T-Mobile is a Lying Bastard Company Update
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This entry was posted at
2:29 GMT on 17 February 2004
Since I was in a snarky mood after writing the post, I decided to let T-Mobile know what sweet fruits their superior Customer Abuse department had reaped.
Go to their US site and find an email address. I dare you.
They give a snailmail address, and an 800 number, but I wanted a quick response and documentation. The only way to send an email through that site is to first have an account. A paying account and a phone.
Frustrated, I did some searching. After half an hour, I finally found, on their International Site, this address: press@t-mobile.net.
To which I sent this message:
My apologies for sending this message to the International address instead of the US one, but I am not signing up for an account just so that I can send a single email.
You may wish to know that your customer service policies in the US have gotten you some very bad online word of mouth -- from me:
http://blog.ianhamet.com/archive/2004/02/20040215b.html
And it was picked up by a high-traffic site inside of a day:
http://www.elhide.com/solo/comments.php?id=P1896_0_1_0
As I say in the post, I intend to spread the word far and wide. I have readers in America, Europe, and indeed, most time zones around the world. Other blogs have even wider and deeper reader bases. I hope you relish the prospect of such bad Public Relations spreading far and wide, because that is already happening.
Cheers, etc.
The response, from their ultra-secret, do not tell anyone, especially the customers, customer "care" email address (voicestream@custhelp.com):
Response (Tasha) - 02/16/2004 09:44 AM
Dear Ian,
Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile.
We would be happy to help you. However, we will need information that is more detailed in order to help you completely. Please respond to this email with your issue and our team will address this further.
If you have any other comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you for choosing T-Mobile.
Sincerely,
T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Tasha
Customer Service Specialist
Bemused that she did not understand a weblink when she saw one, I sent this in reply:
Since you seem to have trouble following a simple URL, here is the text you would find at the end of it. I hope it is detailed enough for you.
Then I quoted the entire post, although it seems the tail end of it got cropped.
Anyhow, the reply came quickly enough:
Response (Dezari) - 02/16/2004 02:22 PM
Dear Ian,
Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile. We are very sorry for any inconvenience or miscommunication that you received during your experience with T-Mobile. These actions are not endorsed by T-Mobile as we do strive to provide each Customer with World Class Service. Your comments and concerns have been forwarded for review so we can investigate your issue further. Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.
If you have any other comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you for choosing T-Mobile
Sincerely,
T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Dezari
Web Services
Well, this Dezari chap certainly went to weasel-word school. He thanks me, and then apologizes for "any inconvenience or miscommunication" I might have received.
Here's news, Dezari: your company LIED to me. When you admit and apologize for that, and make an effort to atone for it, then I might post something nice about you for the reading public and the Google search engine. One condition, however, is that you are not permitted to use any nice-sounding but meaningless weasel words in your apology. At all.
However, I decided to try one last time, and wrote:
Yes, yes you can do something further. I still have the phone, and am now living in Shanghai, and until I have the unlock code it is a useless piece of plastic. So you can give me the code, that would be of immense assistance.
I also find it hard to believe that five different CSRs behaving in a remarkably similar manner -- they all lied to me, every single one -- constitutes behavior not endorsed by your company. If just one out of the five, or even two, I would believe it. All five lied to me, thus your nice-sounding but insubstantial response fails to move me.
And actually got another reply, using slightly more direct language this time:
Response (Dezari) - 02/16/2004 06:17 PM
Dear Ian,
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, we are only able to provide SIM unlock codes to our current customers. If you are not an active T-Mobile customer, we will not be able to provide you with an unlock code. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
If you have any other comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you for choosing T-Mobile
Sincerely,
T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Dezari
Web Services
To which I replied:
Congratulations, you have done exactly nothing to improve your word of mouth. How, pray tell, am I supposed to be an active customer while residing several thousand miles from your nearest service area?
And please have the courtesy to employ the English language a little more accurately: you are perfectly "able" to provide SIM unlock codes to anyone in possession of any phone you've ever sold. What you are is UNWILLING to provide them to non-customers.
I have received apologies because I "might" have misunderstood (read: I'm stupid), I "might" have been inconvenienced (read: I'm lying), but none for the actual misdeeds of T-Mobile's employees. And not even the hint of an offer to rectify and make good their misdeeds.
No wonder my ex-girlfriend uses this company! Birds of a feather . . .
I think I might try Sony-Ericsson again. I wonder how they will react to the behavior of one of their corporate partners?
By all means write to the addresses I've dug up. Hell, put them on spammers' lists, if you know how. If I can't shame them into behaving like a decent company, maybe being a pain in the ass will work.