I've been a T-Mobile customer for 2 years now. I recently decided to move my wife's pre-paid cell phone from AT&T to T-Mobile. What a pain in the *ss!

I ordered the phone from T-Mobile on Monday afternoon. It arrived at my house on Tuesday evening. It is a Samsung T329. It's a brand new phone on the market. It's nothing to write home about, a nice slider phone. It has a camera, plays MP3s, a pretty basic phone.

I tried to call T-Mobile last night to find out why I didn't have any service on the number, but their customer care was closed. Ok.

I called them this morning, after trying to navigate through their system, I finally got someone. After a little discussion, it was determined that I needed to put my activation code into the system to activate the phone. Guess what? I don't have an activation code. They left it out!

I kept being transferred to different call queues and each time, I would end up having to tell the next person what was going on. Then they would transfer me again, and I would end up in a new queue.

This went on for over an hour. I finally started yelling at people and that got me nowhere. So finally, I called the "Office of the President" - Corporate office. I asked to speak to the President, but they wouldn't let me.

They put me in touch with someone else there. After some discussions, this woman said that she couldn't find my order in the system, she needed my order number. I didn't have it handy, I had to hang up. I called the house and my wife found the order number. Ofr when I called back, all I got was this woman's voice mail.

I called back into the customer care, finally got someone in sales. This person tells me that she can send me a new activation kit. But it will take 7 or more days to get there. This is completely unacceptable! I ended up hanging up her.

So now, I'm at the mercy of this woman in Seattle, who hasn't gotten back to me. I will try her again, I will probably end up going to a T-Mobile store and hopefully they will be able to activate the phone.

I have to say this is the worst experience I've had with them thus far

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Update - Friday -

I got everything straightened out today FINALLY. Below is an email I sent to the President, CEO and Chairman of the board. It explains my whole experience in detail!

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Dear Sirs,

I would like to share my recent experience I had with your Customer Care department. I think as leaders of this organization you should be made aware of this.

I ordered a pre-paid phone this Monday over the phone. I got the phone on Tuesday, I tried to use and it didn’t work. I called Customer Care later in the evening and they were closed, so I couldn’t use my new phone.

I called Wednesday morning. I was told I needed an activation number, I looked through all the paperwork that came with the phone and I didn’t see an activation card.

I informed the rep that I didn’t have one, that it wasn’t given to me. I was transferred. I spoke to someone else and then transferred again. I spoke to someone else and then transferred again. Finally, I got disconnected. I kept calling and every time I was transferred to someone else. No one could help me. I kept being told I had to have an activation number. I kept telling every one, I didn’t have one. I finally told one rep “What part of I don’t have an activation card don’t you understand?” I was hung up on.

Next, I called the President’s office. I was transferred to someone name Raynetta? She told me she would figure it out. I didn’t hear back from her that day even after I called 3 times and left messages. I called sales and got someone who said they could get me an activation card. She wanted to mail it to me and said it would take 7 days to get. I felt that was unacceptable so I parted ways with that person. After that, I went to a Tmobile store, however they had me go to another Tmobile store (transferred again!) as they were a franchise and didn’t deal with pre-paid phones. After speaking to the manager and explaining what happened, they gave me a new Activation Card and I was on my way.

I finally got it activated on Wednesday night. I called to port a number from ATT. I was told that it would take 24-48 hours.

Friday afternoon I checked and the number was not ported. I called Customer Care. After being transferred around 3 or 4 times, I finally got through to someone who discovered that you required my ATT account number to finish the port. Why wasn’t that asked for the first time I wonder? At that point the phone disconnected. The person I was talking to had my home phone number since I had her call me back because of a poor connection, and didn’t bother to call me back again.

I called back, got transferred around again from post paid to prepaid to post paid to activations to number transfers to prepaid and finally got hung up on.

I called back and got someone and demanded to speak to a supervisor, he put me on hold for awhile and then I was transferred to activations. I was not given a supervisor. Then that person took all my info again about porting the number. She told me the port request was already in the system. I explained over and over to her that all I wanted to do was to give you my ATT account number to complete the transfer. After she figured out what was going on, she transferred me to the Port/Transfer department.

Why is it that 48 hours passed and no one from your transfer account department contacted me about needing the ATT account number? This would have sat indefinitely had I not called.

I waited on hold 10 minutes to get someone to help. Finally, a rep got on the phone and she could barely hear me. We worked together for a few minutes. I asked the rep to call me back. Before I could finish giving her my number, the line disconnected. This is amazing considering you’re a phone company and I was calling you on a phone connected to your network. Fortunately, that rep had gotten enough information from me to complete the port/transfer. About 2 minutes later, I got a text message telling me my number was ported.

Sirs, I am not so concerned about the fact that a phone was shipped without an activation card, those things happen. I am more upset about the fact that no one in your Customer Care seems to be empowered to do anything but transfer to another department. No one could take ownership of my problem. Although many of people I spoke to seemed to want to help, and for the most part were very courteous, they were powerless when it came down to it.

I am upset about the fact that it took me over 8 hours to activate a pre-paid phone and I had to drive all over town to take care of it. I am upset that it took 2 days to port a number from your competitor and when all was said and done, it took 2 minutes to complete.

I am upset that I was disconnected or hung up on repeatedly and no one called me back. I am annoyed with the fact that I would put my phone number in your voice response system and when the rep picked up they asked me for my number. I’m annoyed that every time I was transferred I had to re-explain my self.

Your phone system is not predictable. The voice response doesn’t always recognize what I say and I have to repeat sometimes over and over. Sometimes when I call, it asks me if I want English or Spanish. Other times it asks me if I want sales or support. It puts me into different queues. Your hold music fades in and out or has static, which is very annoying, how tough is that to fix? Half the time, the reps couldn’t hear me when I talked or I couldn’t hear them. I was cut off multiple times from your reps when talking because the phone system dropped the call. Sometimes I spoke with someone in India and it was obvious they couldn’t comprehend what I asked and frankly I could barely understand them.

Would it be too much to publish phone numbers for specific departments so I don’t have to play a game every time I call in to try and get the right department?

This is not the first time I’ve had issues with your customer service. When I created my main cell account 2 years ago, there were issues turning it up. You gave me 1 number and then when it was activated it was a completely different number and it took a day to resolve that. I had issues with my @Home service. My router died and you shipped me a new one. I was told the shipping would be free, but you charged my account for it. I had to call repeatedly to get that charge reversed. My brother in law signed up for TMobile and moved 3 lines to you, which I referred him for. I was told I would get $25 credit per line, I never got that and when I called Customer Care, they didn’t care and knew nothing about it and told me to go into a store. The store told me to call Customer Care, so I never did get my $75 credit.

As far as the service goes, I haven’t had much more than 1 or 2 dropped calls. So I think your product is fine and a good value. I’ve even gotten reception in some very remote areas in Arizona.

You seem to have more red tape than the US Government. I have been in customer service and sales for over 15 years, I have not seen such a debacle as this since I worked for America Online in 1995 and they were struggling with 2 million subscribers. Even then, customers were only 1 call away from tech support or customer service.

I have been a TMobile customer for 2 years. I have now have 3 lines with you. My primary cell: , my @Home:, and this pre-paid. I was a TMobile customer in the past, and a Voice Stream customer before that. I am seriously considering closing all my accounts and moving to another provider because of this. I am getting ready to change jobs and will require a smart phone and was going to get a G1 with an unlimited data plan/voice plan. I think I may consider an iPhone. I can get an iPhone cheaper than the G1 and with ATT roll over minutes, I don’t need to commit to as many minutes as I have with you.

I am writing you to let you know about my experience. I know Tmobile has the reputation for bad customer service in the industry. I thought you would appreciate a first hand account of what people are experiencing with your company.