Just a heads-up, this will be very long. Don't know how to tldr
In late May, I decided to migrate from sprint to t-mobile because there was a running promotion that stated that I can receive a free Galaxy S21 in the form of $800 recurring credits over the span of 24 months if I opened a new line (didnt matter which plan) and traded in an eligible phone that would qualify for them.
So I went with my brother to a local t-mobile store to trade in my S10 and his iPhone X; both phones qualified for the $800 trade in promotion. My brother is the account holder and has been a loyal sprint customer for something like 5 years at this point so his account was in good standing, therefore he qualified for the promotion. My brother had to mail his phone out for the trade-in because it wasn't fully paid off but in the end, we both received the S21's at the store. The problem, however, was that T-Mobile sent the mailing kit to our previous address (we had moved a few months earlier) and it didn't occur to us until about 2 weeks later.
My brother went to the store to inform them of the situation but they said they couldn't do anything on their end because his PIN wasn't working or something, and that in order to reset it he had to wait 30 days. He waited 30 days and went back to the store, same issue, only this time the staff couldn't even sign into my brother's account because they were getting the same errors we were getting when trying to access the site ("Whoops! Looks like our wires are crossed!")
At this point we've noticed that we're being charged for each of the phones. I call customer care and I learn that the promotion was never applied to the account. They told me because one of the 2 phones weren't traded in, the promotion didn't take effect on any level. So I traded in my s10 for free essentially. However, after lots of back and forth, they finally applied a lump sum of $350, which will be part of the $500 in credits I'll be recieving for the CURRENT trade-in promotion, instead of the $800 in credits I was supposed to receive from the promotion at the time (late may). Keep in mind, the current $800 trade promotion requires you to start a new Magenta MAX line, when before the magenta type did not matter.
Customer care told me the promotion I was talking about was available only for 1 day, and that it was a typo on T-Mobile's end. I did a lot of research before going through with the trade in and that particular promotion was being talked about A LOT on forums and on Reddit for a couple of months, so what the supervisor from customer care was telling me was blatantly untrue. Not only that, but I can see the promotions from previous dates on Wayback Machine! I'll post the links, and even attach some screenshots.
1. This is what the CURRENT promotion looks like:
https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/samsung-phone-deals
Note the "MAX"
2. This is what the promotion looked like when I applied.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210523051210/https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/samsung-phone-deals
Note the absence of "MAX"
3. As a reference, this was the ORIGINAL promotion from February.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210208034631/https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/samsung-phone-deals
Note the absence of needing to activate a new line
There's a pattern. As time went on, the more stringent the promotion became.
I understand that my brother should have been more preemptive on his end, but I get the short end of the stick here because I traded in my phone hoping I'd be getting recurring credits for 2 years that would essentially be paying off the S21, but instead the lump sum I received will be going towards the entire phone bill, and will cover the total cost for about 2 months, which means I still have to pay off my S21 for the remainder of the 24 months anyways.
The fact that all of these agents and that one particular idiot of a supervisor keep telling me that that promotion never existed is infuriating me. What can I do? Can i file a claim or something? I feel misled, cheated, and taken advantage of. Thanks in advance to anybody who decides to help
