t-mobile: a feud

At this moment, I am livid.

I try to keep this blog fairly upbeat, happy, whatever. But now I have to drag in something that is driving me bonkers: my T-Mobile bill.

Ok, I have to admit that I have trouble paying it on time. We share a family plan with my parents, which means we have four lines on one bill. Since I do the majority of the talking (I use the phone as a work phone) I pay most of the balance and am the offical name on the account. My dad has a check sent to T-Mobile directly every month to cover their part; I pay the rest online a few days later. The bill is due on the 25th of the month but sometimes I pay on the 27th or 30th if I forget.

So what's happened: In May, I paid my part of the bill on the 25th. It looked like it went through. Their site said that I'd paid the balance. We were all good. And then, on June 2nd, the payment was sent back because I had mis-entered the bank account information. My error. I take responsibility for that part.

On June 3, with no warning, they turned off the phones. I didn't even notice and neither did Christopher. My dad did though, and he called customer service who told them that the payment had been revoked. He paid the balance, the phones were turned back on and we went on our merry way.

Until today when we received our latest bill, and there are $20 charges on each line for turning the phones back on. This I could understand if we never paid our bills or if I had been given a warning that the payment hadn't gone through and I'd ignored it. But no, this is just how they work. I called customer service and spoke to a man and then his supervisor. Both of them informed me that this is how T-Mobile works, that they are not responsible for telling me that a payment has been revoked before turning off the lines. They even said that I should have checked my account online daily to make sure it hadn't been sent back-- even though for over a week it reflected the payment having been made.

Does this make sense to anyone? If your electric bill is a week late, they don't turn off your electricity. You get a warning letter or the overdue balance shows on your next bill. And then you pay it. And even then, they don't charge you $80 in late fees.

I'm not sure where to go from here. It actually seems immoral to me to pay the $80. I want to fight it. I want to make T-Mobile embarrassed and realize how stupid this is. Since we're under contract for another 18 months or so, the only thing I can do is make them suffer.

Suggestions, anyone? I'll do anything.

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Saturday morning update:

My father called and spoke to someone who agreed to take the charges off. Why? Maybe I got angry too quickly last night, maybe the guy I spoke with had a snotty supervisor. In any case, it is apparently resolved. Not that I trust that this won't happen again; I'm planning to change our billing so it is automatically paid every month and I don't have to deal with their website and entering in my bank information.