My Sprint cellular contract was up, and I wanted a newer, fancier phone. After doing some research, on April 12 I ordered a new phone and service from T-mobile. I got a Samsung T619 camera phone, with video, bluetooth, and (I very specifically demanded) no text messaging. The T-Mobile representative said they'd ship my new phone right away.
A T-Mobile box arrived on April 16. I signed for it, brought it upstairs, opened the box and found -- no phone! Either T-Mobile had made a mistake and shipped an empty box to me (which was not very likely, and I didn't believe it), or, somewhere between the operator who took my order and the delivery person who gave me the box, someone stole the phone (a possibility I found much more plausible). The shipping box and the phone box appeared to be factory sealed, so my guess is that the phone never made it into the box.
Within three minutes of discovering that the box was empty, I was on the phone with T-Mobile. T-Mobile does not have a customer service department. It has a customer care department. Caring sounds so much nicer than servicing. The T-Mobile customer care representative sympathized with my plight, and assured me they'd overnight a replacement phone to me.
On April 18, when I called to see where the replacement phone was, the T-Mobile customer care representative assured me they'd overnight the replacement phone to me. Subsequent T-Mobile customer care representatives assured me the same thing on April 19, on April 20, on April 21, and on April 23 (I didn't expect a delivery on Sunday, April 22).
On April 24, when I paid my daily obeisance at the T-Mobile Shrine of Missing Phones, the T-Mobile customer care representative said that their records showed that I had accepted the phone back on April 16. I explained that I accepted a box, but that the phone that was supposed to be inside was not. The T-Mobile customer care representative all but accused me of stealing the phone they had sent the week before. Much shouting ensued. I asked how they "knew" I had stolen the phone. The T-Mobile customer care representative said they had indications that the phone was in use. I asked them why they hadn't disabled the phone as soon as I reported it AWOL on April 16. The T-Mobile customer care representative had no answer, but reminded me that they were conducting a FULL investigation into the whereabouts of the phone and that they would prosecute whoever had it, hint, hint. I told him the hell with it: if they couldn't get a phone to me nearly two weeks after I ordered one, I didn't want to do business with T-Mobile. I told the T-Mobile customer care representative to cancel my T-Mobile account entirely. He said he would.
On April 25, a T-Mobile customer care representative called to tell me that I was in the clear; they no longer regarded me as a suspect in the disappearance of my phone, and they had shipped a replacement phone to me that very afternoon. I told him I had canceled my T-Mobile account. The T-Mobile customer care representative said he had no record of that. He said that if I truly wanted to cancel my account, when the phone arrived I should tell the delivery person I refused to accept it.
On April 27, my neighbor called: she had accepted my new cell phone from the delivery person for me! As a favor. A neighborly gesture. I thanked her. I played with the new phone for a day without activating it. On Saturday the 28th (more than two weeks after I ordered the phone), I took the plunge and activated T-Mobile service on the replacement Samsung T619 phone. I transferred my old Sprint telephone number to my new phone, so that all my friends need never know my phone had changed.
On May 2, the new phone got flooded with text message spams. Hmmm, I thought I specified no text messaging? I called T-Mobile, and asked them to shut off text messaging to my phone. The first T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). He suggested there was nothing I could do. The second T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). She suggested I contact the spammers and tell them to stop spamming me (!!!). The third T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). She suggested I change my phone number (!!!). The fourth T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). He offered to give me 50 free text messages, which would expire in 90 days.
Insanity is popularly defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. But I was not insane, because though I was calling the T-Mobile customer care number with near-obsessive intensity, I was getting different results each time. The fifth time I called a T-Mobile customer care representative, she told me that shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't), but so what -- her records showed that I used my phone to send a text message this morning.
I insisted that I hadn't sent any text messages -- I didn't even have text services on my phone. She said that didn't matter: her system showed a text message sent from my phone at 5:45 this morning. I told her that I haven't been awake at 5:45 AM in months, so I couldn't have sent a text message. She said her system report didn't lie. She could prove that the text message came from my phone number, and even my handset's serial number.
On a hunch, I asked her to read off the serial number of the phone that sent the text message. She did. I told her that was not the serial number of my cell phone. I read the serial number of my phone. She got flustered. She transferred me to tech support.
After an hour on the phone with the tech support guy, we figured out what must have happened. When I called to activate the second phone they sent, T-Mobile activated the first phone. With my phone number. Which someone used. When I called back later that day to complain that the phone in my hand hadn't been activated after 12 hours, the customer service rep then activated the second phone. With my phone number. Now they had a situation which is officially impossible: two cell phones with different serial numbers, sharing the same phone number. So, whoever had stolen my phone was making text messages on my number, and I was getting his responses on my phone.
The tech support guy cleared it all up. I hope.
A T-Mobile box arrived on April 16. I signed for it, brought it upstairs, opened the box and found -- no phone! Either T-Mobile had made a mistake and shipped an empty box to me (which was not very likely, and I didn't believe it), or, somewhere between the operator who took my order and the delivery person who gave me the box, someone stole the phone (a possibility I found much more plausible). The shipping box and the phone box appeared to be factory sealed, so my guess is that the phone never made it into the box.
Within three minutes of discovering that the box was empty, I was on the phone with T-Mobile. T-Mobile does not have a customer service department. It has a customer care department. Caring sounds so much nicer than servicing. The T-Mobile customer care representative sympathized with my plight, and assured me they'd overnight a replacement phone to me.
On April 18, when I called to see where the replacement phone was, the T-Mobile customer care representative assured me they'd overnight the replacement phone to me. Subsequent T-Mobile customer care representatives assured me the same thing on April 19, on April 20, on April 21, and on April 23 (I didn't expect a delivery on Sunday, April 22).
On April 24, when I paid my daily obeisance at the T-Mobile Shrine of Missing Phones, the T-Mobile customer care representative said that their records showed that I had accepted the phone back on April 16. I explained that I accepted a box, but that the phone that was supposed to be inside was not. The T-Mobile customer care representative all but accused me of stealing the phone they had sent the week before. Much shouting ensued. I asked how they "knew" I had stolen the phone. The T-Mobile customer care representative said they had indications that the phone was in use. I asked them why they hadn't disabled the phone as soon as I reported it AWOL on April 16. The T-Mobile customer care representative had no answer, but reminded me that they were conducting a FULL investigation into the whereabouts of the phone and that they would prosecute whoever had it, hint, hint. I told him the hell with it: if they couldn't get a phone to me nearly two weeks after I ordered one, I didn't want to do business with T-Mobile. I told the T-Mobile customer care representative to cancel my T-Mobile account entirely. He said he would.
On April 25, a T-Mobile customer care representative called to tell me that I was in the clear; they no longer regarded me as a suspect in the disappearance of my phone, and they had shipped a replacement phone to me that very afternoon. I told him I had canceled my T-Mobile account. The T-Mobile customer care representative said he had no record of that. He said that if I truly wanted to cancel my account, when the phone arrived I should tell the delivery person I refused to accept it.
On April 27, my neighbor called: she had accepted my new cell phone from the delivery person for me! As a favor. A neighborly gesture. I thanked her. I played with the new phone for a day without activating it. On Saturday the 28th (more than two weeks after I ordered the phone), I took the plunge and activated T-Mobile service on the replacement Samsung T619 phone. I transferred my old Sprint telephone number to my new phone, so that all my friends need never know my phone had changed.
On May 2, the new phone got flooded with text message spams. Hmmm, I thought I specified no text messaging? I called T-Mobile, and asked them to shut off text messaging to my phone. The first T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). He suggested there was nothing I could do. The second T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). She suggested I contact the spammers and tell them to stop spamming me (!!!). The third T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). She suggested I change my phone number (!!!). The fourth T-Mobile customer care representative said shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't). He offered to give me 50 free text messages, which would expire in 90 days.
Insanity is popularly defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. But I was not insane, because though I was calling the T-Mobile customer care number with near-obsessive intensity, I was getting different results each time. The fifth time I called a T-Mobile customer care representative, she told me that shutting off text messaging was a technological impossibility (it isn't), but so what -- her records showed that I used my phone to send a text message this morning.
I insisted that I hadn't sent any text messages -- I didn't even have text services on my phone. She said that didn't matter: her system showed a text message sent from my phone at 5:45 this morning. I told her that I haven't been awake at 5:45 AM in months, so I couldn't have sent a text message. She said her system report didn't lie. She could prove that the text message came from my phone number, and even my handset's serial number.
On a hunch, I asked her to read off the serial number of the phone that sent the text message. She did. I told her that was not the serial number of my cell phone. I read the serial number of my phone. She got flustered. She transferred me to tech support.
After an hour on the phone with the tech support guy, we figured out what must have happened. When I called to activate the second phone they sent, T-Mobile activated the first phone. With my phone number. Which someone used. When I called back later that day to complain that the phone in my hand hadn't been activated after 12 hours, the customer service rep then activated the second phone. With my phone number. Now they had a situation which is officially impossible: two cell phones with different serial numbers, sharing the same phone number. So, whoever had stolen my phone was making text messages on my number, and I was getting his responses on my phone.
The tech support guy cleared it all up. I hope.
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