Cellular One because of the same issues you are talking about, Melissa. We get poor coverage. They are sending out trouble tickets and checking it out left and right; however, we are still required to pay those bills.

Grrrrrrrr!

By Feona on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 05:46 am:

Always ask to speak to a supervisor. Skip the customer service representative.

Tell them you are calling the better business bureau if they don't do what you want.

Tell them you are putting reviews at the top ten reveiw web sites such as eopinions.com and amazon.com for cell phones.

Tell them you are going to call the local consumer reporter to report them for fraud.

Honestly if you scream loud enough they will want to shut you up.

We have at&T. We had I forget what other crap. AT&t is much better here.

The flip phones are better service. Maybe you can borrow one to see if it works?

By Karen~moderator on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 07:45 am:

Interesting..........

DH and I had Alltel for a few years and it was awful! We were stuck because we had a contract.

We used Nextel at work for several years and the service was horrible, and the customer service was even worse! You have to watch your bills carefully with Nextel. DD has Nextel and she's had numerous billing errors too. There were constant network problems with Nextel. Many of the businesses we deal with daily were using Nextel also, and the name for it around this area has become *No-tel*, because the network is down so often.

We got rid of Nextel the end of August and went with Sprint. One of those spur-of-the-moment decisions my boss made. The plan is MUCH better, we have a lot of free minutes, free mobile to mobile, etc. and they have the walkie-talkies too. But IMO, Sprint is worse than Nextel for dropped calls.

DS just switched from Sprint to Verizon because of the plans and the dropped calls and the costs. He just got Verizon last month, so we'll see how that goes.

I've got a flip phone, DS has one of those phones with the camera. I like the flip phone because when it's down in my purse it doesn't accidentally dial someone. LOL