12-31-2011, 04:49 PM
|
 | CrackBerry Newbie Device(s): 9700 (Bold) Carrier: T-Mobile | | Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 4 Likes Received: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
| |
 T-Mobile's UMA classic 'Bait & Switch' con job
Ugh! I hate having to have to write that post title. Ive been a huge evangelist and diehard fan of T-Mobile being almost grateful that they offered UMA.
Now, after having them for four years and reviewing my phone usage breakdown, I realize that T-Mo has pulled off The Big Con.
Go to YouTube and you can find T-Mo commercials showing how easy, seamless (and fun) it is to use UMA. They sell you by telling you that all you have to do is set up your router, other Hot Spots and phone to mate once and that's it. From then on, any time you are in that area you will automatically get free calls.
And it may have originally worked that way. About half of my calls were UMA initiallly. However, despite no change in work, home or the world, except for even more wi-fi clouds popping up in the past four years and having a teenage son who has a Galaxy with an always-on hot spot the number of UMA minutes has now dwindled down to a measly 50 per month.........out of a 1,000.
Ive done soft resets, hard resets, reinstalled the NEWEST software, replaced the BB four times in four years (now on 5th!) and even stood on my head and placed the phone on top of the wireless router. My laptop picked up the wifi signal. Why doesn't T-Mo's phone? I live in a city of a million people and have a Line-of-Sight to a T-Mo tower. By all empirical evidence there is no other solution than that T-Mo knows there's a problem, is part of the problem and continues to 'stick it' to us.
Despite all of this the number of UMA minutes has shrunk and the overage charges have piled up..........and it got me thinking............"if InTrade can change their odds, if casinos can rig their slot machines to reward more or less frequently then what would keep T-Mo from regressively pull back UMA coverage 'recognition' gradually over time?"
After all, T-Mo makes 40-cents a minute off each overage minute but nothing off UMA minutes other than the $10/mo. HS@Home feature. Why not ding the customer for both? Who looks at their bill anyway?!
Ive confronted T-Mo reps on the phone about the overage charges and have refused to pay until they refund the overages. They have told me it is impossible to reverse the charges until I pay the past due amount. Impossible?!?! Or they simply refuse due to policy that is not customer-centric?! So, we are at a stalemate. They did offer me one free month if I agree to commit to getting screwed by them for another 24 months but again this is before resolving the underlying issue. These reps are putting their own greedy goals ahead of customer service. Are they stupid? There's no way Im going to throw good money after bad when they havent even resolved the issues!
My son places his Galaxy with open hot spot adjacent to my 9700, side by side. Sometimes, it reads UMA. Often times, it doesnt. Sometimes, it does but reverts to GSM or 3G. It gets to the point that it is not at all like T-Mo's commercials about how it is seamless and automatically looks for open Hot Spots. It doesnt.........and you have to constantly double-check and make sure that you see the teeny-tiny "UMA" in the upper right corner before you impulsively answer or make a call. Meanwhile, my son has unlimited minutes with T-Mo and pays LESS with NO contract! WTF?!?!?!?!?!
T-Mo is fully aware of this issue and the customer retention agent told me that T-Mo never promised free calls when in a Wi-Fi Hot Spot. Only that UMA-defined calls would be free. In other words, it is a lottery, a gamble and you are spinning the wheel doing business with T-Mo.
I even took the 9700 into a T-Mo store where I scanned and could see THREE active T-Mo Hot Spots IN the store. The UMA did not automatically pop up during the 15 minutes I waited for customer service. The CSR did a scan for open networks and found a T-Mo one. He found three and UMA did pop up but then disappeared. He did a soft reset. Still, no improvement. I did an over-the-air software update in front of him despite the phone only being three weeks old and already having the newest OS build (1879). Even he could not get the phone to automatically scan, grab and hold a UMA signal inside a T-Moble phone.
At this point, Im calling BS on T-Mo. They are selling a product that they know is defective, at the least, and possibly rigged.
T-Mo, I thought I knew thee well. I loved you like a brother and thought I could trust you. Now, I find out that not only are you screwing me out of UMA minutes but you are screwing over a loyal customer of four years for $80/mo.+ overages for 300 minutes while prepaid customers with no contracts and loyalty are get unlimited everything for just 50 bucks.............and you want me to commit to another two years?!?!?!?!?!?!!?
T-Mo, there's a reason why you never made #1 and despite rooting for an underdog for so many years I now see my trust and faith in you was misplaced.
Enduring overages, hours with Customer Support, resets ad nauseum and now 5 phones just isnt worth it. A couple of tin cans and a string never gave me the headaches T-Mo does. T-Mo's tagline, 'Stick Together' is about loyalty. But it is just a hollow promise that is unrequited. I remember the tagline of another German outfit that hung across all of their 'storefronts' that said "Arbeit Mach Frei", or "Work Will Set You Free". Sure, free to warm up in an Easy-Bake oven. Not much has changed, has it, Colonel Klink.
It's official, T-Mobile! You Suck. You can take your tagline and UMA and Stick It!
T-Mo's indifference and greed has converted a faithful convert and evangelist into someone absolutely disgusted and distrusting of them. They've had chance after chance of fixing the issue but they've gone after short-term gain as opposed to long-term profit and loyalty. T-Mo, you were much better off with me as a friend than an enemy. Now, all future prospective customers will be able to read about how I was treated and how you will treat them if they subscribe to you. How many millions will you have to spend on advertising to overcome this? How many customers' future revenue will you lose simply b/c you tried screwing me over month after month?
Goodbye, T-Mo. Hello Republic and Sprint!
You have jumped the shark but you just don't know it yet.
RIP T-Mo Eat Minutes and Die!!!!
  |
Thread Author
#
Linear Mode
