Scam company of the year goes to: T-MOBILE!

Current mood: aggravated

So I work as a flight attendant for the very few of you that
didn't know... and as a side gig I run myspaces for people. I design
them and keep them up so I need constant internet connection. While I
am in Atlanta I can work by picking up an internet hotspot. So this
story goes back to May of 2008. I was based in New York at the time and
we fly out of 3 airports. Each airport has a different hotspot. So I
signed up for Boingo which was 9.99 I believe a month with NO CONTRACTS
and I signed up (reluctantly, I might add) to T-Mobile for 19.99 a
month. Now I have to admit that I have not always had the tightest
reign on my money and I can be a little absent minded about signing up
for contracts such as this T-Mobile incident.

In June I got transferred to Atlanta and the Hartsfield Intl Airport
supports both Boingo and T-Mobile. So I called and tried to cancel the
more expensive service... that being of T-Mobile. This is where I
discovered I was on a contract for a year. If I canceled this service I
would be charged $200. So I kept T-Mobile and being that I preferred
Boingo I kept Boingo until about November.



In November I thought well I need to start taking better care of the
money that I barely have so I canceled Boingo and started using my
T-Mobile account. Little knowing that it would have been cheaper to
keep paying full price for both services. In my head it made sense to
pay one account for $19.99 and use it rather than pay for both. Simple
math, right? Wrong.



In December I notice a withdraw from my account of $44.95 for a
T-Mobile hotspot. I thought that was peculiar and made note that it was
probably some scammy fee that was hidden in the contract for the new
year or something stupid like that. I made a mental note to call them
and ask them about it but I forgot as I usually do.



Today, In February I notice another $44.95 withdraw from my account for
a T-Mobile hotspot. This time it affects the rest of my bills being
that I alloted (like any normal person) a certain amount to each bill
and just like the rest of America and the world right now I am on a
tight budget. So the $300 that was set aside for my car payment has now
been tampered with because someone took more than was budgeted. Yay for
overdraft fees!



So I call up T-Mobile. If you have a customer service number you
probably want it to be a very clear number to prove you have good
service. Well I could barely hear them through the static so we were
off to a good start. I got transferred 3 times until I got connected to
the right guy. I tell him the situation and he tries to figure out what
was going on. He seemed completely baffled at first just as I was. He
tells me that I acquired roaming fees.



"Roaming fees?!", I said.



"Yes."



"Sir, I go to work at the Atlanta Airport every time and log into my
account in the same way every time on the same Airport web page every
time. Sometimes I get a $44.95 bill sometimes I get a $19.95 bill.", I
said.



He says, "Do you sit in different places of the airport? Like outside
the airport or in a different concourse or a crown room or a starbucks?"



"No. I go into the A concourse, I go downstairs to the flight attendant
lounge and I even sit on the same couch every time. It's yellow so I
know its the same couch. And I have never been to a crown room and I
cannot afford starbucks when you are withdrawing $44.95", I said.



"Do you notice a different screen when you log in?", He said.



"No, sir, I've never seen any other page besides the airport page that
has a T-Mobile button on it which I proceed to click every time where I
log in and do my work."



"Well you've been roaming."



"What? Seriously? Same yellow couch every time. I don't even roam from that couch."



So we proceed to fight back and forth for 30 minutes relentlessly.



I ask him if perhaps he could admit that it did seem weird and that
maybe there was some sort of kink in his system. He said that there was
no way that his system would be wrong. I asked him if he had 100%
confidence that his company didn't make a mistake. He said yes. He said
he believes ONE HUNDRED PERCENT in his company. I said "Wow, I don't
even believe that much in my company. That's amazing!" (I kinda said
that a little sarcastically though). :)

Finally when I realized he was getting me no where I asked to be transferred to his supervisor. I waited about 5-10 minutes.



The supervisor gets on and tells me go to the hotspot web page where it
clearly tells me all the roaming locations. Sure enough. It did. But do
you think I was surprised that they covered their own butts? Of course
not. I'm growing accustomed to fine print backstabbing me months down
the road. I tell him that I think that what they are doing is shady. I
told him that his customer service is also shady. I told him that for
future reference that T-Mobile should talk to the Atlanta Airport and
have a place where when you login it tells you that you are roaming...
whether it's a click box or whatever. But in my understanding if I see
a T-Mobile button for wireless internet hotspot, I think. HEY! I pay
$19.99 for that service I must be able to login here. And sure enough
it logs me in with no problems. I don't think about roaming fees in the
biggest airport ever. In fact I haven't thought of roaming fees since
the late 90's and early 00's when I used to have a T-Mobile phone which
I canceled over 7 years ago and have been a faithful and happy
Cingular/ AT&T customer since.



So I told him all that and I also asked him when my exact sign up date
was because it doesn't tell me on the website when I login. It just
tells me that I have been paying them for nothing for 9 months. He
muttered and stuttered around and said "... Um... I think it might be
in May." I said, "You THINK? no. Not good enough. I need an exact date
so I don't get charged any shady $200 cancellation fees." He told me to
cancel my account before May 17 and that he would also give me a free
month of service in March. I told him that would be fine especially
considering that I will never logon to my T-Mobile Hotspot again. I
will be going back to simple Boingo that has no roaming fees for half
the price.

As usual I do my civic duty to share with you about the corporations
who are ripping off the little people and the crazy things that get
made up as you reason with these poor saps. Don't use T-Mobile. If you
google T-Mobile Customer Service you get a LOT of threads of unhappy
people talking about that specific corporation being a scam. They
haven't heard the last from me... and neither have you. :)