T-Mobile dropping over 600 customers because they roam too much

On November, 14th, T-Mobile sent out letters to over 600 customers that are no longer within a contract to tell them to get lost. Not quite the words, but more or less the same thing. The thing is, T-Mobile viewed these customers are roaming too much, and most likely thought it would be cheaper to disconnect these customers instead of letting them roam till the cows come home. They are totally out of the system, as they’ve been offered to switch to a T-Mobile To Go plan. If they don’t want that, they will then have no choice but to have their service terminated by a specific date. A little harsh? Maybe. But then again, if T-Mobile doesn’t cover where you go, you’re better off switching to another carrier. Just don’t switch to Sprint because you might end up getting canned there too, you know, for calling customer service too much…
Thanks, T-MobileStar!
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Guys, they are only shutting off people that roam 100% OF THE TIME. Not 99%, or 80%… Only the ones that are NEVER on their network. These are people that should have never been activated in the first place…
And it is 600 out of almost 28 million people… Really nothing…
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Cry.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if these were people who purchased T-Mobile’s unlimited BlackBerry international plan who never actually used it domestically. I know that T-Mobile’s charges are FAR less than any competing carrier internationally, so people may have used them to get cheap BlackBerry service abroad.
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Bob,
NC residents are SOL when it comes to TMobile. Not sure why VA, SC, TN, KY are all covered but NC is out in the cold.
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Hmm, I’ve been in roaming since I got T-Mobile a year and a half ago. Since TMO doesn’t have official coverage here in Charlotte NC, I don’t have a choice. I wonder if I’ll be getting a letter….
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This is no big deal. As others have also pointed out, this affects customers with a pricing plan based on an expired contract that roam 100% of the time. They will get the choice of a new plan if they choose. I don’t believe this to be unreasonable. They are not being cut loose in the manner Sprint did with some customers.
I’ve been with T-Mobile since they were VoiceStream. Their customer and technical services groups have been outstanding whenever I’ve needed them and their pricing I believe is the best value. Having the smallest network among the the major carriers is a drawback but I’ve still been able to get voice and data services anywhere I’ve traveled in the US and the 4 other continents I’ve traveled to. Not having a G3 network also sucks but I’ll live with it.
The only other carrier I MIGHT be able to say that about (international service) is AT&T, and my experience with their customer service is not positive. I would never do business with Verizon as i feel they suck every dime possible from their customers.
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Ahah! M&A! netposer now that I’m roaming up here I get to see who’s network I’m piggy backing on. SUNCOM keeps popping up. So a searched around a bit and it turns out T-Mobile is buying them out. So there soon will be a T-Mo presence in NC. search Google Finance for the stock symbol TPC.
Bob
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I think saying t-mobiles service sucks is ridiculous, the customer care is the NICEST around, and unfortunately like other poroviders they CANNOT guarantee service. In my hom,e I get no coverage, with the hotspot at home it solved that issue.. what other provider is TRYING AS HARD to make it so you can talk to anyone at anytime?
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Or people that move out of the house and go off to college or move or get transferred or might be military. I wonder what happens if the have H@H but roam all the time out of the house?
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i lived in KY, but now living in SC. So from what is happening here, because I am roaming, and have been for nearly 2 and a half years, loks like they should be shutting me off. I don’t think this will be happening though as T-Mo. bought SunCom wireless, aka Triton PCS. when this is finalised, there will finally be a whole lot more T-Mo. in TN, SC, VA, NC and SC.
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This is for those that are tired of getting stuck with charges that don’t belong to them. I noticed my T-Mobile bill going up in price each month, so today, being tired of paying more than what I signed on for, I started to do some research on our bills. Apparently T-Mobile raised the price of our text messaging WITHOUT informing us. We have kept every single piece of paper T-Mobile has sent to us over the last two years…we use one of the phones for business so we had to keep any and all documentation for expense reports and taxes. We never received any “insert”. On top of this, for the last year of our service, we have had dropped calls, static on the lines, no service, etc. We have called many times to get the technical problems resolved-even went as far as purchasing new phones (at full cost) for both lines and replacing sim cards-and still-the service is below par. As far as the texting goes-I did my research and then looked at our plan online…I signed in, clicked on “Plans”, went to the bottom of the window and clicked on “See Other Included Services”, went to the bottom of the next screen and clicked on “More Information About Services”, On the next page…First paragraph under the heading “ALL PLANS” If you read the first couple of lines-you will see that T-Mobile themselves say that text messages are only supposed to be 5 cents a text. This is for ALL PLANS-Not just for mine. Yet they are charging everyone more! As far as I am concerned-this is deplorable-and earns them MILLIONS of dollars a month!!!!! A month-not a year or more. Think on it-every one of their customers is paying more than what they say they actually are charging. I called T-mobile and explained that we were very unhappy with the service and now we find out that our Text cost went up. I spoke to a lady and explained what I found on their website and started to ask why they were charging me more than they themselves state the charge is supposed to be. And here I have been paying more for TWO YEARS!!! She said this was a tax, I said no it isn’t-read the paragraph. She put me on hold for a few minutes. When she came back, I asked what would they do for me since I have been paying more than required for 2 years. She didn’t know-so I asked for a supervisor. It took a few minutes-but I got one. . She came back and actually thanked me for finding the “typo”. She couldn’t believe that no one had found it before. She even confirmed the “typo” with her supervisor and then their business department. When I did get the supervisor, she was very defensive. I wasn’t-I was actually pretty nice. I explain everything again, and I ask her-what was T-Mobile going to do for me since I have been paying over their own rates for the last two years. She states that she has documentation that we received the insert explaining about the Text rate change. She stated that I HAD to have received the insert. I told her I was more than willing to send her every paper I had for the last two years, it isn’t here. Unless I signed it and gave it back (which if I had received it and they had asked me to at the time-I probably would have), she cannot say I received it. I am not a dishonest person-I would take a lie detector test to prove we never received it. She refused to give any-she only offered me a rate of .10 cents for our texts for the last month, but as of right now-I am officially notified that my rate of texts from here on out would be 15 cents per text. I couldn’t believe she said that-I repeated ”So you are saying, as of right now-you are officially notifying me?” She said yes. If that is the case-I should be able to cancel my contract because I am just now officially informed of my text rate change, and since we are still having service problems after trying everything they suggested, we no longer want to keep the service. We especially don’t feel that we should have to pay even more for services that we are not happy with. She said no-and I said-but you stated yourself that people had 30 days from the time of discovery to cancel their contracts without an ETF if they did not approve of the rate change, and you just “OFFICIALLY” let me know of my rate change. She started to get a little more rude now and told me she could not waive the ETF. I explained that this didn’t make sense, from what she herself said in the beginning of the conversation. We keep going round in circles repeating the same points of view. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She told me they weren’t there but she would have them call me. I have “print screened” the page with the 5 cent text rate-with the date of 2-6-2008, so they can’t say it didn’t exist. If 5 cents per text was on their site and I saw it-they should honor it, and have it retro-active for the last 2 years. I just feel that they are cheating everyone, and they aren’t even letting anyone know about it. We shall see what happens.
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Let me start by saying that I was totally happy with my service and customer service up until last month when I received a letter stating that on 3/11/08 my service would be terminated because of too much roaming.
I called customer service immediately and explained that I had a 2 year contract, and they said I only signed a 1 yr contract. Luckily I keep copies of everything and told them I had it in front of me.
The CSR told me if I would take the contract to a T-Mobile retail store they would verify it and see what they would do.
On 3/1/08 I drove to Muskogee Ok to the retail store on Shawnee Dr. Showed them my contract and they in turn made a copy. The rep at the store agreed that it was a 2 yr contract and called (she said customer service). they told her I only had a 1 year contract, the Rep told them that she had a copy of the contract and it INDEED was a 2 yr contract.
At this point I asked if they were going to honor the contract until Aug of 2008 or not. Everyone agreed that it would be honored until that time.
I left the store satisfied that it would be honored until the end of my contract and I understand that at that time it would not be renewed, and while not happy I understood why.
Had I know it would not be honored until the end of the contract I could have taken other options to get a cell phone from another company and ported my number.
All I request of T-mobile is to honor their contract and keep it on until the expiration of such contract, OR send me a check for $200.00
(the cost of me breaking the contract if I would have terminated early). I, and others have read the contract and cannot find any provision for T-mobile to cancel the contract before the expiration date.
I talked to a Diana this morning her employee number given me was 452525 she stated her supervisor most likely would not talk to me.
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TMOBILE sent me a letter dated April 23, 2008 telling me that I will be cancelled because the majority of my phone calls are “roaming”. I think that’s bullshit. Where else on the Navajo Nation can I get great service like I received from TMOBILE. The local towers and carriers such as, Cellular One & Cingular don’t match up to performance! I think it’s bullshit!
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When I moved from Florida to Arkansas, T-Mobile would not let me drop the contract if I had a signal where I could use the phone, even though I was outside their service area. Now they have changed their mind, saying that I roam to much and have been dropped. When I moved they knew all my calls would be roaming, so I don’t believe they are justified in their decision. Whe they thought it was to their benifit I was stuck with them, with only fair service in the area. Now I have to get a new contract with fewer minutes for the same price with another carrier.
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I totally understand! I was just on the phone with Tmobile and they told me that they will be cancelling my line by June 26th. Of course I got mad since I’ve been with Tmobile for the past 6 yrs! So the lady was like “well you can cancel anytime now without a ETF.” Like that was supposed to make me happy! I’m like send me a $200 check for cancelling my service early! They would charge me why can’t I charge them? lol!
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I just got a letter today (May 30, 2008) saying they were cancelling service on one of our lines. My issue is this: they charge you $200.00 per line if YOU the customer cancel or leave their service, but if THEY cancel because we roam too much will they pay the cancellation fee to me? Sounds like they need to live up to the terms of their own bargain. I hav T-Mobile phones that will probably not work with another service. I think T-MO should pay all the costs of establising another agreement if they can’t live up to theirs….
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Its not that the roaming got too excessive its that the service sharing they had on the tower we access was terminated. So now we are roaming on the same tower.
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It wasn’t that I all of a sudden I started roaming in my location. I’m still in the same area I’ve always been in. Its that T-Mobile no longer has a sharing agreement on the tower that receives my signal so now I’m considered roaming in a location that I previously was not roaming in even though I’m still going through the same tower for my service. They change the rules and then disconnected my service.
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I, like many students, am away from home. And when I go home, I still use my TMobile– so my roaming IS NOT 100%–and it so happens I didn’t get my mail from home with this stupid freaking letter. Nonetheless, when I phoned–from a pay phone as I have no service– THESE ASSHOLES REFUSED to answere a simple question, why is my phone off? That’s all I wanted to know. They wouldn’t tell me, they kept putting me through to “customer service” where I languished in toto for about 5 hours over the last 2 days. One person did give up the ghost and said I had to call the ERR department, so I got her to tell me what that was.
I am so close to going ballistic– I’m glad I found this . But the truth is that it must be more than 600 people now–its gotta be more than that
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same here. cheapest prices around! i pay $75 a month for the myfaves, unlimited text, and unlimited internet and you really can’t get that anywhere else!
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T Mobile SUCKS. I complained to the FTC and BBB about this crap. And btw, don’t pay for ringtones, get em FREE at http://metal.rules.peperonity.com from your phone browser. I was told by the guy that ran the Tmo stand here that this BS is because AT&T raised the roaming rate on em. Like that’s our fault. Tmo will regret this decision big time. The rude chick I talked to on the phone actually tried to TELL me to switch to AT&T!! I hate ATT too, so I’m looking at Alltel.
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Hi– you are an idiot– did you ever think people had the service BEFORE being in a roaming area? jerko
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that was a response to a Nov. post, not to the one immediately preceeding– sorry for any confusion
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I too am being dumped for excess roaming. I have had tmo for 7 years with my roaming habits being the same for all of those years. This is affecting more than 600 customers according to tmo rep as they claim to me that they are getting hundreds of calls daily. Previously have loved them, great packages, prices and customer service and very disappointed to have to go elsewhere as I can’t touch this price anywhere else, also I had just renewed in dec 07 for two years, purchased new phones and chargers, ring tones etc… Now I have to pay activation fees (i have 5 lines) new phones, access whatever. It is going to be very costly to me to make this change. I wish that tmo would see this as an opportunity for growth instead of eliminating loyal customers.
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i was just dropped form t-mobile for this reason. what doesnt make sense is, 1. i dont roam 100% of the time, i maybe roam 60%. and 2. my contract has 2 years left on it, its not expired like the stipulations say. and last and more importantly, i was NEVER notified of anything to do with this. so much for tmobile mailing all the people it applied to. its a load of crap. i got terminated for roaming to much when my contract clearly states i get UNLIMITED NATION-WIDE ROAMING…
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