Forum Discussion
How can I contact the Fraud Department?
Does anyone have an unpublished way to contact the Fraud Department? This whole setup at T-Mobile is pathetic. This internal department exists that can deactivate an account on a whim, and no ...
Well, my individual problem was finally resolved today, but I think the bigger issue is how the whole fraud department and verification process work. Since posting the above:
- Fraud department on Monday added a memo to my account that they never saw what we submitted from the local store on Friday
- We faxed the documentation again on Monday, from the same store
- The fraud department decided that what I sent wasn't good enough
- I submitted a different document today over lunch that was finally accepted
Ultimately, about a week total of no service when I wasn't negligent on dues, I'm not defrauding anyone, etc.
I'm marking this as the answer, but there really is no answer. The best you can do is to try and involve as many people as possible, and I did engage the T-Force team via Facebook. They were very helpful, to the extent they could be, but even they are at the mercy of the fraud department.
I can't speak for every circumstance, but in my case restoring service to my valid account was very painful. I think (maybe because of the porting scam earlier in the year) the balance is too far to the side of security vs. usability.
People close to me are having similar problems now. T-Mobile should be sued over these practices. T-Mobile authorized a 3rd party to sell T-Mobile accounts. That company just opened up one account with hundreds or thousands of lines and sold them at a markup. One day T-Mobile canceled the account and all the numbers under it. All the customers were left without service without any prior notifications or warnings. You can imagine how difficult it is to lose your number after having it for years. These days everything is connected to your phone number. When the victims of this fraud attempted to open up a new account with T-Mobile and retrieve their number, all customer service would say is that we have to mail a letter to the fraud department. That is unreasonably slow, you can't go without access to your accounts connected to that phone number for that length of time. It means accepting you lost that number, getting a new one, and attempting to get back into your bank account, work account, school account, and whatever else was using your phone number for authentication, as well as having to inform everyone of your new number and all the other headaches that come along with this. On the other hand, if you were able to call the department that canceled your number, perhaps you could resolve the issue in a timely and useful fashion.
