T-Mobile’s Customer Service Does Right By Me Again

For some unknown reason I woke up and decided my Samsung Galaxy S II just wasn’t cutting it anymore, so I headed to the craigslist to find me a new toy. The choices were plentiful, but I wanted to keep it in the popular game, so I opted for a brand new shiny Galaxy S III.

This thing cost me a small $300, compared to the $530 early upgrade premium I would have to pay, so I was happy. A flashed rom and 2 days later, the phone stopped working. It was not making calls, receiving texts or getting data! After a few rom changes I realized it wasn’t a rom thing, it most certainly was the sim card.

Off to the nearest T-Mobile store I went, where I was further stumped. The rep at the store was an avid android user, and was happy to do some trouble shooting of his own. I was indeed intrigued by his enthusiasm and his know how, so I played the consumer roll. He walked me through his troubleshooting logic, school me on CM roms and even walked me through flashing the phone. At the end of it all, he suggested I flash the stock rom via Odin and see if that helped. I was completely satisfied by my visit to that store, it was refreshing to get some worthwhile direction from a sales rep.

At this point I already knew what the issue was, so I gave customer care a call when I get home. The IMIE number was indeed being blocked by the carrier, which we later found out, the phone was reported stolen. This left me in a weird place, I understood and agreed with this policy 100%, but I was now without a working phone as the manager was unable to lift the block.

After about 30 minutes and all options exhausted, she offered me $100 credit to my account because she understood my situation. I was indeed shocked when she made the offer, I was extremely pleased as a long time customer, but I decided to push the issue a bit further. I asked if there was anyway she could wave my early upgrade so I could purchase a new phone from T-Mobile, as that would be many times more useful to me than a $100 credit. To my surprise, she asked what phone I wanted, wow!

We then went ahead and set up a payment and had the phone shipped out next day. It had been a long time since I was reminded of T-Mobiles excellent customer resolution policy, mainly because everything worked as advertised. But, it sure does feel good to know that the company still has the ability to sympathize with the customer. Great job T-Mobile.

As for what phone I choose, the Note II was my first choose, but it was too expensive, so I got the super popular Nexus 4.