Sorry, this is going to be long. I've been a loyal customer of T-Mobile for over 8 years. Stuck by them through their hard times. I've never had a problem with them or thei service until now and it's enough that i'm going to be leaving. We have 3 lines with them. Purchased two iPhone 5S from my local T-Mobile on Christmas Eve for my wife and myself as Christmas gifts. We didn't even take these phones out of the box until December 30th which is when our screen protectors and phone cases arrived. On the 30th we activated our new phones. 8 days later I noticed that every time I tried to make a phone call, it would take 3 or 4 times because each time it would automatically say call failed, thought it was very strange because it would happen outside as well as inside my house so it wasn't a signal issue. That night I plugged my phone on my night stand and went to bed. Next morning I woke up, picked up my phone and the screen was black with the Apple logo. I could turn it off and on but only the black screen and logo would appear. Connected the phone to iTunes and it would not recognize it. This was 9 days after activating our new phones. I took it into the T-mobile we purchased it from thinking it would be replaced but no, they refused. Their return policy is 14 days and it was now 16 days so my phone failed 2 days too late. I asked them if they would make an exception, we were long time customers for over 8 years, the phones had only been activated for 9 days. The T-mobile employee just looked at me and said sorry, you will have to process the replacement by calling customer service, he couldn't even be bothered to help me process the replacement in store. I could not believe that after paying over $600 for a phone, it had failed in 9 days and T-mobile would not make an exception for me. I am a grown man and take care of my items, item was in perfect physical condition.
I return home and decide to use T-Mobiles web chat to contact customer support so I can keep a record of the entire conversations. The customer service rep is very apologetic about what issues I am having and thanks me over and over for being such a loyal long term customer. She said I would have to call their special iPhone tech support line so they can try to troubleshoot the issue and if it can't be fixed, they will send a replacement phone. She said a new or "like new" phone. I said wait a minute, I just bought this phone, used it for 9 days and T-mobile is going to send me a "like new" phone? She said I'm sorry, that's actually not correct, T-Mobile does not send out refurbished iPhones, it will be a new phone (again, I have a hard copy of the chat transcript). She then goes on to tell me that I will be charged a $20 processing fee to get the phone replaced. Again, I stopped her and said, you thank me over and over for being a loyal long term customer, I paid over $600 for a new phone from you, it fails with in 9 days of activating it and you are going to charge me $20?? She then makes a note in my account that they will wave the $20 fee. She then gives me the phone number to contact their special iPhone Customer Support.
I call the iPhone customer support number and again, the service rep repeatedly thanks me for being a loyal customer for so long. We go through some troubleshooting and it's determined that the phone I received is bad and that a replacement will be sent. Again, this rep tells me I will receive a new or "like new" phone. I stop her and say, I was told you don't send refurbished phones as replacements. She says, actually, you are correct, it will be a new phone. She then proceeds to tell me there will be a $20 fee for the replacement process. I ask her to look at the notes on my account and see that the previous representative waived this fee for me. She said, I see that, we will waive the fee and I will expedite your phone since you are a long time customer. (This was on a Thursday night). She tells me that I will receive my new phone by end of day the following Monday. I was happy and was satisfied with the outcome and the way T-Mobile handled this situation but I was still pretty upset that the store would not make an exception and allow me to exchange it in the store. I had to go into the store that night to get a new sim card so I could reactivate my old phone to use until the replacement arrived that following Monday. As soon as I put the new sim card in and was driving home from Tmobile, I receive an automated text from them telling me my replacement phone is being processed and will arrive by end of day the following Thursday. This was not what I was told on the phone, I was told that It was being expedited and I'd have it by the end of day the following Monday. I called T-Mobile as soon as I got the text and asked them to verify that my phone would be delivered by end of day on Monday. She said that was weird that text would say that and she insured me that the phone would be delivered by end of day that Monday and she also said she's putting it in the notes that I called in to verify and she said it would be delivered as promised. Again. This was on a Thursday night.
That following Saturday morning, I receive an automated text from T-Mobile saying my replacement phone had been shipped and provided me with the UPS tracking number. To my surprise, when I tracked the phone, it showed a delivery date of end of day on Thursday. Not end of day Monday that was promised and verified by the T-mobile rep I called on Thursday night. As soon as I see that my replacement phone will not arrive until Thursday, I was pretty upset so I called T-Mobile and asked them why. When I called, again, they told me over and over how they appreciate us being long term loyal customers. She said there was nothing they could do because the phone had already shipped. They apologized and she told me that she would credit my account the $20 I was charged to process the replacement. I stopped her and told her that charge was supposed to already be waived and she said no, it was not waived. So, not only did my phone not get processed and expedited with next day air like they told me they would because I was a loyal long term customer, they still charged me the $20 they said they were going to waive, again, because I was a loyal long term customer. I was not very happy but there was nothing I could do and there was nothing T-Mobile could do.
My phone arrived end of business day on Thursday as the tracking said it would (3 days later than I was promised). Opening the package, it was obvious that this was NOT a new phone. The protective plastic covering on the screen was half pulled off and creased to the side & there were finger and smudge prints all over the screen. I inspected the phone and everything appeared to be in new condition besides the smudges and the pulled back protective screen. I wasn't going to make an issue because it appeared to be new even though I could tell it wasn't. I received the replacement phone on 1/16/2114. A few days later I noticed something weird. It was as if I had never texted on a touch screen before. I had many errors in my spelling but thought nothing of it and just figured it was due to the larger screen than I was use to on my iPhone 4S. Then I started noticing when I was scrolling in my browser or in emails, the scroll was very choppy. I also noticed when I was in the mail client and I would slide down on my screen to refresh emails, I would have to do it 3 or 4 times before the screen would respond and refresh. I then noticed that any folders or icons in the top two rows in the screen could not be moved. I would try to drab them and rearrange but they would move maybe a few millimeters and then stop and go back to where they were before. After more troubleshooting, I discovered that there is an area of the touch screen that isn't responsive. It's the width of the screen and about 3/4" tall and its located about an 3/4 of an inch from the top of the screen. Any icons in this area can not be moved down. They can be moved left or right and they can be moved up but not down. This makes sense why I was having issues scrolling and refreshing my mailbox because it's a downward swiping motion to refresh and if my thumb swipes through that unresponsive area, that action does nothing. I connected my phone to iTunes and restored my phone, thinking maybe something happened with the iOS but restoring from back up did nothing, problem still presented itself. I then decided to reset the phone and start from scratch in case there was an issue with my backup. Again, problem was still there. Frustrated and upset, I take my phone back to T-Mobile last night and try to get them to replace it. I go over the long store that I just shared. They were very apologetic and again thanked me for being such a great customer and the girl that was helping me said she wants to replace my phone in store with a new phone but she just needs to go get her managers approval. I was excited, this was finally getting taken care of the way it really should have in the first place if T-Mobile truly appreciated me as a customer and for being so loyal to them for 8 years. She then comes back and tells me her manager said no and there was nothing she could do. She then say that when I brought my original phone back into the store, they should have replaced it, even though it was two days outside the 14 day return policy and she couldn't explain why that person refused to do it. So that made me even more upset. I have wasted so much time with this issue that should have been fixed and exchanged for a new phone from the very start. Instead, I've wasted hours of time on this entire process.
So, again, I chat with T-Mobile using the live chat so I can have record of our conversation. I explain the entire situation again to this rep, again, they thank me over and over for being a great customer, she agrees to waive the $20. I explain how I was told my two different T-Mobile reps that my replacement phone would be new. She said replacement phones are "like new" condition. I ask them who re-certifies that these replacement phones are in like new condition, is it T-Mobile or Apple. She tells me it's T-Mobile. That blew my mind and is absolutely unacceptable. T-Mobile gets phones returned to them because they are having issues and they don't even send them back to Apple for repair, they have someone at T-Mobile look at them and see if they are ok. I cannot believe that this is what happens and these replacement phones haven't even been checked by Apple to see what the real problems were. It's no surprise to me at all now that my replacement phone also is bad since it was not an Apple person checking over the phone.
So the rep I'm chatting with keeps telling me she understand my frustrations and why i'm upset and wants to make sure she fixes this issue so that I am happy. I tell her the only way I'm going to be satisfied is if I'm given a new phone, not a "like new" phone. She said she does not have the ability of doing that because of where the replacement phones are shipped from. I ask the repif i'm such a valued loyal customer, let me take the replacement phone I'm going to receive on Friday into my local tmobile store for a replacement of a new phone. She said she does not have the authority to do this. I explained to her the only way I will be satisfied with the outcome is if I receive a new phone to replace my original phone that died 9 days after activation or my family and I will be leaving T-Mobile for good. She asked me if she could have her supervisor call me back. Her supervisors name is Katrina A. She insured me that Katrina would call me within the hour to discuss this and come to a positive conclusion. It has been 4 hours and Katrina has not called. This does not make me feel appreciated as a loyal customer. Because of how T-Mobile handles the replacement phones, I decided to call Apple directly to try to get the phone replaced from them. They looked up my serial number of this replacement phone and its 6 months old! The free 3 months of free phone tech support has expired so if I wanted tech support from Apple, I would have to pay them money. Are you kidding me? I buy a new iPhone from T-Mobile, it's activated for NINE days, it fails, they will not replace it in store, they send me a "like new" phone as a replacement, that phone also has issues, it is also over 6 months old so the standard Apple free phone tech support has expired and have to pay more to talk to Apple. Blows me away that if I'm such a great, loyal, long term customer this wasn't taken care of in the first place as one would think they would if we are such a good customer. Still, not resolution to my issue, no phone call back and as far as I know, I have another "like new" phone coming to me that was not re-certified by Apple, some person at Tmobile looks at it and determines if it is ok, and since I already received a replacement phone that has issues, their re-certification process is GREATLY lacking. I am one very upset customer. I would like a phone call from someone at T-Mobile to address these issues or they will be losing a so called loyal long term customer of 8 years.