I’ve got a dormant T-Mobile account. It’s been sat there for the last 6 months or so stuck in my N90 that I lent to Hetty ages ago to take some pictures of something.
It’s sat on a dirt cheap £18 a month 1,000 off-peak minutes tariff — with web’n’walk on it — and well, when you add up all the shite — the £3 non-direct-debit charge and whatnot, it’s always £30 a month.
The account is useful. It’s like a security blanket. Nice to know I’ve got a spare account. Why? I can’t quite explain it. My main accounts are my other T-Mobile account and Three. But I’ve got this back-up one.
Bit of background. I’ve moved into London into a rather grand penthouse* apartment in the centre of the city. However it doesn’t have internet yet. There are, interestingly, at least 6 wifi networks in my locale, but none of them free to access. So I have to wait until Wednesday until I get a connection — or even a sniff of a connection.
I have arsed around trying to get my N95 or E61 to connect to the internet via the laptop and, try as I might, it never works.
You know, T-Mobile do a USB modem that works with an Apple Mac now. Just recently launched…
Cue a shopping trip.
Can you see what was in my mind? 😉
I certainly didn’t need the USB modem. I could have done without. It meant I couldn’t blog though, until I got on the train at King’s Cross and eased myself into the 225 Malard Service trains with their free wifi.
I’m in central London, so, stuff it. Let’s go shopping, right?
I walked down to Oxford Street. Much like any Pizza Express, I am pretty good at knowing more or less where every T-Mobile shop is located. I remembered the Oxford Street one and shortly arrived. The joy of living centrally.
At the door I wasn’t greeted by the chaps wearing HTC t-shirts. For some reason the place was full of these guys wearing ‘HTC’ on their chests. I think they were a marketing team there for the day. I said hi. They ignored me. Nay bother.
I located a proper T-Mobile sales guy and asked him for a USB modem.
All was good until he said, ‘right I’ll need to do a credit check on the system’.
‘Whatever for?’
‘It’s part of of our policy?’ he replied, glancing at my T-Mobile branded flagship N95 handset in my hand.
Fair enough.
Didn’t work on the computer.
‘I’ll need to phone up, sir,’ he explained.
Ok.
On the phone, he conversed with the sales support folk.
‘Nah, you can’t have it,’ he said.
‘You what? Why not?’
‘You haven’t paid on time in the last three months, so if you come back in July…’
I explained, ‘Of course I haven’t bothered paying it on time, I missed a payment the other month because your stupid system wouldn’t take my card.’
He gave me a ‘themz tha roolz’ look.
I asked to buy it. Nope. They don’t sell’em without a contract.
‘Fine, I’ll pay for the contract in full,’ I said.
‘But that’s 12 months up front,’ he exclaimed with some surprise.
‘Yes? How much?’
‘Can’t do that, sir. You need to show us you can pay on time for three months.’
‘What, even if I’ve paid the full balance up front?’
‘Yes.’
Ooookay.
‘You understand that I spend £200 a month with T-Mobile, with my other account, yes?’ I asked.
‘Errrr,’ came his response.
‘And that I couldn’t give a toss about this secondary account, right?’
‘Errrrrrr,’ he looked a little bit surprised.
‘And that it doesn’t take much to reeeeeeeeelly annoy customers into moving their business, this was a fling, an off-chance, I was about to spend a shitload with you..’
‘Errrrr,’ he shook his head. I realised I wasn’t helping him much.
‘Ok ok, them’s the rules, no problem.’
I walked out. Fair enough. Fair enough. Them is de rools.
I phoned up and spoke to the customer retention department. They did the usual, tried to persuade me to stay. The lady I spoke to wasn’t impressed, telling me, ‘but you’ve three more months to go on your contract!’
I said, ‘Sure, swap it to the lowest contract plan, remove the shite on it, and tell me the balance for three months, and I’ll pay it now..’
‘There will be a £34 early cancellation fee,’ she said — I could hear her straight lips. She was not impressed I hadn’t fallen for the retention department’s usual ‘I’m sure there’s something we could do’ ploy.
‘Thirty four pounds, to cancel the contract?’ I needed clarification.
‘Yes.’
Fine. I hung up. I will cancel the contract. But I’ll pay it off and avoid the thirty-four pound ‘fine’.
So, the rules are that since I missed a payment, they can’t accept £300 up front from me for the USB modem. Stuff’em. Now and again the big operators are totally let down by these sorts of things. I appreciate the rules are there and must-be-followed. But… at the expense of revenue?
I’m going to have my internet connection on Wednesday. By which point, a USB modem will be far, far, farrrrrrrr from my mind. But, on Saturday morning, I’d have blown 300 quid — up front — on a T-Mobile USB modem. Their mistake or mine?
I had a similar situation the other week. Wanted an E61 to do Good email on the move, but wanted it on a business account. Walked into my local T-Mobile store at 9am with more paperwork than you could shake a stick at. Bank statement, letterhead, business card, VAT registration certificate, bills in the company name, etc etc. After a little ‘discussion’ that no I wasn’t going to hand over my driving licence and personal credit card, as I didn’t find that necessary for a business account, I gave them the wad of paperwork. A bit of photocopying later, and about 30 minutes of being in the store, the guy appeared from the back of the shop with a worried look on his face.
‘That’ll be £100 deposit, as you’re a new customer – but we’ve cleared you for up to three lines, and you’ll get it back after three months’. Fair enough, so I paid it.
Roll forward two weeks. Same T-Mobile store. ‘Can I have an N95 please?’. ‘Certainly Sir, we’ve got two in stock’.. tap tap tap.. ‘Oh. That’ll be £100 deposit please’.
‘But I paid £100 only two weeks ago, and you said I was cleared for up to three lines’, I protested.
‘Oh no, that’s a contract deposit. £100 per contract. That’s the rules.. besides, it’s not very often people come in two weeks after taking out a new contract after another phone’.
‘But it’s for my business, my colleagues need phones too you know!’ I said. Alas, no luck. Even a call to customer services telling them I’d cancel the whole lot didn’t bear fruit.
So I walked out. Quite happy to go onto an 18 month contract, and pay another £30-ish a month for another handset. But no, they wanted another £100. Sod ’em. Meanwhile, my three months is up in about a month’s time – and the day the bill arrives I’ll be marching into the store, demanding my £100 back in cash, and getting my N95.
Actually, on a slightly related note, I was gonna get one of these USB modems on Web’n’Walk for a few weeks while I migrated my broadband at home. But no, sod it. I’ll stick with my E61 on a USB cable – or at worst, borrow my neighbours wireless (with their permission, of course).
Stories like these make me shake in my head in woe at the state of some of the operator (and non-operator for that matter) high street stores…
I scream at my friends everytime they ring me up to ask:
‘Oi Whatley, you know phones, what handset should I get? I like the look of that ‘insert poorly recommended from P4U handset here’ – what do you think?’
No. Don’t do that. Either do exactly as I say, or call me when you get there OR failing that – just take me with you!
Saying that – in complete contrast to the above: When an aforementioned lady-friend of mine purchased a 6300 from Orange she originally went in after an N73 and the Sales Assistant (and I shiz you not) said to her:
“I’m sorry Madam, can you tell me exactly why you want that handset? I do not actually want to sell it to you as I am certain that you’ll return it within a fortnight…”
THAT is good salesmanship.. ;o)
I’ve had enough with T-Mobile. After not being able to make any calls, receive any calls, send or receive any text messages yesterday – I called up T-Mobile help desk (from my landline as I was getting connection errors on my mobile). They took me through a SIM upgrade and asked me to test the phone for the next 30 minutes, which I did. Nothing – no connection whatsoever.
When they called me back (also on landline), they told me that I had to disable my 3G connection in order for my phone to continue working. Excuse me??? That done, the phone is working again.
I’ll be changing network operators next month…