20 Year T-Mobile Customer - Customer Service had become very inadequate, terrible. Rude.

I feel you: I’ve been a customer for a few years and had a great plan. T-Mobile treated me great to lock me into a 2 year plan, but things went sideways on day one.

I specifically asked whether the iPhone I got for signing up could take both my personal and business line in the store and the guy assured me it wouldn’t be a problem.

Well… activating both eSIM slots required the phone to be unlocked. That took a day to resolve.

A few years go by and things are fine, meaning I don’t have to talk to anyone at T-Mobile.

One of the family had issues and needed to go to the store. I made them an authorized user. For whatever reason that changed my number as the primary account holder and I spent multiple calls and hours over months to get that “resolved.”

That means they send the texts and calls to the home internet routers or everyone BUT me.

I finally resolved that with someone that knew what they were talking about yesterday as I was porting out my family and canceling all service.

This is because over the last month, between chat and calls, I have spent 18 hours (documented) with customer service over multiple problems T-Mobile’s incompetence created.

It started after my grandfather passed earlier this year. I needed to turn off his line and port my business line in to replace it and keep our pricing. 

Instead of porting it to my second eSIM slot as I told them to do, they ported it to his phone… which was at my mom’s house four hours away. So, having her recently deceased dad’s phone ring constantly was a bit traumatic just a few days after his passing.

Back on the line with “service.” This was a 6 hour chain of phone calls with a “tech expert.” He was trying to reset my eSIM while on the other line of the phone. It wouldn’t work. Ever.

Finally, I got in touch with someone that knew what to do. I called from my Google Voice line (low priority business contact number) over VOIP, problem solved.

Earlier that day I contacted T-Mobile to add a third home Internet router to our plan and was told it was perfectly fine. Cool. Order the router.

Router shows up, won’t connect. I called customer service. Two hours later the router connected to the network, but instead of adding a home internet line they ended up turning off my business Internet router and assigning that number to the “third” router.

I call back, explain things, give them the IMEI and SIM of the original router to turn back on, get told everything’s fine, and transferred to the rudest sacks of garbage in India to activate it.

It'll be a 30min wait.

90min later.

After being rushed, insulted, and jumping through credit card verifications (my wife has the physical card and was in a meeting), they tell me they can’t add it because I can’t have three internet lines on my account.

I blew my top and demanded to speak to someone that knew what the F they were doing. I dressed Fred and his supervisor down in a way you only learn when crossing the wrong Chief on the wrong day. 

The Navy would be proud.

I was transferred to a lovely gal named Ambrosia. She was really helpful, overrode the system to activate a third home internet and it was as simple as assigning a new number to the very first router I activated as soon as their wireless internet service was available in my area.

We just need to talk to activation. But she’ll stay on the line. It’ll be a few minutes.

She was disconnected, but called me back after 45min when she realized, so my phone number worked just fine.

She tells me I can go on with my day and will handle everything as long as I authorize her to speak on my behalf. I stay on the line until I pull into my driveway to get dinner started for the family. Since I had been on hold all day, my wife had to carry the load for work… but I still lost another day of productivity.

That’s two days of lost work due to TMobile’s incompetence, or about $1200 of lost revenue.

Ambrosia never calls back.

The router never gets turned back on.

I receive an inquiry from customer service via email the next day and tell them all of this, my level of frustration, and give them a timeline to fix it or I’m leaving.

There is no reply. There is no change to my router status. Crickets.

I move on to cable internet, which is now the same price as wireless internet in my area.

In order to port out my numbers, I need to be authorized to request a temporary PIN from my device. I’m the primary account holder: after all, Ambrosia called me back correctly… until she didn’t.

Nope. The home internet router that’s no longer connected to the internet is the primary account device.

Back to customer service. Another two calls and hours later I’m creating a third email address to link to the account from my phone because… god only knows… but eventually I get it done.

Then I have to call back to cancel my watch’s link to my phone, of which I’ll be billed for a full cycle rather than having it prorated from the date of cancellation.

Same goes for the remaining routers.

But is there anything I can do to change your mind and keep you as a customer? Lol… not costing me $1500 in lost productivity due to systemic incompetence and hostile stupidity would be a big help, especially now that my wife is down for two months recovering from surgery.

I specifically shopped multiple carriers and NVMOs to make sure I never give T-Mobile another dime.

In the end I’ll pay a little more every month and I know ALL customer service anywhere I go will be as bad as T-Mobile’s, but if I’m going to get screwed I want it to be quick and honest.

T-Mobile is neither. They’re a complete joke and I’ll never do business with and/or recommend others to do so.

Between my family and friends I signed up enthusiastically (and never received any of the promised referral credits for doing so) when I moved my grandpa, mom, and wife over with me years ago T-Mobile has lost 18 accounts.

Avoid T-Mobile at all costs: they just care about getting you in the door. Once you contact customer service for anything, everything will get messed up and you’ll waste hours of your life on the “make it so frustrating to get help they just quit and accept it” protocol.

Never again.