BOGO buyer beware

  • 11 January 2018
  • 15 replies
  • 2921 views

On Oct 16, 2017 my wife and I went to a T-Mobile store to sign up for phone service. We also purchased 2 new Samsung phones because they had the bogo deal. I asked the salesperson two different times during the transaction if I needed to do anything to get the rebate card and was told no and that my the rebate card would be here in 8 to 12 weeks via mail. After 12 weeks and no card I went online to find out where it was and discovered that I was suppose to send in paperwork in order to get the rebate which the salesperson twice told me I did not have to do. Now that the 30 day from purchase is long expired, I am out $850.00 which is a lot of money for people who are basically living paycheck to paycheck. I am now stuck without any recourse and out my rebate,but you can be sure that we will tell all of our friends, the Better Business Bureau and everybody else that is willing to listen, not to deal with T-Mobile because at least some of their employees are either incompetent or worse yet out and out liars and thieves. BUYER BEWARE. Do NOT trust any sales people to tell you the truth, especially at T-Mobile.      Jim and Cindy  Tucson AZ


15 replies

Userlevel 3

Oh no, @magenta3796992​ -- that's a huge disappointment, both in terms of our expected ability to offer you the next steps necessary to complete a promotion, and in terms of the sum of money involved. We'd hate to see your family leave -- I know that this experience is awful, but I certainly hope there's another resolution option here. Were you working with our Care team -- how did you learn that the rebate submission needed to be entered on the Promotions site?

- Marissa

No. I have not been working with anyone. I found out about the paperwork submission by researching it online myself.

Userlevel 3

Apologies for the delayed reply! I was out for a few days, and then the long weekend added some extra time away. It must have been doubly frustrating learning about the promotion steps online. I'm wondering if working with a team with account access might yield an escalation opportunity for this promotion? I know that we're outside of the 30 day timeline since the purchase was initially made, but it does seem worth investigating, just to be sure! We'd want to take a look at your account details to see if there are any opportunities to make this right. It would definitely be preferable to come to some kind of resolution, rather than leave you stuck with no recourse at all.
We're not able to verify your account and take a look from this public forum, but if reaching out online is your preference, our T-Force team -- social support on Twitter and Facebook -- do have a secure platform to authenticate your account and look into this further. For a promo like this that may have played a large part in your decision to switch, we want to see if there's anything that can be done to help. If you're active on either of those social media channels, you can send a DM to @tmobilehelp on Twitter, or send a Message on Facebook to reach the T-Force team.

I'm sorry for the way this played out -- I sincerely hope we're able to come to a resolution.

I think we have gotten this taken care of. We will know for sure in 7 to 10

days.

Userlevel 3

That sounds like a good start! Please keep me posted on how this plays out in a few weeks -- I will keep my fingers crossed for you!

I am really upset that I was lied to. I left AT&T for t mobile because t mobile said if I switched they would pay the balance of the phones from AT&T. They also said that they had the BOGO deal. Which consist of purchasing 1 samsung or iphone and turning in 1 device.

        I made many calls to customer service people to know clearly about the plan and they told I need to exchange and old phone add a line and I did everything I was told to do. I went to store and bought the phone they said for one mobile I need to completely pay the amount and another one should be with the installment until I get my rebate card. I was told that I am going to get my rebate it will take time as they were many requests like these. They took my address so that they can send to that address.

         I was carried away with work and was expecting the card to come in. But I didn’t got it. Today when I make a call the customer representative said its because u paid complete amount for one phone you are not qualified for the offer. I did what t-mobile store wanted me to do. Why would I pay the full amount. They said supervisor is busy and they would call me back. I didn’t get the call whole day. I made another call today and they asked for information again and connected me to supervisor.

         Now the supervisor was telling me that I didn’t port in my no so I am not qualified for promotion. I shifted from AT&T and added another line. So what else I need to do. She was mentioning that my account is not qualified from the beginning itself for offer. If that is the case why would they take my old mobile for exchange and make me pay for another one. The answer I got was that many people do trade mobiles everyday so that means it’s not considered as BOGO offer. She also mentioned that wasn’t mistake from her team so that she can honor. But the help or information I got was only from T-Mobile people right. How is the company not responsible for the mistakes or false information the representative gives to customers. When I mentioned this point she said I made a notes so we will train our employees. How is that going to solve my problem and stress that I have been going through?

         Not the case. I was lied to. I am not the only one going through this so I know I'm not crazy. The thing is that T mobile doesn't want to honor what I was told in the store which is very frustrating to the point that I may file a complaint with the BBB if t mobile doesn' honor BOGO.

Thanks for posting. I too am a victim of the T-Mobile scam. I feel the only recourse is to actively dissuade as many military friends of mine from signing up and to use on-line rating forums to dissuade people who are considering changing over. The whole reason people switch over is to get the benefit of savings, and none of that appears to happen. I am totally disappointed and will begin searching immediately for a different provider.

T Mobile like to accuse of their customers that they were not following the trade in instructions so they don't have to pay the full amount of the trade in phone.  They always say they have  the best customer service. It was a joke, they don't care how much you spend all these years with them as long as they could scam more money out of you.  I trade in 2 iPhone 7 Plus for 2 iPhone 11 on Oct. They accused me that I did not disable the find my iPhone on my old phones. Most likely that they could kept my old i phones so they could resell them for a higher price and not to pay the $350 trade in amount for each phone to me.  I contacted the customer services  for numerous times and they gave me the same answers take the $118 suckers and They would not give me the full $350 trade in value for each old phone. Buyers  Beware !!!!!!!  Be careful when you trade in with them and they like to make up some story or  to accuse you for something that you did not do. The T Mobile supervisors and the customers service operators don't give a crap about you and even told me that they don't care I filed the complaints to BBB or other consumer agencies.  What a customer service.

Well, I’m seeing multiple complaints that are just like mine.  We left Verizon to take advantage of T-Mobile’s BOGO on the Samsung Note deal in August of 2019.  My husband was hospitalized for over 6 weeks with cancer and his phone died during that time.  He wouldn’t have anything but another Samsung Note, so we changed to T-Mobile to get this promotion.  I didn’t notice on the invoices until a couple of months after he got home that we were actually charged for TWO phones.  I specifically told the guy at T-Mobile that that’s why we were changing to them - to get the Samsung Note BOGO deal.  NEVER did anyone mention any other steps that we had to take to actually get this deal. 

So, I later went back to the same TM store and, of course, that guy isn’t there and they claimed not to know anything about the deal and that was that.  Sorry!  So, with my husband dying of cancer, hospitalized for 6+ weeks, and my being the only caregiver for him during the COVID shutdown/quarantine, I was unable to right this wrong thing TM did to me.

Not only did we get rooked, but now I have my deceased husband’s phone, for which I’m paying TWICE AS MUCH as I should be, but we also have CRAPPY service in our neighborhood.  Do NOT believe their “coverage map”, like I did.  It’s total BS and you are made to believe that their service is as good as Verizon’s.  NOT SO.

I’m filing a BBB complaint against TM immediately, now that I’ve learned how they lie to their customers to get their business.  I will NEVER be a TM customer again after I pay of this  ridiculous bill I’m stuck with.

I had this issue as well. Thought I was getting a BOGO deal, so I did not trade my phones in. Instead, I paid them off through Verizon. Keep in mind, had I had t-mobile pay off my 3 phones, 2 being I phones and one being a Samsung I would’ve gotten a minimum of 1,200 dollars. Instead I put 400 down on a new I phone 12 pro max and a galaxy note. I was under the impression I was getting a second I phone 12 pro max for free. I asked several times if this was legitimate, if I needed to do anything, if it would be better to just trade my phones in…nope, they kept telling my that the BOGO deal was the best way to go because I’d be getting a phone for free. So I bought it. Should’ve known that was fake. So they ordered my phones. I called when they text me and told me the phones arrived. Of course when I spoke to the employee over the phone, they told me only one phone was there and they had no idea about my BOGO deal. They told me no other phone had been ordered. This was supposed to be a Christmas gift so I was of course angry. I went to another T-mobile store and luckily found the iPhone, but of course this person had no idea how to search my account, how to see that anything was purchased on a BOGO deal or anything either. Thankfully I got everything squared away before Christmas. I waited 2 months as they stated for the promotion and found out they never put us all in a plan together after about 4 months of paying. I paid additional money that they never gave back once I fixed the plan situation and I still am paying for this BOGO phone that I figured out was never really free. I made an attempt to upgrade and found out I still owe over $800 on a “free” phone. It can’t get anymore comical than that! All I can say is I honestly wish I had stayed with Verizon or went to another service. I will definitely not be staying with T-mobile long, they’ve lied to me from the day I walked into their store and I do not appreciate people willing to lie for the profit of some business they’re making minimum wage for.

I went in to the Winter Garden FL store on November 5th to switch from Verizon to T-Mobile to take advantage of the BOGO deal on the iPhones. I got the Pro Max for myself and and the starlight for my wife. I paid for my phone at that time. Neither phone was in stock, so I had my wife’s phone shipped to the store and mine to our home in PA. My wife is in FL staying with our son recovering from surgery. Her phone came in on the 11th, my son went to the store to pick it up and swap out the SIM cards on his phone and my wife’s new phone. I went to the Greensburg store on the 13th to have my SIM card switched out on my old iPhone and activated on T-Mobile, so we were now all officially on line with T-Mobile. My new iPhone arrived on the 13th and I swapped the SIM and was in business. On the 24th our auto-pay paid our bill. (This was the only condition I was told I had to adhere to to get the deal, I had to use auto-pay). On December 8th I received a text informing me of the upcoming auto-pay draw and the amount, which was $26 more. I went to the Greensburg store and and was told it looked like the clerk in FL misapplied the BOGO and there were no “notes” in the system. He also informed me that, unfortunately, it would have to be taken care of in the Winter Garden FL store, that he was unable to rectify it. I will add here that this young man is the only competent person I have dealt with to date at T-Mobile. 

So I had my son go to the Winter Garden store last night to sort this out. In talking with the clerk, the same one he had dealt with previously, she said that it looked like someone had ordered an iPhone through my temporary number and credit card. I asked where it was shipped to, she replied the store. She said she would check to see if it was there. She came back and said that it was not there. I asked if it had been picked up. She replied no. I told her that I would like to cancel the order as I did not order this phone. She said that I could handle that when the phone came in. She then went in the back to check again for the phone and said that it was not there. I asked to speak to the manager. She told me she was the manager. I told her that this was starting to sound like a scam. The only people who had access to my temporary number and credit card information was T-Mobile. She then hung up on me, set my son’s phone down on the counter, walked away and said BYE!

I then called the Winter Garden Police and they told me that something definitely is off, but before they proceeded they asked me to call corporate. So I called corporate and the clerk was able to identify the problem. She said that since I had paid for my phone up front, that disqualified me from the BOGO. I asked why would they not tell me that at the store at the time of purchase and she said I would have to got to the store to get this resolved. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She replied “she’s just going to tell you the same thing”. I told her I’d prefer to hear it from her directly. I can say she was courteous, I can not say the same for Courtney the Supervisor. She did say the same thing, but she added that “how are we supposed to know you didn’t buy one phone in one store and then go to another store and buy the other one?’  Really? So, I replied, how about because your system clearly shows they were bought at the same time at the same store… Her response...”is there anything further we can help you with?”

I have been trying to call the store this morning, but all it does is ring and ring and ring and ring… Probably a ton of dissatisfied customers calling...

The BOGO deal is really suspect.

I brought my Mom over from AT&T thinking she we will get a nice phone like mine for free. Nope. It looks like they are giving you credits for a while which seems like a way for them to track the free stuff they gave you but when time passes and you’re not looking, I noticed that I am actually paying for my Mom’s phone (device installments) because it did not qualify for BOGO price. I told the rep why wasn’t I told at the time of the purchase? Also if it didn’t qualify, why give the phone to me? The sales person confirmed for me that it qualified for BOGO. TMO rep explained to me the BOGO only applies to the cheap phones not the premium phones. I wish they had told me this so I would have never had my Mom leave AT&T. Her phone is paid off and the monthly rates are not too bad. Anyway, lessons learned be careful with the BOGO deals. It’s not completely free. The Sales person told me otherwise it applied to any T-mobile phone at the time. That’s a lie. I wish they were more truthful at the time. Now I have 9 more months of paying $57. There is no such thing as BOGO. If I decide to stay with T-mobile, I will purchase my own phone in the future. There’s always something fishy with any carrier deals -- be very careful and don’t get conned.   

Hello I think I am currently getting scammed too. I went to a t mobile store on Oct. 23rd 2020 to try out the Bogo Deal you Buy ONE Samsung or IPhone and GET ONE FREE. I spoke to the salesperson about this deal. I continue to tell the salesperson that I wanted 3 phones and trade in my nephews Samsung S20 from another company. The salesperson told me that I would need a down payment which I provided along with the phone. The salesperson stated that the monthly bill would be under $200 dollars monthly. My complaint is that my bill is a extra $30 a month when it’s supposed to be $175. Where’s the extra money going? Secondly, why am I paying for the 3rd phone when it’s supposed to be FREE? I have been calling since I have gotten these phones. I am highly upset. It seems as though T Mobile does not care about their customers. This week a supervisor’s head supervisor was supposed to give me a phone call back. It hasn’t happened yet. This morning I spoke with a representative that stated she saw in the computer where the phone is supposed to be FREE. I have paid over $3000 for phones, services and fees. This is just not acceptable T-Mobile. Please contact me. 

The same thing happened to me with the BOGO deal I was told that in order to get the prepaid mastercard I had to turn in the phones yet I purchased new phones and was told I could keep the old ones.  They told me they would be in contact that an inquiry was put in about my account.  Just like every one else no one contacted me and of course when I did the 30 days passed so I got stuck with the Verizon phones and need to pay them myself.  I cannot believe this was done to so many people and nothing has been done to resolve this issue!  Did anyone ever get their issue resolved where they honored what they said?  

I’m a victim of the BOGO 2020 scam too. I realized they have been charging me an extra $12-$14 and are saying that it was only up to $1000, I’m responsible for $300. UGH!!! Did anyone have any luck resolving this!?!?

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