I am currently in the middle of an uphill battle with T-Mobile over something that should be incredibly simple: making a return. Despite reading their website and following what is supposed to be their instructions, I have wasted lots of time because nobody there seems to know what they’re doing. I recommend you avoid T-Mobile at all costs.
Ordering Day 1: October 15.
I order a new cell phone on T-Mobile.com. This is a major hassle. The website is terrible. I receive an order confirmation email:
Estimated shipping date: 10/15/2022 - 10/18/2022
Ordering Day 3: October 17.
I receive a shipping confirmaton email. I will give T-Mobile some credit here, because the Track your order button takes you straight to the UPS tracking page instead of some poorly designed frontend like most companies give you. Curiously, I notice this email says:
Estimated delivery date: 10/15/2022 - 10/18/2022
I wasn’t aware UPS had the ability to travel back in time and deliver my phone the day I ordered it, but that would be cool I guess.
Ordering Day 4: October 18.
The phone is actually delivered. Almost immediately I decide I don’t like it and plan on returning it. I’m busy, and it takes me a while to get around to starting the process.
Returning Day 1: October 27.
I read T-Mobile’s return policy to double-check what I need to do for the return. It states:
T-Mobile will gladly assist you with your return. Return the device Device … to a T-Mobile retail location or ship the Device back to us within 20 days of the date the Device shipped to you, to return or exchange the Device … for any reason.
I would prefer not to go to a T-Mobile store so I call the listed phone number to initiate the return via shipping. After waiting on hold, I was told by the customer “““service””” agent that shipping returns is too difficult for him and it will be much easier for me to take it to a T-Mobile store. I made the horrible mistake of taking his advice.
Returning Day 3: October 29.
I drive to a T-Mobile store expecting a quick and easy return. Instead, I am told that they can’t process returns if it was an online order. I explain what I read on the website and what I was told on the phone, and she says “they say that all the time we can’t do it here, you have to call and they will send you a label.” Oh well, I guess I drove all the way over here for no reason. Back to the phone.
After returning home I call up T-Mobile again, and got stuck waiting on hold for 30 minutes listening to the most awful pop music possible. Finally I made it through to a human being. He quickly apologizes and says the lady at the store was correct, these returns can only be done over the phone. He quickly gets my return authorization set up, and emails me a shipping label to print out. Apparently, because of the size of this phone’s removable battery, it requires a special warning label that must be printed in color. I do not have a color printer, and he told me that T-Mobile would deliver a printed color label to my address.
Returning Day 5: October 31
I receive a text from T-Mobile saying my order has shipped. There is an order number and a link to track it. Presumably, this is the package with the shipping label I am waiting for. Unlike the email I got before, this does not take me straight to a tracking page. It forces me out of the browser into T-Mobile’s awful app. It doesn’t even take me to the order status page, just the home screen. I had to manually search for it, and guess what? There is a separate link if your order was placed by a “““Customer care representative””” which takes you back out of the T-Mobile app and into the browser. How stupid is that? I jump through all these hoops and then there isn’t even a tracking number. It isn’t even marked as shipped, it just says Order received.
Returning Day 9: November 4
I still have not received the color label I was supposed to get from T-Mobile. I go through the awful process of trying to check my order status again, and it still just says Order received. I decide to call up T-Mobile and figure out what the deal is. After spending a few minutes on hold, I am told that I am not an authorized person on the account and the guy cannot look up any of my information. This makes no sense because I am an authorized person and I have already been communicating with T-Mobile about this issue. Unfortunately, this guy would not budge and I had to have somebody else on the account call in to figure out what’s going on.
I have another authorized person call, and after working his way through three different people, he is told that I actually could just return it at the store. After pressing about the color label, their customer service geniuses decided that I didn’t actually need it. I assume this is incorrect, it seems like a safety concern and flies in the face of the instructions that came with the shipping label that was emailed to me, which state:
If any lithium-ion battery shipping labels are included below, they must be printed in color to comply with legal requirements and avoid delays. (Note: If T-Mobile is mailing lithium-ion battery shipping labels to you, please be patient and wait until you receive these labels before returning the item.)
The supposed “““service representative””” insists that I should just send it back without this hazard label. I assume that this guy is dead wrong, and just lied because he didn’t know how to solve the problem. But alright, I guess I have waited a week to ship this phone back for nothing. Thanks, T-Mobile.
Returning Day 10: November 5
I dropped the box off today at the UPS Store, and I can’t wait to see what T-Mobile has for me next. I fully expect my refund to be delayed, and I will be very happy if I see even one penny from them before Thanksgiving.
Any company can learn something from the mistakes made here, especially T-Mobile. I am very upset at how much time I have wasted because nobody working for them seems to know what they’re talking about. Am I the problem? Are my standards too high? Is it unreasonable to expect the people whose job it is to help you to be knowledgable and consistent? T-Mobile seems to think so. I encourage anybody that comes across this page to stay as far away from T-Mobile as you can. It is easier to make a return to some random dude on eBay than it is to do so with a multi-billion dollar corporation.