I saw this topic of the same name closed, even though that customer probably never reached resolution. I’m writing because the same happened to me. I’ve switched carriers now, but I’m writing this complaint so that anyone Googling or searching this site can see how much of a scam it all was.
My texts randomly began going out one day a little more than a week ago. Specifically, I began only receiving some texts. I received no photos. All outbound texts and photos worked fine.
At first, T-Mobile offered the following reasons and/or “solutions” - all failed:
- The iPhone 14 launch has our network really slammed. (They actually said this as a reason for my text message issue, on my first phone call.)
- Maybe it’s your SIM card. “There is such a thing as SIM card exhaustion.”
- We activated an eSIM and that didn’t help. Then we activated a new SIM and that didn’t help. I activated a third new SIM and that didn’t help.
- Maybe it’s your phone software.
- We took the newly-activated SIM and put it in a different phone. The same problems with texts replicated in the different phone.
At this point, perhaps one of the only working theories was some issue with my phone number itself. Then—after one of those handy trouble tickets was made—an engineer had a light bulb: I’m not on a Magenta plan! See, I had been on a ONE plan for a very long time. And the engineer said “the numbers behind the plan are totally different” almost verbatim how he phrased it, basically trying to say the cell towers legitimately operated differently depending on what plan I’m on? Oh and the only possible solution now was to change plans.
“Unlimited” is basically a scam word all cell companies use nowadays to describe tiers of throttled service they offer. When T-Mobile introduced its “One” plan, they marketed such that it was supposedly “actually unlimited.” Then of course there were high-volume data users like me, so FCC required companies to send us regular texts saying “Your plan is still unlimited, but since you’ve gone over a data cap, you may experience reduced speeds until your next bill cycle.” Eventually T-Mobile wisened up to this issue and offered Magenta, which allows you to pay more, more, more until you’re actually at an unlimited level. I also imagine there’s handy added contract language that lets the price adjust over time. Contract language that wasn’t in “One.”
Apparently cell service outages and problems have been ongoing the past week all over America. So it’s possible my theory as explained is false. Maybe T-Mobile was just having a bad day. But they really could have told me that instead of trying to scam me into switching plans. The engineer offered no free months of service, phone upgrades, anything. Just a credit—not a refund—to my account for the days my texts stopped working, which worked out to around $30.
I won’t bore you with the disaster of a day I had Thursday, suffice to say though: T Mobile tried to hold onto my account for dear life. I couldn’t port out my phone number unless I first received a text message with a one-time security PIN. Well, as I said, text messages were no longer working, they declined to email me a code, and the in-person customer service reps at three T Mobile stores were, let’s just say, special.
Anyway I’m off the service now, or at least I think so. And oh by the way, my text message issue no longer exists over at Verizon. Same phone, same software. (It’s an S22 Ultra, by the way.) I can’t get anyone in T-Mobile to email me a confirmation that my account has in fact been closed. Although they say it has. Maybe a customer support rep will see this topic and actually get around to doing that? Thanks.
