Forum Discussion
Promotional Trade-In Credit Never Applied to Account?
Several months ago, I moved from Sprint to T-Mobile and traded in my paid-off, fully functional and cosmetically near-perfect iPhone XR during a promotional offer to “Get an iPhone 12 on Us” with any Apple trade-in in good condition.
I had a solid, grandfathered in price at Sprint, but after reviewing all of the conditions of the promotion, I realized that I could potentially be saving money with a new phone if I met all of the promotional requirements.
So, I went in to a T-Mobile store and spoke with a representative who, after inspecting my phone, determined that I was eligible for the full promotional value of the phone, and we began the process of switching my line from Sprint to T-Mobile. This process required ''porting" the number from Sprint to T-Mobile. It usually only takes a few minutes, however, my porting was significantly delayed. I waited in the store for about 45 minutes, before the representative told me I should likely come back several hours later before store close to finalize the process, as they believed the port would have finished by then.
When I returned, the port was not complete and the store representative told me I would have to come back in the morning to finalize the process and finish my trade-in. When I spoke to the representative, I asked if this would effect my promotional credit, as it was the ONLY reason I had any desire to switch from Sprint to T-Mobile. The representative, who I believe was a sales manager, assured me it would not effect the value of my trade-in promotional credit whatsoever. They informed me they would leave a note on my account, affirming the value of the trade-in even in the unlikely event that the promotion expired the next day (which they did not believe to be the case) as I had started the process the day prior and the process was delayed due to T-Mobile's devices.
I came back the following morning to finish the trade-in process, and the sales representative who had helped me the day before was not working, nor did the store signage reflect the same promotion it had the evening before. I spoke to the available representative who had no knowledge of the creation of my account in the first place, so the process had to be started over completely.
As this happened, I spoke with him about the promotion I had received the day before and mentioned the name of the sales associate who had helped me and guaranteed my promotional offer. I asked him to guarantee the promotional offer as well before finishing the process, because if it was no longer valid I could not afford the change in phone plans. He gave me all assurances that he understood the situation and would ensure the credit was applied, then completed the process.
While going through all final documents after the process was complete, I saw that the credit applied for my trade-in was listed as "$7.39/billing cycle" - $33 LESS than the promotional credit I was supposed to receive. As soon as I saw this, I called T-Mobile customer service and informed them of the situation and the error. They then assured me that it would take up to two billing cycles for the change to appear, but that they had applied the promotional trade-in value to my phone.
After one billing cycle, I did not see the credit applied to my account or any documentation of the correction, so I reached out to customer service to verify that it was on record. Once again, I was told there was no record of the correction, and was quickly promised that they would personally ensure the correct price was given to me and immediately applied to my account.
After two more billing cycles, the proper trade in credit still did not appear, and I have reached out to T-Mobile every month since and have gotten essentially the same reply from all customer service agents - with absolutely no action on my account despite all assurances.
At this point, I am exhausted and extremely, extremely frustrated. I feel that my money is being stolen, as I never would have made the switch to T-Mobile were it not for the promotion I was promised. I made the switch and signed the contract under the believe, as was told to me by T-Mobile, that I was getting a significant promotional offer. I am now paying over $40 more a month than my original Sprint plan, a price which I did not budget for nor did I consent to, and am locked into a contract at that price. I have had to make other adjustments in my monthly bills because I can get NO assistance from T-Mobile despite this wrong doing being entirely their responsibility.
HELP!
Literally just had this same issue. It's my fault for not looking at the bill closer until now but I honestly had a few promotions with T-Mobile when we switched from Sprint. I got the text message that our 4 iPhone trade ins were completed and credited but one of the iPhone 7 Plus 128gb weren't eligible for the installment credit because as the main account holder, I chose the BOGO for the 5th line for a free phone. Store associate never mentioned that. He sold me on trade ins for the iPhones with credits for each phone/line. I'd get a free 5th line with a free specific phones only but even that promotion had issues. Got the Apple iPods promotion too and they tried to sell me on the iPad promo too. Why offer any of these promos if the system can't handle it or if the promise isn't going to be kept? They did offer to credit some but we definitely lost out on a lot more. Honestly the only way we'd probably even see a better resolution is when we decide to leave tmobile.
Amber B. wrote:
I am going through this right now. I went through my app on my old phone under my login, went to upgrade, when asked about trading in my phone, I marked yes and they valued my phone at $800. When I get my bill, it shows that I am to make monthly payments when I was told that with my trade in and down payment I wouldn't have a monthly payment but would have a credit. Have got the run around for several weeks now and talking in circles. I call them out and demand for them to listen to the recorded phone call. Workers document different than what they tell the customer. It is ridiculous. Still working the problem. Not giving up
Ugh! We got told this exact same thing and we still have a $300 phone bill. We also were suppose to get the promotional credit for trading in our phones and the girl who helped us entered our phones into the system wrong so when we sent them in we didn't get the promotion because the phones don't match what's in the system and 5 different people have said they would fix it and it hasn't happened.
What a scam… wish i read this sooner...on Sept, 2021 I went to my local T-mobile store looking to switch over from sprint to t-mobile and in the process i was offered a promotion deal to trade-in/upgrade for my phone. I had an iphone 8 256 gb. After talking to one of the employees about their current deals, they employee suggested i sign up for the Magenta MAX and I would get a $800 trade-in credit towards an Iphone mini 12. i really wasn't interested in trading because i was happy with my iphone 8 and had 256 gb but was told if i didn't switch it would cause issues with the new service etc.etc. so reluctantly i traded in my phone under the condition that the trade in value would cover the cost of the new phone. low and below countless hours on the phone with customer service and 17 months later still paying $22.08 for the iphone mini12.. this scam is so convoluted that the customer service reps do not even know how to explain or handle the questions although one did say that there's was something wrong with the phone i traded in .. so i asked why wasn't i contacted and why wasnt the phone returned if it wasn't suitable to trade in then proceeded to tell me to contact the store where i purchased the phone. I did contact the salesperson and she was surprised at what had occurred and at that time i was on the plan for 4 months so she refunded $120 via gift card (at that time i was being charged $30/ month for iphone 12 mini)... (not sure why now im being charged $22.08/month) and told me she would attempt to get it straighten out but to date issue has not been resolved. Again where is my phone?? why wasn't it returned ?? why didn't i get the credit that was promised?? all questions still awaiting responses.
deceitful practice and untrustworthy company never had these issues with Verizon or sprint
very dissatisfied soon to be ex customer
UPDATE.. I wrote a letter to T-mobile customer service and my issue was resolved and i was made whole. The customer service rep. who contacted me was courteous, knowledgeable and empathic.
:)
i think we have been looking for resolution in the wrong places..write a letter
Kat V
I have the same issue and even worse. They promised to take care of balance device payment from Verizon when I switched 2 months back. They didn't do anything with Verizon which costed me $679 dollars to Verizon. I called and they said there is glitch in the system and they will approve and send me a master card for $679 but I have not yet received it.
TMobile is also double billing me. They are charging on my two cards without even my approval.
I am on the same boat . After several follow-up with customer care representative, one of the supervisor talked to me saying he will check with backend team and call me back with update. When I called after a month, customer care representative told that there is comment in ticket from supervisor mentioning promotion code could not be applied and they refused to transfer the call to supervisor. Now I regret my decision of moving from ATT to T-Mobile.
Back in April 2022, Sprint had an offer for a Pixel 6 for free after trade-in (original value $600). A customer rep online gave me that offer and said it applied to my Pixel 5. Of course, I was aware that I had to pay the tax on the phone and the activation fee, totaling nearly $80. But Sprint/T-Mobile started charging me for the phone $25 per month for 24 months with only a $12.50 credit, basically charging me $300 for the "free" phone. I called and they claimed that my phone was a Pixel 4a and only qualifies for the half price promo. I had to send photos and screenshots of my phone as proof. They then gave me credit for the overcharge and assured me that I would be credited properly after that. Of course, they were wrong and I have to call back every month or 2 to get my credit. Luckily I have the email transcript of the original offer with the details, but even once they denied the refund. I called the following month and was able to get the refund. I'm now calling every 2-3 months, because it takes so much time to get this resolved. It really isn't worth my time and frustration for $25 each month. I HATE SPRINT/T-MOBILE!!!!! If I didn't have a contract with multiple phones to pay off I would drop them in a heartbeat for this BS! I don't think they are screw ups, I think corporate doesn't want to fix these issues because they figure that the customers will give up and that's a lot of extra cash for T-mobile. At this point, when people ask me about my service, I tell them to go to Verizon.
T Mobile is a disastrous. I have been a customer of 6 years and recently in Jan 2024, i added two lines over the phone with customer service with the agent told me to give me 2 iphone 14 promax devices with a trade in of 1 iphone 12 pro and i phone promax 12 with a 800 dollar discount on each device price. I shipped two devices of mines to them through a UPS prepaid envelope ( supplied by t mobile) in May or April after my several follow up for the UPS mailer envelopes. Since then they never applied discount and I have been paying for each device full cost per month (45.84 per month per device total 90) and i paid almost 10 months in between several times, i called customer service and they said they had a problem. I stopped payments and they are cutting services even after agreeing that the problem is from their end and one customer service agent had done wrong. Ultimately, customer is suffering, i have been in calls with agent each time a minimum of 1.30h, No resolution. T mobile is cheating customers. I hope this will bring to their leadership team. i will quit T mobile
Still going through this. I only received 2 of the 4 credits. Every customer rep I've spoken to tells me the other two are still under review. It has been approximately 5 months of waiting. Just another way for T-Mobile to keep customers locked in, if they want to see the end of their credits. Or bait and switch which seems to be a recurring theme. Not what the company used to be when I had it years ago, regretting switching back.
It has been for me since Jan 2023. They have disconnected my lines and when called they turned on but no one told me that service on charging for suspending. I had to pay a lot of money to get service because my other members in the line are suffering. T mobile is a disastrous. I didn't expect this from T Mobile . Where is their leadership team. They may be successful business, i am sure one day they will get hit very hard if they continue do the same
