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

By: Ken LeBlanc

Ken LeBlanc — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:58:23 +0000

Two of my four lines were cancelled for “excessive roaming”. I don’t care if they make a profit or what their costs of doing business are. I do care about the fact that I paid outright for a Curve, a G1 and quite a bit for accessories for them. I cannot fathom a company so disorganized that they can’t muster service three miles from an interstate highway. I am still contemplating payment of my final bill. I am out so much more that that in lost monies and replacement costs.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:37:55 +0000

Isn’t this story a couple of years old now? I’ve been a t-mo subscriber and have had nothing but great experiences. They are the smallest of the major 4 wireless carriers but the BEST value. The only issue I’ve had is not having data service in areas that are mostly farms (Green Bay). Otherwise, its worked fine everywhere I’ve traveled. Globally, they’re HUGE. I love it for international travel (most of the rest of the world is GSM). And, none of my phones features are blocked unless I pay extra fees (verizon). If you don’t like T Mobile, there are PLENTY of other carriers for you. Quit bitching.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:13:32 +0000

UMMM… they are right tmobile has really crappy service everytime i have called i can’t get the job done right and end up getting frustrated with the costomer service rep! As far as this terminating people because they are roaming is a bunch of crap, they are cutting off all these people mostly because they don’t have enough towers in the area that they are using the cell phones. my cell has to bounce off other towers in order to even work! they haven’t sent me anything, but they sent my brother a letter! why is that? it’s not random? because i think that is an excuse to just tell them to get over it basicly!
T-MOBILE sucks! plain and simple!

By: The Man

The Man — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:23:40 +0000

Let me explain something to you “Lorrie” and maybe this will help everyone else here too.

When you get canceled for excessive roaming, the company doesn’t just arbitrarily pick random customers out of a list and ditch them, they are people who consistently roam on other networks to the point where the cell provider has had to pay so much in roaming fees to the carrier that you are roaming on that it is -COSTING THEM MONEY- to provide you with cell service. Any moron knows that you dont run a successful business by keeping customers that pay you less than it costs to provide them with service.

On top of the money that they paid out to the carrier that your husband was roaming on, they lost the phones and the money when they credited you for the fees and let you keep the phones.

You think its unfair? Youre absolutely right. The carrier probably spent roughly 5 grand getting rid of you so that you could then go badmouthing them all over town costing them even more money. So be thankful for your free phones, shut up, and sign up with another carrier that covers the area you actually spend your time at.

Btw, all carriers allow you to view their coverage before signing a contract, and most allow you to cancel free of ETF if you move to a zone with no coverage, so there is no reason to run into this problem in the first place.

Its pretty clear that its not the companies’ employees that are incompetent. Its the consumer who does no reasearch before purchasing a product and then tries to blame everyone else for their ignorance.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:05:02 +0000

Wow, activation credit and credit for phones? I’m sure you are disappointed Tmobile is dropping you, but those credits definitely show they are trying to be fair.

With the blackberry you probably have a data plan on one line anyway, you might want to check to see what sprint’s coverage area is like where you are. I know their reputation for customer service was the worst ever, but that has improved greatly from what I’ve heard (had to or everyone would have left them by now!).

I’ve had Tmobile for over 3 years now and like them (definitely feel your pain!) but with the way tmobile is now making a data plan mandatory for anything but a standard phone (blackberry’s, android) when you add up the data plans on a family plan sprint actually works out to be less and their data network is far superior for the money.

If you have a best buy that does mobile phones they deduct any rebate off the top, no filing, mailing waiting and hoping! Sam’s clubs in FL used to do activations on 3 lines or more so if you have a warehouse club nearby you should definitely check them out too. BJ’s will let you walk in without a card, Sam’s and Costco just tell the door guard you want to get a membership they will let you in, check with the phone kiosk, it might be worth a membership just for that if you don’t have one (when I got cell service set up with sam’s twice they never asked for my sam’s membership…).

Tmobile seems to be a little sloppy with record keeping (or having reps interpret the records?). I bought my son a G1 in october08 and incurred a 2 year data commitment, last rep I talked to said my contract on all lines of the family plan are up as of next week. Can’t upgrade the line the g1 is on, but can jump ship!

If that’s the case maybe a new pre and sprint is in my family’s future. Only big down side is no fave five (if you use that heavily verizon might be a good option) but 7pm weekends makes up for alot of that, or UMA which we love, but the android phones we want to upgrade to don’t do UMA.

Ask tmobile for the unlock code for the blackberry and the other phones that don’t require a hardware unlock. They should give it to you and if you go to a gsm carrier (most of the US if not tmobile it’s ATT but I guess in your area it’s comnet) you can get the basic free phone and just slip the new sim in. You will need to reload the latest blackberry os for the new carrier. My son in Alaska where tmobile doesn’t operate did that when he went to ATT, once he put the ATT os in it worked fine. No uma of course but everything else works fine.

If unlocked and you go to a non-gsm carrier they will get a better price on ebay or you can help someone out who needs a gsm phone but aren’t tmobile customers.

Good luck!

By: Lorrie

Lorrie — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:41:16 +0000

I know the problem because the same happened to me and my husband. We spend 90% of our time at home but yet they were going to terminate him because his usage was over 50% roaming. I was upset. My line was okay. So it didn’t explain much. Anyways. I sat in my living room one night with my phone in one hand and his in another my phone was showing I was using a T-mobile tower and his was using a commnet, His phone was a blackberry. So I am thinking it has to do something with the blackberry phones. Called them and explained, but they just would not listen. Those people are very incompetent. So anyways, I was so upset I argued with them and told them it was unfair I had paid activation fees on 3 lines and purchased phones that I would no longer be using. Now I was going to have to switch over to a new cell company and pay this fees again. They ended up crediting my accouont for the activation fees of 105.00 and a little over 200.00 for the phones

By: Nena

Nena — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:24:06 +0000

Feel like you! No loyalty at all

By: Nena

Nena — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:22:02 +0000

I am so mad!!! Yesterday I got a letter stating that my phone will be disconected because “roaming”. I ahve been with this company for almost 10 years. I live in the Keys. I spoke with customer service and no one explained why I am roaming. I wish I could sue them. THank you

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:40:24 +0000

I know the setup time will be lost, but I’m confident that unless you got the BB’s without a contract extension you can sell on craig’s list or ebay. Call and ask any rep for the unlock code, you will usually get the unlock code by email within the next 5 business days, then they can be sold to ATT customers also if you don’t go to ATT yourself (shudder). Usually you need to have a new phone for a few months when you request unlock but they are losing the money on these no matter what so hopefully they will do the decent thing and give the codes to you.

My son got a new curve last march, got reassigned to Alaska in August where there is no tmobile coverage and when he explained he was in alaska on official military orders and would be so for the next four years they released him from the contract (which they were required to by law). They had to drop the contract but didn’t have to give unlock code. They gave it with no problem.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

By: Hol

Hol — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 05:30:54 +0000

7 years!! 7 years for what?? Customer loyalty? I think not as I too got the letter today for “excessive roaming” nothing has changed in my last 3 years of my location so why I asked them as I angrily called tonight. They would not give any more of an answer other than excessive roaming and even checked our area and we are covered. I just bought 2 blackberry phones in Feb and renewed for 2 more years. Money down the drain. Now I have to look for new service new activation fees new phones…arrghhh so so fruatrated!

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:24:15 +0000

T-Mobile does not have excellent anything. They have a bunch of inexperienced reps answering their calls, who have no problem telling you that they are simply a call center taking their calls. They mail you out refurbished units, sometimes the same unit that you previously mailed in for service. I am so over T-Mobile and could care less about how reasonable they are. I thought I was getting a great deal when I signed up for 1,000 minutes at $40.00 a month, but I’ve learned that this is a classic case of you get what you pay for. I can not wait until my contract is over with them in 3 weeks. I’ve already signed up for the 30 day trial with Verizon .

By: Thom

Thom — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:33:04 +0000

I’ve never had a problem with T-Mo, save for them shipping me an unactivated phone, but a call to customer service took sorted that out very quickly.

By: Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:12:50 +0000

Maybe you think you’re a big hero for outing someone named “Diana” and giving her rep ID, but since you opened the door, here’s the REAL scoop. T-Mobile doesn’t want to dirty its hands with extreme roamers, so they’ve sent those calls to an outsourcing company which opens call centers in impoverished areas of the Deep South. They drag as many bodies in off the streets as they possibly can to pose as T-Mobile representatives with the absolute minimum amount of training and compensation, and the employee turnover statistics would make your jaw drop. In the city where the “45xxxx” center is located, that company is the laughingstock of the region. The outsourcers put up huge electronic help wanted billboards everywhere in sight, spend a fortune on TV commercials, and desperately hammer lawn signs into the ground along major throughfares begging for applicants, but everyone in town knows someone who’s had a bad experience with them and no one wants to work there. Employees rarely last more than a few days or weeks — as most of the young pregnant moms quickly find out, it wasn’t worth getting off of welfare to even try to do the job. There isn’t a T-Mobile store or tower within 100 miles of the center, so most of these people have never even seen or touched an actual T-Mobile phone. Their Deep South wages are so low that they can’t qualify for credit — but they’re fully authorized to run yours as part of the activation process — so they’re predominantly using some other carrier’s prepaid phones. Now, here’s the real kicker, even if they did have T-Mobile phones, the ERR call center employees would be considered extreme roamers themselves, so why would they even bother in the first place? After you got off the phone with “Diana,” she was most likely just as frustrated as you that her supervisor refused to take over your call. It wouldn’t be unusual if she threw down her headset and quit the very same night, and as each person quits, the wait time for an agent gets longer and longer. The supervisors in that call center are a lazy, indifferent, complacent clique who are off socializing together whenever an agent has an escalated call, and their turnover is almost as high as the agents. They care more about their own jobs — to carry out T-Mobile’s mission to terminate your service by any means necessary — than the fact that your life has just been upended by the extreme roaming reduction, so they just flat-out refuse to take over the calls. The people who take those calls actually do care about you no matter how rude they seem — they’re just not empowered to solve your problem.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:12:05 +0000

A coworker of mine just got one of these letters last week. He was totally suprised since he didnt realize he was roaming that much. He has been in town the last 7 months so its a mystery to him.

By: amanda

amanda — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:58:05 +0000

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…

By: Iris

Iris — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:11:36 +0000

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.

By: Angry Law Student

Angry Law Student — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:05:09 +0000

that was a response to a Nov. post, not to the one immediately preceeding– sorry for any confusion

By: Angry Law Student

Angry Law Student — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:02:07 +0000

Hi– you are an idiot– did you ever think people had the service BEFORE being in a roaming area? jerko

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:51:47 +0000

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.

By: Liz

Liz — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:11:03 +0000

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!

By: Angry Law Student

Angry Law Student — Sat, 31 May 2008 05:22:33 +0000

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

By: jmv

jmv — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:37:52 +0000

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.

By: jmv

jmv — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:33:34 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:37:31 +0000

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….

By: Leah

Leah — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:30:48 +0000

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!

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:46:19 +0000

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.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:04:27 +0000

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!

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:46:45 +0000

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.

By: Jewel

Jewel — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:18:17 +0000

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.

By: john paul readey

john paul readey — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:27:23 +0000

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.