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This is a Description of our Complaint with T-Mobile and the BBB:
For the past almost 3 years we have had all of our family cell phone lines with T-Mobile. We switched over from Verizon about 3 years ago because we responded to a promotion offered by T-Mobile whereby offered much better coverage at much better prices. Turns out that their marketing in advertising campaign was misleading and inaccurate at best. From day one, the coverage and reception was below any basic level of acceptance causing phone calls in messages to drop or fail at a rate off three failed for one success. After a few months, I complained with T-Mobile, they profusely apologized and told us to be patient because they were in the process of rolling out their new 5G Network and also merging their Network with sprints, and they said that the coverage and service issues will greatly improve in a matter of weeks or a couple of months at the most. When this didn't happen, I called to request a transfer of service and they insisted that it was just a matter of time for their coverage and service to noticeably improve and they offer a nominal remporary discount to keep us from switching over. As expected, the coverage and service not only did not improve but got worse. After another 12 months have gone by and everyone in our household having being fed up with dropped calls failed messages in lack of connectivity, we have decided to switch over to another carrier. When I call T-Mobile to inquire about the process, they told me that we're free to switch over but they're going to charge us retractively rebates and fees that they have waived because we're not meeting the term of our contract. And my question to them what kind of compensation do we get for the 3 years of failing to provide the most basic service that we have been faithfully paying in full for almost 3 years. We'll know that these are tactics that these types of companies use to hold people hostage regardless of whether they are the ones at fault in causing you to leave. This should be unacceptable!

Won’t do much good but assist in having you ported.  I’ve filed tickets for several of T-Mobile’s ‘Dead zones’ that T-Mobile has claimed ‘Verified 4G LTE’, as well a 5G service.  These areas get you … ‘No Service’ or ‘Emergency SoS’ only on AT&T or Verizon.  It’s been 7 years, and  their maps show ‘more’ coverage, yet … the service is still the same.

  1. Try before you buy.  Wireless is notorious for this.  Not everywhere is equal with all carriers.
  2. Don’t buy the line of “we’re deploying 5G and it will get better” - as it may .. but not always in all places.
  3. Their merge with Sprint shouldn’t cause YOU issues .. that’s for Sprint customers, mainly.
  4. Their ‘apologies’ won’t fix the service.

If T-Mobile ‘billing/care’ reps won’t fix, escalate through BBB.  T-Mobile upper levels will contact you, as they dislike the public rating that they’re getting, and want to resolve the issue (i.e. will work for ratings).

 

BBB customer reviews:  1.2/5stars


What's ironic is the in Tmobile's terms and conditions, that no one reads before signing , TMobile doesn't guarantee service.


T-Mobile reps will state this as well.  Sadly, the advertising and ‘Awards’ department end up on the promotion as ‘most reliable 5G network’ which sells, but sadly doesn’t mean much when service doesn’t work.


Luckily where I've lived the service has been good if not great. When I moved across the country a few years back I streamed music and not too many dead spots. If you ever driven the I-10 in west Texas there's not many towns to stop but I still had a good signal.


What's ironic is the in Tmobile's terms and conditions, that no one reads before signing , TMobile doesn't guarantee service.

No way…. I always read through usually now I feel a little screwed! My calls and reception are terrible. I work on the road and I can’t keep good reception for the world. I can’t even keep a phone call with my mom in the grocery store or in my own house anymore. I’m over it. I want out of this. And the OP is right!! How do they plan to compensate for all the missed phone calls and dropped calls and missed data due to their terrible advertisement! Shame on T-Mobile! 

i wish I could tag them in this….  


What's sad is most carriers have the same verbage in their terms and conditions

It's basically an out for the carrier. I suggest reading the terms and conditions of any carrier you are planning on switching to.


I have had service say 5g and can't call out it will say call failed. It drops calls constantly  I can't send or receive texts or I have to download the texts.  I just restarted my phone and got 52 texts I missed from the last 2days.  This all started after the merge with sprint  it is a terrible company now


I am tired of taking calls in the great outdoors where I can almost see the cell tower from my house.  Can’t get reliable service in my office and calls often drop in my house.  Does the “5G” stand for “Get 5 Gigs away from your house?”  Go to the T-Mobile Store you say?  Got two hours?  We laugh at the commercials in this house!  “Can you hear me now?”


out of curiosity what makes you believe that tower is a TMO tower?


It is unfortunate many phones are not compatible with 5g. Even though we are promised so much, much of this frustration would be solved just changing the mobile network setting to LTE/3G or 2G. No need to boast about 5G so much. Help make customers happy by showing them that setting and let them try 5G later on their own. Where I live simply does not have it and it would have made no difference to me leaving it on the most successful setting. Everybody will understand 5G is not available everywhere much more happily than not getting what they are promised.


I was a previously happy Sprint customer with no problems. I was not only forced to move over to T-mobile but I also had to put out $1300 for an iPhone 13 Pro just to be compatible with their 5G network. At first it wasn’t too bad, sometimes a little slower. But within the last week or two, I am down to 1 bar, a warning will pop up that I am not connected to the internet (my home internet is switched off on my phone), it takes forever to load an internet page if it loads at all and messages take a long time to load. What is going on? This is so frustrating!

BYW I live in the North East USA.


t-mobile SHOULD be called t-don’t move or your call will be dropped OR YOUR TEXT failed to go through!!! 5g stands for 5GIGS of ram for the whole country!!!!!

they LET ANY hackers in for your information OR ANYONE LISTEN / TAP your phone!!!!

 

DO NOT GET T-MOBILE IF YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDS ON A PHONE!!!!


I live in COLORADO where maybe the mountains in DENVER ARE TOO HIGH for t-mobile to even think about fair reliable service!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PISSED OFF AGAIN


I used to have good coverage at home. Submitted ticket. They upgraded my data to unlimited for the same price.  No improvement. Got new 5G iPhone. No improvement. Rarely used to deal with no signal or dropped calls. Now it’s constant. 
 

I like the customer service and good price, but those things don’t matter. I need to depend on coverage. So, I’m ready to switch to more expensive Verizon. If I get a more reliable signal, I’ll stick with Verizon.

Fortunately, I am on prepaid with no contract on a phone, so the switch will be easy.

It’s too bad, because I would have stayed loyal to T-Mobile, but I have tried working with them through these changes and things keep getting worse.


Sadly, especially in many parts of rural America, T-Mobile’s advertising of coverage is often far from reality.  Coverage might mean climb up a 100’ tree and you can get service.d


What I’ve learned, is that even Verizon customers are having trouble now with the 5G system updates. They are having the same issues.

 

So, for now, might as well stay with T-Mobile and have better prices and customer service.

If or when Verizon has less issues, then I will consider switching.


I decided to stop complaining about T-Mobile’s coverage when I could use my phone in Chadron, NE*. That happened, via roaming agreements, many years ago.

*Selected as being very out-of-the-way.


I was a previously happy Sprint customer with no problems.

Me too . . . and after being forced to upgrade phones, not one of the 4 new iPhones works properly.  Dropped calls, calls ‘failed’, texts won’t send to Android, pictures won’t send via text, receiving calls where I can’t hear the caller but they can hear me . . . and yet I get to pay for full service AND the expensive iPhones.

I miss Sprint . . . maybe if they had Sprint lead the merger, things wouldn’t be so messed up.  And if it is really the 5G upgrade that is causing the problem . . . maybe they should have done at least a little regional QA for a period of time before they upgraded the entire network.

Like you, we are just not happy with Tmobile.


Yeah, absolutely horrible spotty service for LTE/4g and 5g here in central NJ, Robbinsville/Upper Freehold/East Winder area. So many meetings disconnected, important messages not received, etc. It’s laughable that when signing on here to post I was asked to enter the 6 digit code that they were going to text me, I CAN’T RECEIVE TEXTS ON YOUR NETWORK WHERE I AM LOCATED!!!! I’m surprised they even have the to have stores in this area. I switched from StraightTalk which used verizon towers, going to switch back soon. 


I was a previously happy Sprint customer with no problems.

Me too . . . and after being forced to upgrade phones, not one of the 4 new iPhones works properly.  Dropped calls, calls ‘failed’, texts won’t send to Android, pictures won’t send via text, receiving calls where I can’t hear the caller but they can hear me . . . and yet I get to pay for full service AND the expensive iPhones.

I miss Sprint . . . maybe if they had Sprint lead the merger, things wouldn’t be so messed up.  And if it is really the 5G upgrade that is causing the problem . . . maybe they should have done at least a little regional QA for a period of time before they upgraded the entire network.

Like you, we are just not happy with Tmobile.

 

~this issue also happened over with Sprint..as it randomly does with all carriers.

 

~Sprint also did their network upgrades this way..depending on which company was doing the tower upgrades at times things were even worse..Alcatel was one of them that were pretty rough when doing said tower upgrades for Sprint.


This is a Description of our Complaint with T-Mobile and the BBB:
For the past almost 3 years we have had all of our family cell phone lines with T-Mobile. We switched over from Verizon about 3 years ago because we responded to a promotion offered by T-Mobile whereby offered much better coverage at much better prices. Turns out that their marketing in advertising campaign was misleading and inaccurate at best. From day one, the coverage and reception was below any basic level of acceptance causing phone calls in messages to drop or fail at a rate off three failed for one success. After a few months, I complained with T-Mobile, they profusely apologized and told us to be patient because they were in the process of rolling out their new 5G Network and also merging their Network with sprints, and they said that the coverage and service issues will greatly improve in a matter of weeks or a couple of months at the most. When this didn't happen, I called to request a transfer of service and they insisted that it was just a matter of time for their coverage and service to noticeably improve and they offer a nominal remporary discount to keep us from switching over. As expected, the coverage and service not only did not improve but got worse. After another 12 months have gone by and everyone in our household having being fed up with dropped calls failed messages in lack of connectivity, we have decided to switch over to another carrier. When I call T-Mobile to inquire about the process, they told me that we're free to switch over but they're going to charge us retractively rebates and fees that they have waived because we're not meeting the term of our contract. And my question to them what kind of compensation do we get for the 3 years of failing to provide the most basic service that we have been faithfully paying in full for almost 3 years. We'll know that these are tactics that these types of companies use to hold people hostage regardless of whether they are the ones at fault in causing you to leave. This should be unacceptable!

That’s a bummer. Your new carrier should offer to pay any fees for transfer so I would get that confirmed before switching over. Unfortunately, there are as many Verizon and AT&T folks complaining about coverage as TMO. I personally would never sign on with a carrier with any promise that coverage will improve in the future. If it doesn’t work as well as I need on day one, I would cancel within the full refund period (14 days for TMO).


All mobile networks have dead zones, and I understand that, HOWEVER, it is outright fraudulent to publish maps claiming coverage exists where it does not.    If anyone ever starts a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile/Sprint, I would sign up the first day because I am tired of paying for empty promises.


I was a previously happy Sprint customer with no problems. I was not only forced to move over to T-mobile but I also had to put out $1300 for an iPhone 13 Pro just to be compatible with their 5G network. At first it wasn’t too bad, sometimes a little slower. But within the last week or two, I am down to 1 bar, a warning will pop up that I am not connected to the internet (my home internet is switched off on my phone), it takes forever to load an internet page if it loads at all and messages take a long time to load. What is going on? This is so frustrating!

BYW I live in the North East USA.

I have the same problem, switched to iPhone 12 and currently sitting in an Ultra 5G area with 1-2 bars of LTE no matter where I go in my house. How is this possible? I’d be happy with even 4 bars of LTE at this point. What a rip off. 


I’m facing similar problems. Getting tired of it.

I’m paying for unlimited data, but I can barely use it when I’m not on WiFi. What’s the point?

 

As others have said, this started with T-Mobile. My Sprint service was reliable and consistent.

I’m downloading GlassWire to keep track of when I can & can’t use my data, and if it falls below an acceptable threshold I’m going to start demanding refunds for my monthly bill. I recommend others do the same to put pressure on them to fix their crap.


Just as a note … T-Mobile’s own disclaimer states that they do NOT guarantee service (or any data rates of any kind) .. anywhere.

That dog doesn’t hunt.

T-Mobile (as well as other carriers) service varies from location to location.  In general, IMHO, T-Mobile has concentrated its efforts on urban → suburban areas, and will deals with rural ‘in some areas’ priority based on their own project requirements (i.e. is it a county seat ?  does it have a large tourist industry ?  does it have decent infrastructure already - fiber + modern gear + towers + spectrum).

Near me .. ~15 miles west, Fillmore, CA has literally 1 tower for +16,000 people.  Even with ‘full bars’ and RSRP of -85dBm, service on 5G UC (100MHz of n41) is rarely to hit 100Mbps.

Prior to 5G UC, 5G n71 was lucky to hit 10Mbps, and under LTE only … 3Mbps or less.  This was < 1month ago.  T-Mobile has been claiming ‘modernization’ for years.  Some other rural places will hit ~1Gbps.  Ventura, CA has a lot of legacy Sprint customers/towers.  I suspect ‘some’ sites may be converted.  Out in Gaviota, there is still a GPRS only site.

 

Only ways that T-Mobile will help is:

  • Squeaky wheel gets the grease.  Get MANY locals to file tickets to T-Mobile (need to be unique numbers)
  • File complaint with your PUC or other state agencies
  • File complaint(s) with BBB

Of course, if, in the area, enough people just abandon T-Mobile - they’ll assume there’s no problem (if its rural).  If its urban, and MANY customers leave .. they’ll do something.


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