Cell-abration

So everyone always uses their blogs to complain about companies; I'm guilty of that myself. But how often do we use our blogs to give kudos when we get superior service? I'm here to start that trend, friends.

A few weeks ago, I got my cell phone bill. I have been with the same company for 10+ years. First it was Suncom, then a few months ago they were bought out by T-mobile. I wasn't sure how I was going to like the change, frankly, but with 3 of us having phones (and no landline), they were the only ones I could afford.

Anyway, I got my bill. And it was TWICE what it is on a normal month. So clearly they forgot to apply my payment, right? Wrong! I looked it over and found $132 in texting charges, courtesy of the Spankster. Not good.

Now we have unlimited texting, but Spanky, being Spanky, got into trouble as only he can manage. He found a way to send (and receive) texts to chatrooms...stupid kid chatrooms...at 99 cents a pop. Do the math...that's almost 150 texts! Oh yeah, I was ticked!!

We had some intense moments of fellowship. We had some grounding going on. And then, 2 days later, it hit me...He probably didn't stop with the texting before he knew that I knew about the texting. So I checked online and found that waiting to be applied to my next month's bill was another $567 in text charges. Yes, really. Almost 600 more texts.

I was livid. First, that amounted to $699 additional on our cell phone bill. We don't have that kind of cash. And we can't afford to be without our phones. So I was a wee bit upset. Second, he was texting during hours when he should have been sleeping, studying, or at the very least NOT texting. Angry didn't come close to describing how I was feeling.

I was also worried about the $699. So I called T-mobile. I asked for help. They graciously blocked his phone from ever sending or receiving one of these chatroom texts again. I was grateful. I was also feeling confident, after talking to the representative, that they might be willing to help me out a little. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do until the bill processed through the system. I was instructed to call back in a week. Until then I was stuck.

So a week later I was in bed with the flu with nothing to do but wonder how we were going to pay this $699 bill. I called back to T-mobile, and after spending over 30 minutes on the phone with a new rep, he backed off the original $132 and made a note in my file to back out the other $567 next month when it processes on the bill.

So....long story long...I love T-mobile! They were nothing but kind, respectful, pleasant, and extremely helpful every time I called. Every one of them sympathized with the fact that my 14-year-old had run up such a high bill...one even complimented his ability to get a bill that high. They had to get all sorts of approvals to get the $699 taken off my bill, and they never acted like it was anything but a pleasure for them to help me.

The end result? I'm a lifelong T-mobile customer now. They've earned it.

Oh, and anyone who needs cheap slave labor, Spanky still has to work off the bill...and donate the proceeds to charity. Just don't tell him I got T-mobile to back out the charges. We haven't told him that part of the story yet. We're waiting to put the exclamation point on our lesson with that one.