Juliet Schoen
I keep calling but get no answer
My husband tells me to forget it. But I’ve been rightly screwed by T-Mobile and I can’t forget it. I want revenge, I want suffering, I want to cause trouble!
It started out simply enough. The cell phone I bought back in November stopped working on June 2. I brought it back to the T-Mobile store on Wilshire Boulevard and Fourth Street, where I had bought it. The young man said it might be the battery and went off to test it. It did not work. So I asked for a new phone. But this could not be done. I would have to send it back by mail for repairs. I spent a half hour arguing to no avail. I had to send it back for repair. After another half hour of arguing, I was forced to disclose private information about my life to get a loaner.
So I wrapped up my bloody phone, went to the post office and sent it, certified mail, paying $6.61. Two weeks later it was returned, but the back was missing. That called for another trip to the T-Mobile store and another half hour of arguing. I was told that I should have removed the back before sending it off. But nobody told me to take the back off so how was I to know. Well, they looked around for another back and found an old one. They told me to charge the phone and then it would work.
So I charged it, and charged it, and charged it but it didn’t work.
I went back to the store for the third time, gritting my teeth and girding myself for another argument. Sure enough, after speaking to a stone wall, I was told to send the phone back again! This time I was so angry, I returned the loaner, left the cell phone on the counter and stormed out of the store. The saleswoman called after me that the phone belonged to me and that the police would be called to take it.
I left anyway.
A few hours later, a policewoman called me at my home and brought my phone. She advised me to keep it or it would just end up in the lost department. Then my son advised me to send it in for repair once again. So I did. Using the box it had been returned in, I wrote an explanatory letter and sent the phone back via UPS at a cost of $8.77. This was on July 2.
I waited, and waited and waited. Finally, on Aug. 2, I lost patience and called a number I had been given at the store. After listening to the usual commercials about T-Mobile’s great service to its customers, I was connected to a human being named Brenda. I explained the situation to Brenda as best I could and said I wanted to know what happened to my phone. She asked me if I had sent in a form. No, I had not sent in a form, just a letter. Nobody told me about a form.
I should have checked my contract, she said, and that would tell me that I had to deal with the repair center and not the store. Again I confronted a stone wall as I tried to explain that I was never given a form or told about one.
Tough bananas, baby. No phone, no money back and certainly no satisfied customer.
Should I forget about it?