T-MOBILE

unknown

The actual telephone equipment is very good. I have a plain vanilla
phone (Sparq) and my daughter has an Apple iPhone 5S. We switched from
the very-costly Verizon Wireless about a month and a half ago. With
T-Mobile the amount of our bill is very reasonable and the telephone
service is consistent, with no dropped calls. The big problem is both
the T-Mobile Customer Service and T-Mobile's billing practices. I
purchased the Apple phone directly from T-Mobile and was informed that I
would be able to pay as much as I wanted on the cost of the phone until
it was paid off. When I went online to pay my bill, I used debit to
pay the bill and I used an online function on the T-Mobile website to
put an additional payment on the Apple phone. Afterward, I was left
with the belief that the additional payment would go against the amount
owed on the phone. When I checked my bill later, I found that the
additional money had been applied to my telephone bill, resulting in a
credit balance. When I phoned Customer Service to ask that the credit be
applied to the cost of the Apple phone, I was told that I was not
allowed to pay more than the regularly scheduled monthly payment on the
phone. I decided to visit my local T-Mobile store where I was then told
that "you cannot make payments on equipment online," even though there
is such a function on the website. You also cannot send in a payment on
equipment by mail. Apparently all such payments must be made in person
at the T-Mobile store only, a completely byzantine and inconvenient
system. I was further informed that no one could apply the credit in my
account towards the cost of the Apple phone and that my only recourse is
to call Customer Service and request a refund by check (4 to 6 weeks to
process) and then cash the check and use the money for the payment on
the phone a convoluted process. I just want people to know that you
will have all kinds of trouble if you do not buy your phone outright at
the beginning of getting T-Mobile Service. If you buy your phone on any
sort of time payment plan and want to pay for the phone quickly, you
must live near a T-Mobile store in order to make the payments. If you
do not live near a T-Mobile store, you can only make the regularly
scheduled payments and cannot pay off your phone earlier than the end of
the set payment schedule. Also, the online application for making
payments on equipment does not work as indicated.