I’ve been with T-Mobile since 2003. I’ve seen the cost of my service go up, and the quality of the phones go down. I considered it an anecdotal part of my cross country road trip when I couldn’t get service throughout most of South Dakota. Well, pretty much anywhere past Sioux Falls (which really is most of it). When the charger for my previous phone simply stopped working, it took some finagling and cajoling, but my local T-Mobile store was able to help me replace the charger and carry on my life as usual within the same day.
Yes, this is a purely emotional reaction to a situation that should have been a nonissue. However, after three visits to a T-Mobile store with an unsatisfactory result and having to eat my angry feelings in the form of two cupcakes – I am no longer amused with T-Mobile and am going to jump ship as soon as my current contract is up.
While I was at a pirate wedding last Saturday (in case you were wondering, yes, there was a moat), one half of The Gato Twins decided to bite through my cell phone charger cord. So, on Sunday I went to the T-Mobile store, sucked it up, and shelled out $29.99 for a new charger with a USB port and detachable wall charger. Until last Saturday, whenever I used my original charger, my battery would stay charged for about three days. (I don’t have a busy social calendar, and therefore don’t quickly exhaust my cell phone battery.) With the new charger, my battery wouldn’t even last 24 hours.
So, last night I went back to the T-Mobile store for round two. I exchanged the charger, and mentioned to the sales clerk that my phone kept telling me to insert a memory card. She mentioned that it was weird, but did nothing more than swap out Saturday’s charger for Tuesday’s charger.
Tuesday’s charger wouldn’t charge my phone. Period. I spent this morning looking into the cell phone plans from the other big providers, and there wasn’t much difference between all of the big names. (Sure, AT&T’s monthly plans are in the same neighborhood as T-Mobile and rollover sounds great, but who wants to pay $20 per month for texting? You almost had me AT&T, but I don’t need unlimited texts! I’m a girl who’s spent 29 minutes on the phone and sent 297 texts this past month. Sure, I still have a week to go until the new cycle begins, but I’m thinking Sprint’s $29.99 plan with the 1,000 messages add on is going to be my new plan. If I talked more maybe I’d go with Verizon, but I don’t so I won’t.)
Today during lunch, I took it back to the store and walk out totally defeated after 20 minutes of conversations like the following:
Me: The newest charger won’t even charge my phone. I’m open to any and all suggestions you may have.
T-Mobile Clerk: (After trying the newest charger and determining that it isn’t charging.) It may be your battery, but let me see what we have in back…
(He comes back with two different chargers. One won’t fit my phone, and the other starts to magically charge my phone.)
Me: Yes! That’s great! Can I buy that charger or trade you my fancy new charger?
Him: I can’t. This charger belongs to a loaner phone. It’s a different product.
Me: But… That charger works for my phone, and these don’t. These chargers are official T-Mobile products and should work with the loaner phone.
Him: I can’t. It’s a different product.
Me: Okay… What can we do?
Him: Well, your contract isn’t up until April 2012, but you can get the full trade in amount in November…
Me: But, I’d be without a phone for several months!
Him: If you can wait until September 23, you’ll get what we call trade in “plus”…
Me: That’s over three weeks away! I can’t wait THAT long.
Him: (hushed voice) You can go to 7-Eleven and buy a prepaid phone and put your SIM card in it…
Me: Umm… Okay… Thanks for your help…
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