Originally Posted by barthalkid

I have T-mobile and have not encountered problems such as the one you stated. T-mobile is a big company and there are strict rules that these cell phone carriers must follow.

If you can prove, somehow, that T-mobile is charging you 2 minutes for every minute you use (which is very unlikely) then I think you should consider yourself lucky because you'll be award millions$$ of dollars if you sue them.

What I would suggest is
1) check your minutes frequently by dialing #646#. You will be sent with the minutes you have used for this billing cycle. I always use that as a reminder of the possibility of going over my monthly allotted minutes.

2) speak with a customer representative and instead of demanding them to credit you the "overage", (which to them, those minutes are legitimate minutes used and not that they will not credit you with the minutes, but they will not have the authority to do so ) try to tell them that for some reason, the device you are using is delayed when you make a call and when you end a call and therefore possibly increasing the minute usage. If you say it like that, they will consider it as equipment failure and you will have a better chance of getting your minutes credited plus a new phone =D

3) if you think you are talking to a biach (you know what I mean, particularly when they have a particular accent), hang up. Seriously, this will resolve 99% of the problems out there. HANG UP. In fact, tell them that you refuse to speak to an extremely unhelpful representative and demand to talk to the supervisor, then hang up, and keep calling until you find a friendly voice.

I think #3 will resolve a lot of the customer service issues out there LOL I do that ALL the time and I get what I want usually.

#1 smart practice every cust should be doing all the time
#2 idea actually really good idea, sneaky

#3 really NOT a good idea. All the reps you talk to leave notes in your acct, if you piss enough of them off, they will leave specific notes saying things like "this cust is taking advantage of credits no more credits" they ALL read the notes when you first call and if they notice that you just called in and were told no, they are supposed to stand by that. Also, if they know you keeping calling in it makes them less likely to want to help you. Asking for a sup doesn't usually help either, the sup is also required to go by policy and the notes. Speaking from experience, i know that cust service reps HATE customers who do this (not anything personal against you of course) and will not go out of their way to help "pain in the bum" customers at all. it makes them mad lol

I haven't had t-mobile in quite some time but as I remember when visiting their site to pay my bill in the past, there was an option to check your minutes used and get an up to the minute detailed list of who you've been calling, when you've called them, how long the call was, all that good stuff you need to know when you call customer service and ask "Who, when, how long?, etc" It's good to have some ammo when calling a rep, as opposed to just throwing a bunch of questions at them, yes they should have all the answers in front of them, but it's easier if you can just say "There's no way I could have called Japan at 3:00 A.M. I'm not even up then." Try to get them on your side and they'll do just about anything in their power to help you out.

It's Jan. 5, 2009 and I just saw my bill that is due 1/25/09 and it is $540.89 Now lets talk about those pesky overage charges ..I never been late on a bill and never went over my mins. Now all of the sudden....the last past two months I'v been going over by 500-700 mins. at 40cents a min???? Charges and timing just isnt adding up. I call up and I get the same thing and I wind up eating a bill I know Im not making...OH YEAH!! BTW!!!, I wonder how the tmobile sim cards on ebay are working out?? Funny thing of it is..Friend of mine bought one off of ebay. and do you know everytime the voice mail comes on it says Thanks for calling Adams Blackberry. Thats how I figured out sim cards are being sold on ebay. And why it goes to Adams voice mail when I call. Hmmmmmmm

Originally Posted by boosey12

Yeah, thats crazy!!...I went over my minutes by 300 last month...and they charged me an extra $170.00 for it!!!...

I almost went crazy!!...so I called them up and asked if there was anything they could do to cut it down...and the lady said "set up a payment arrangement" !!...lol

I love t-mobile service though.....

So what according to your plan should you be paying for going over 300 mins?
It's gotta be something like 20 to 45 cents per min for overages right?

And because you go over your mins what should they do, other than setup a payment plan? I mean they didn't make you go over your mins or keep you from finding out where you stood before going over did they?

I hear ya, I'd go crazy too if I went over my mins that much. And trust me there have been months when it happens due to family emergencies and things of that nature (really hard to go over 1500 mins unless there is something going on), but never for just yakking to be yakking.

Yeah, thats crazy!!...I went over my minutes by 300 last month...and they charged me an extra $170.00 for it!!!...

I almost went crazy!!...so I called them up and asked if there was anything they could do to cut it down...and the lady said "set up a payment arrangement" !!...lol

I love t-mobile service though.....

I like my plan 60$ for wife and I but I do admit that if u add services it is expensive. Yet other carriers charge more.

I have the identical issue currently. I have a moto razr, and noticed a call that was billed at 30 min when I was on just over 28 min. TMobile svc rep said that I can't trust the internal clock on the phone since there is a motorola software issue, and that I would need to use my stopwatch to confirm each call and compare against what my bill shows.

The svc rep agreed that it would be my word against theirs, and said that "this has never happened before," so don't bother trying to prove that their billing is incorrect. OK then, case closed.

Originally Posted by revengeSITH

cant understand how to do that. when I get my Nextel bill, I just rip it up and pay. the bill is like a yellow pages, there is no way i'll sit and sift through all the details- just too cumbersome and difficult. funny story- i actually looked at my bill on Monday and saw that i was being charged $9.99 a month for some Tele-Nav stuff for the last 8 months (never ordered it). all they could do was credit me for the last 3 invoices. is that legal, how can they refuse to credit me for the other 5 months? anyone know the law in such a situation, please advice...back to beer and chronic

There are a lot of times that the service provider's sustem only allows us to credit back the past 3 billing cycles. It is something that the Customer Care rep you talk to has no control over.. its a software thing!

Originally Posted by tponash

I just found this discussion forum and wanted to see if anyone else has had the same problem I have had with T-Mobile and their overage charges. I have a Blackberry Phone, which unlike most cell phones, records each call as an email, and indicates the length of the call, time of call, etc. On one of my recent bills, I was charged for overage usage for over $150, which I thought was way too much. I then decided to compare the minute usage on the bill to several calls I received and made from my phone. I was quite surprised (althought I should not have been) when many of the minutes charged on my bill did not equal the duration of the calls. While I understand that calls are rounded up to the next minute for usage purposes, I found that many calls I received were charged an extra minute. For example, I received a call which lasted 45 seconds, and therefore should be charged for 1 minute of usage. On these calls, I have been charged for 2 minutes of usage, which adds up over time. I have disputed these charges with T-Mobile, and have been told that these are valid charges. How? The only reason that I am even able to dispute these charges is because of the type of phone I use, which records each call, but how can anyone ever dispute the charges because you are unable to use the timers on the phone for billing purposes according to T-Mobile, but this is something that makes T-Mobile millions of dollars a month, and you have no way to dispute it. I welcome any comments as I am proceeding with a complaint to my state's consumer affairs division and am looking into litigation since this problem exists for every customer and is ridiculous.

Thanks.

cant understand how to do that. when I get my Nextel bill, I just rip it up and pay. the bill is like a yellow pages, there is no way i'll sit and sift through all the details- just too cumbersome and difficult. funny story- i actually looked at my bill on Monday and saw that i was being charged $9.99 a month for some Tele-Nav stuff for the last 8 months (never ordered it). all they could do was credit me for the last 3 invoices. is that legal, how can they refuse to credit me for the other 5 months? anyone know the law in such a situation, please advice...back to beer and chronic

What you really wanna do is get an unlocked o2 xdaIIs by far the best looking and most feature packed pocket pc that is also a phone some are better but usually are just a pocket pc.you can get the xdaIIs for 400-700 on ebay. usually closer to 700 retails at 900.

Get a plan that reflects your usage... if you are going $150 over, then you are the one that needs to upgrade your plan by calling them or simply logging into their site...

the reception in houses could be better.

Well since my blackberry 7100t that i got for free has unlimited data and 600 anytime minutes with unlimited nights and weekends I dont think I will go over i dont use it for talking much.

I've been all over the U.S. and have had a lot of service providers and for the cost and service I'd say the without a doubt next to nextel, t-mobile is the best, if you want to avoid getting charged for services cancle them at the start of your billing cylcle anyone that complains about their bill should know when this is. Also even nextel has problems so, no ones perfect. When you have a provider that cuts their prices dramaticly while everyone else does the trickle down effect, (meaning, wait and do what everyone else is doing) I think it only fair to let the bulk of their service shine through. Which in t-mobile case has been great, I've gotten free phones from them, when I shouldn't free minutes, when I shoudn't credits that I shouldn't have got, and I don't think I'm special I just know how to talk to people to get them to do something that will benifit me, at least if it's in their power. Just all in all you treat someone with respect (even when your mad) and they'll do anything they can to make you happy but if you blame someone (even if it is their fault) and they'll get defensive. I hope everyone can take this advise and apply it, when calling with a complaint, after all these people didn't cause your problem, they just take all the crap from them.

eveyone told me about tmo, so i went to cingular. i haven't had any problems yet.