Forum Discussion
Promotional Trade-In Credit Never Applied to Account?
Several months ago, I moved from Sprint to T-Mobile and traded in my paid-off, fully functional and cosmetically near-perfect iPhone XR during a promotional offer to “Get an iPhone 12 on Us” with any Apple trade-in in good condition.
I had a solid, grandfathered in price at Sprint, but after reviewing all of the conditions of the promotion, I realized that I could potentially be saving money with a new phone if I met all of the promotional requirements.
So, I went in to a T-Mobile store and spoke with a representative who, after inspecting my phone, determined that I was eligible for the full promotional value of the phone, and we began the process of switching my line from Sprint to T-Mobile. This process required ‘’porting” the number from Sprint to T-Mobile. It usually only takes a few minutes, however, my porting was significantly delayed. I waited in the store for about 45 minutes, before the representative told me I should likely come back several hours later before store close to finalize the process, as they believed the port would have finished by then.
When I returned, the port was not complete and the store representative told me I would have to come back in the morning to finalize the process and finish my trade-in. When I spoke to the representative, I asked if this would effect my promotional credit, as it was the ONLY reason I had any desire to switch from Sprint to T-Mobile. The representative, who I believe was a sales manager, assured me it would not effect the value of my trade-in promotional credit whatsoever. They informed me they would leave a note on my account, affirming the value of the trade-in even in the unlikely event that the promotion expired the next day (which they did not believe to be the case) as I had started the process the day prior and the process was delayed due to T-Mobile’s devices.
I came back the following morning to finish the trade-in process, and the sales representative who had helped me the day before was not working, nor did the store signage reflect the same promotion it had the evening before. I spoke to the available representative who had no knowledge of the creation of my account in the first place, so the process had to be started over completely.
As this happened, I spoke with him about the promotion I had received the day before and mentioned the name of the sales associate who had helped me and guaranteed my promotional offer. I asked him to guarantee the promotional offer as well before finishing the process, because if it was no longer valid I could not afford the change in phone plans. He gave me all assurances that he understood the situation and would ensure the credit was applied, then completed the process.
While going through all final documents after the process was complete, I saw that the credit applied for my trade-in was listed as “$7.39/billing cycle” - $33 LESS than the promotional credit I was supposed to receive. As soon as I saw this, I called T-Mobile customer service and informed them of the situation and the error. They then assured me that it would take up to two billing cycles for the change to appear, but that they had applied the promotional trade-in value to my phone.
After one billing cycle, I did not see the credit applied to my account or any documentation of the correction, so I reached out to customer service to verify that it was on record. Once again, I was told there was no record of the correction, and was quickly promised that they would personally ensure the correct price was given to me and immediately applied to my account.
After two more billing cycles, the proper trade in credit still did not appear, and I have reached out to T-Mobile every month since and have gotten essentially the same reply from all customer service agents - with absolutely no action on my account despite all assurances.
At this point, I am exhausted and extremely, extremely frustrated. I feel that my money is being stolen, as I never would have made the switch to T-Mobile were it not for the promotion I was promised. I made the switch and signed the contract under the believe, as was told to me by T-Mobile, that I was getting a significant promotional offer. I am now paying over $40 more a month than my original Sprint plan, a price which I did not budget for nor did I consent to, and am locked into a contract at that price. I have had to make other adjustments in my monthly bills because I can get NO assistance from T-Mobile despite this wrong doing being entirely their responsibility.
HELP!
I have been with this celll company more than 20 years. Last October I called their 611 number and I bought an IPad from them on a promotion that I was told I would get. To make the long story short, I was never given any monthly credit. I was told the representative sold me the iPad under a promotion that I couldn’t get. I was told I would need to call every month and they would apply the credit but there was no other fix for this. I been calling every month till this month told they would no longer give the credit or stand behind the price they sold it to me. I was told the only reason I was given the company credit in the past was to get me off the phone. I have turned them over to the FCC as well as BBB
as soon as I am able to pay this equipment off I am done with them.
My story is similar to the rest of you. I had a Sprint line for my daughter, and a year or so later my wife and I went to T-Mobile. We kept them separate for awhile but decided to merge the Sprint (turned into T-Mobile) with our T-Mobile account. It seemed like T-Mobile just doesn’t know how to do this. With a paid off phone, we thought about closing the old Sprint line and going with the bring-your-own-phone trade-in deal offered at the time (back in October), but we would have lost the phone number. After contacting T-Mobile, they said that they could work it so that we could merge the accounts, keep the number, and get the same trade in offer, so that is the approach we took.
The first thing they did wrong was charge us twice for November on the old Sprint/T-Mobile account. It had already been merged in, so we were paying for it on our main account, but they continued to charge the closed account. It took 3 months to get this resolved, and they finally sent a debit card for the duplicate payment.
The second thing they did wrong was make me have to contact them again and again to get the bill credits started. I had to keep reminding them of the previous conversations and the deal we agreed to. It took until February to get bill credits for the trade in that they “received” back in November. They applied 5 monthly credits. The way T-Mobile does it, they give a starter credit for the phone, and they make the rest up in bill credits, so that the total is the cost of the new phone. I understand that, and I expect the monthly bill credits to be less than the monthly charges, because I am supposed to get the difference up front.
The third thing they did wrong was to not give us the up front trade-in value of the phone. This new phone was supposed to be free with trade in and bill credits. Instead, I will end up paying $180, just to keep an old phone number! Had I known that, I would have given up the phone number, closed the old account, and brought the new phone with the “add a line” promotion.
They never evaluated the old phone and made any claims that it did not deserve the full trade in value. It was a working phone, and there was nothing wrong with it!
Whenever I compare the main large phone carriers, T-Mobile seems to do better than Verizon or AT&T, but their way of getting money seems to be in their incompetent manner of handling things like this.
Same thing happening to me
How are they allowed to do this?
It has been for me since Jan 2023. They have disconnected my lines and when called they turned on but no one told me that service on charging for suspending. I had to pay a lot of money to get service because my other members in the line are suffering. T mobile is a disastrous. I didn't expect this from T Mobile . Where is their leadership team. They may be successful business, i am sure one day they will get hit very hard if they continue do the same
Still going through this. I only received 2 of the 4 credits. Every customer rep I’ve spoken to tells me the other two are still under review. It has been approximately 5 months of waiting. Just another way for T-Mobile to keep customers locked in, if they want to see the end of their credits. Or bait and switch which seems to be a recurring theme. Not what the company used to be when I had it years ago, regretting switching back.
T Mobile is a disastrous. I have been a customer of 6 years and recently in Jan 2024, i added two lines over the phone with customer service with the agent told me to give me 2 iphone 14 promax devices with a trade in of 1 iphone 12 pro and i phone promax 12 with a 800 dollar discount on each device price. I shipped two devices of mines to them through a UPS prepaid envelope ( supplied by t mobile) in May or April after my several follow up for the UPS mailer envelopes. Since then they never applied discount and I have been paying for each device full cost per month (45.84 per month per device total 90) and i paid almost 10 months in between several times, i called customer service and they said they had a problem. I stopped payments and they are cutting services even after agreeing that the problem is from their end and one customer service agent had done wrong. Ultimately, customer is suffering, i have been in calls with agent each time a minimum of 1.30h, No resolution. T mobile is cheating customers. I hope this will bring to their leadership team. i will quit T mobile
Back in April 2022, Sprint had an offer for a Pixel 6 for free after trade-in (original value $600). A customer rep online gave me that offer and said it applied to my Pixel 5. Of course, I was aware that I had to pay the tax on the phone and the activation fee, totaling nearly $80. But Sprint/T-Mobile started charging me for the phone $25 per month for 24 months with only a $12.50 credit, basically charging me $300 for the “free” phone. I called and they claimed that my phone was a Pixel 4a and only qualifies for the half price promo. I had to send photos and screenshots of my phone as proof. They then gave me credit for the overcharge and assured me that I would be credited properly after that. Of course, they were wrong and I have to call back every month or 2 to get my credit. Luckily I have the email transcript of the original offer with the details, but even once they denied the refund. I called the following month and was able to get the refund. I’m now calling every 2-3 months, because it takes so much time to get this resolved. It really isn’t worth my time and frustration for $25 each month. I HATE SPRINT/T-MOBILE!!!!! If I didn’t have a contract with multiple phones to pay off I would drop them in a heartbeat for this BS! I don’t think they are screw ups, I think corporate doesn’t want to fix these issues because they figure that the customers will give up and that’s a lot of extra cash for T-mobile. At this point, when people ask me about my service, I tell them to go to Verizon.
I am on the same boat . After several follow-up with customer care representative, one of the supervisor talked to me saying he will check with backend team and call me back with update. When I called after a month, customer care representative told that there is comment in ticket from supervisor mentioning promotion code could not be applied and they refused to transfer the call to supervisor. Now I regret my decision of moving from ATT to T-Mobile.
I have the same issue and even worse. They promised to take care of balance device payment from Verizon when I switched 2 months back. They didn’t do anything with Verizon which costed me $679 dollars to Verizon. I called and they said there is glitch in the system and they will approve and send me a master card for $679 but I have not yet received it.
TMobile is also double billing me. They are charging on my two cards without even my approval.
UPDATE.. I wrote a letter to T-mobile customer service and my issue was resolved and i was made whole. The customer service rep. who contacted me was courteous, knowledgeable and empathic.
:)
i think we have been looking for resolution in the wrong places..write a letter
Kat V
