T-Mobile reneges on Nicolas Cragnolino’s iPhone upgrade offer. Can this consumer advocate persuade the company to fix this misunderstanding?
Question
I called T-Mobile last year to see if I qualified for the Black Friday iPhone 7 Trade-in promotion. They told me my plan qualified, so I traded in two iPhone 6 devices, which I owned and were fully paid off, for two iPhone 7s.
A representative told me I was only going to pay $99 per device over 24 months, or roughly $4 per device per month, and a down payment of $339 for both devices for the taxes, activation and memory upgrade. Three billing cycles later the promotion would be applied.
I called T-Mobile to ask why I was still paying $27 per device per month and, to my surprise, they told me my plan wasn’t eligible for the promotion.
From there on, I spoke to several representatives from different departments without any good explanation or solution for my problem. One representative from the “loyalty” department told me she was going to ask for the original call to be pulled where the representative said my T-Mobile plan was eligible for the promotion. If the representative told me my plan was eligible, she said, they were going to honor the promotion and apply it.
She said she was going to call me back on a specific time and day, but she didn’t. So I tried calling back, but every time I called I had to re-explain everything and could never talk to the same person.
In my last conversation with T-Mobile, after speaking to various representatives, one told me there was nothing they could do. She said it didn’t matter what the representative told me about my plan being eligible for the Black Friday promotion. That even if that’s what she said, they wouldn’t honor the deal because my plan isn’t eligible.
She also told me that as I “voluntarily” traded-in my two iPhone 6 devices, they were not going to send them back to me, even if they didn’t apply the promotion they told me they would. They were not even going to pay me for the phones either.
I feel scammed and mistreated by T-Mobile. They obviously don’t have any consideration for their clients. They didn’t respect the promotion they offered, stole two iPhone 6s from me, and made me buy two iPhone 7s which I now have to pay for in full. Can you help me? — Nicolas Cragnolino, Hollywood, Fla.
Answer
Wow, this was a failure on so many levels, it’s hard to keep track. Misrepresenting an offer? Check. Reneging on a deal? Check. Promising to fix the problem but then doing an about-face? Check.
It’s the perfect case. And by perfect, I mean perfectly awful.
The terms of your trade-in offer certainly look appealing, but as always, the devil’s in the details. And this offer has definitely been naughty, because part of it was conveyed by phone instead of in writing — meaning there’s no record of it. (Related: What kind of Karma is this? I can’t even connect to the internet with it.)
The paper trail you showed us suggests T-Mobile’s version of the story is right. Your phones didn’t qualify for the upgrade. You signed a contract. (Here’s how to fix your own consumer problem.)
That’s right, it’s T-Mobile’s word against yours. Can you guess who is going to win? Maybe not.
Solution: A credit on T-Mobile’s installment plan
You could have escalated your complaint to someone higher up at T-Mobile. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of T-Mobile’s executives on my consumer advocacy website.
Then again, you could have turned to me for help in unraveling this spaghetti bowl of twisted and broken promises. I contacted T-Mobile on your behalf, and it offered to credit you the rest of the phones’ installment plan balance, which comes to $1,083. That’s a resolution you’ve indicated you’re happy with.
