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!
Same thing happening to me
How are they allowed to do this?
My story is similar to the rest of you. I had a Sprint line for my daughter, and a year or so later my wife and I went to T-Mobile. We kept them separate for awhile but decided to merge the Sprint (turned into T-Mobile) with our T-Mobile account. It seemed like T-Mobile just doesn't know how to do this. With a paid off phone, we thought about closing the old Sprint line and going with the bring-your-own-phone trade-in deal offered at the time (back in October), but we would have lost the phone number. After contacting T-Mobile, they said that they could work it so that we could merge the accounts, keep the number, and get the same trade in offer, so that is the approach we took.
The first thing they did wrong was charge us twice for November on the old Sprint/T-Mobile account. It had already been merged in, so we were paying for it on our main account, but they continued to charge the closed account. It took 3 months to get this resolved, and they finally sent a debit card for the duplicate payment.
The second thing they did wrong was make me have to contact them again and again to get the bill credits started. I had to keep reminding them of the previous conversations and the deal we agreed to. It took until February to get bill credits for the trade in that they "received" back in November. They applied 5 monthly credits. The way T-Mobile does it, they give a starter credit for the phone, and they make the rest up in bill credits, so that the total is the cost of the new phone. I understand that, and I expect the monthly bill credits to be less than the monthly charges, because I am supposed to get the difference up front.
The third thing they did wrong was to not give us the up front trade-in value of the phone. This new phone was supposed to be free with trade in and bill credits. Instead, I will end up paying $180, just to keep an old phone number! Had I known that, I would have given up the phone number, closed the old account, and brought the new phone with the "add a line" promotion.
They never evaluated the old phone and made any claims that it did not deserve the full trade in value. It was a working phone, and there was nothing wrong with it!
Whenever I compare the main large phone carriers, T-Mobile seems to do better than Verizon or AT&T, but their way of getting money seems to be in their incompetent manner of handling things like this.
I have been with this celll company more than 20 years. Last October I called their 611 number and I bought an IPad from them on a promotion that I was told I would get. To make the long story short, I was never given any monthly credit. I was told the representative sold me the iPad under a promotion that I couldn't get. I was told I would need to call every month and they would apply the credit but there was no other fix for this. I been calling every month till this month told they would no longer give the credit or stand behind the price they sold it to me. I was told the only reason I was given the company credit in the past was to get me off the phone. I have turned them over to the FCC as well as BBB
as soon as I am able to pay this equipment off I am done with them.
