T-Mobile I worked for tmobile for the last 3 months as a tech support call center agent, today I was fired for replacing one of the refurbished phones that they send you as new one. I was only trying to make a customer happy. Rocky Mount North Carolina

Dear Former SUN COM employee,

Welcome to T-Mobile! I trust your transition was as seamless and easy as ours was. First and foremost, I would like to address your header. Had you taken the time to ACTUALLY read the disclaimer that it's REQUIRED to read to customers before shipping out replacement phones/devices, you would know that customers are informed that the replacement that they will receive is LIKE NEW. Every mobile phone provider sends out refurbished phones through their MANUFACTURERS warranties. Note that it is a manufacture's warranty, not a service provider's warranty, as no mobile service provider MAKES phones.

Since no mobile phone service provider actually manufactures phones, they have to defer back to the manufacturer to receive the replacement phones for the handset exchange program, or in some cases they PURCHASE refurbished phones from the manufacturer as that is all they will provide. Everything about the handset exchange program has to be approved by the manufacturers of the devices, otherwise T-Mobile is going to be losing more than the average $3 million every MONTH for invalid handset exchanges. And no, that is not an inflated number. How is it exactly that you ‘make a handset replaceable”? It either is or is not under warranty, and therefore is or is not replaceable. YOU have nothing to do with it! Unless you're lying. In which case if the customer gets billed a $100 out of warranty fee or a restocking fee upwards of $409 (on certain devices, this is the cost of the company to acquire another device from the manufacturer, no joke), it will be your fault.

Secondly, really? You were really fired for sending out a replacement phone to a customer that needed a working device to use their services? How is that even remotely possible? Even if you had managed to exchange a physically/liquid damaged or non-t-mobile phone, you would not have been fired, in fact the company would have paid for YOUR mistake because it is the right thing to do, and it is covered by policy. At most you would have been coached on the correct policies and procedures. As for the public getting tired of refurbished phones, most of the time when a handset exchange or insurance claim is done the device received is a refurbished one except for a very few instances and special circumstances unfortunately this is the way things are and I know that while we all prefer new equipment, myself included this is not something the provider, any provider can reasonably be expected to deliver on EVERY exchange. Oh, and
when troubleshooting a Motorola Razr V3 or any other phone with a blank LCD screen there are specific troubleshooting steps to follow. P.S. The menu button is not on the screen, it is on the keypad, contrary to your posting, did you even follow the correct steps for troubleshooting LCD issues?

I am curious, this article posted 3 days after the actual launch of Sun Com under the new branding. How long were you even a T-Mobile employee? The brand conversion is common knowledge and prior to the 7th of September T-Mobile had NO coverage in the Carolinas, so how could you possibly have been ‘lying to customers' and ‘listened to call after call' about coverage they did NOT have and devices they would NOT have been supporting as the Carolinas and Puerto Rico were SUN COM markets. It would have been Sun Com SIM cards and SUN COM devices that you were working with up to that date, Not T-Mobile. On top of this information, T-Mobile has spent MILLIONS of dollars increasing the coverage in the Carolinas and Puerto Rico, and installing HUNDREDS of new towers ramping up to this conversion. So if there were coverage issues going on prior to and right after that time, it would have been easily explained to customers that we are “Currently enhancing, and building our infrastructure to better serve you.” After all that would be the truth.

I think it's completely unfair and amoral of you to blame getting fired on a handset exchange, what really happened? Did you not make it through training? Were you already on thin ice as it was for poor performance or misinforming customers? Because the only thing you've managed to do here today is have a pitty party when in all actuality you have no one to blame but yourself, while I don't know the details or events surrounding your dismissal I can say that the reasons you've stated here make absolutely NO sense whatsoever.

It's truly unfair that you would post something like this about a company that even though they purchased the company that you were working for, spent MILLIONS of dollars to not only train you, but probably bring you up to the pay rate acceptable by them based on economic standards. What about the other employees that will receive calls from individuals that have read your words here? How will your words influence the day of people that provide a service to their customers? Working in any call center environment is hard enough without having some disgruntled ex employee making it worse with lies. I am truly sorry to hear that you lost your job, that is a very hard thing to go through at the best of times and in today's uncertain economic climate I know it has to be very stressful, for that I am truly sorry. I would not wish being jobless on anyone as the person losing their job is not the only one to suffer but also their families.

However that does not give you the right to slander a company and lie about the reason you got fired. Most of us have been fired at one time or another and no one ever wants to admit it was their fault, but deep down we all know the truth. I hope you're able to move on and find employment opportunities elsewhere and that you suffer no ill financial effects. Most of all I hope you learn accountability for your actions and learn how to admit when getting canned is your fault.

As any person working in a T-Mobile Call Center can advise the call centers themselves do not host any of the phones that are sent out; new or refurbished. These phones are in fact sent from warehouse seperate from the customer service and technical care representatives. As a T-Mobile employee even when we order phones they must be shipped to us because they are not stored inhouse. The claim that it would have been packaged by a technical care rep is just dishonest.
Further, the paperwork filed to get a warranty is also not the same paperwork and prices can not be changed by a representative or overridden to "hide" that a new phone has been sent out.
If there was any fact to this situation which there can't be, the reason for firing would fall under fraud it seems. With the information that is provided for us even the hint of dishonesty or fraud must be dealt with very seriously. It is assumed by most, even in this case, that one act may mean there are others which would certainly make me uncomfortable as both a consumer and an employee.

I left Tmobile in May as an employee, in streamline (which is the company's intranet resource of company policy) it states specifically if the customer has a Suncom phone that after the result of the troubleshooting we are unable to exchange it due to warranty not transferring as per TOS of the mfg phone warranty (Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc all have the same wording about the warranty transfer is non-existant) thus tmobile would not be able to get a replacement phone from the OEM to provide an exchange for the customer.  You wouldn't be able to do an exchange anyway unless you forced the imei through the data device tool (which you're not allowed to do only a supervisor is allowed to do this for currently supported tmo models).  What you were supposed to do was either refer the customer back to Motorola (since you claimed this is a "razor 3" which tmobile NEVER CARRIED) or see if they would like to do a handset upgrade to a current model. 

Because a Motorola Razor 3 has never been a Tmobile USA phone (check both motorola and Tmo's website under support to confirm), your lack of knowledge implying that tmobile makes the phones of low quality when they are resellers of OEM branded phones (The phones are made by the Original Equipment Manufacturer and then branded for Tmobile focused software, this is why you see the Motorola Razors for all the service providers, if Tmo made the phone why would they sell and allow their competition to use it?), and these phones are the same quality as our competition (check their phone line up, in most cases they each carry a similar phone from that companies line up at the given price).  It's strange to say the phones don't last when most mobile providers don't make money on phone sales and lose money on any warranty exchange that these phones don't last, in most cases these phones last the length of the contract with only user proficiency problems, which means it's not a question of phone quality but user ability (or in your case, if somehow you worked for Tmo your inability to support it).  The phone housing may flex, it may look cheap, and you may get bored with the phone but many of these phones are durable and will still be usable up until they hit a landfill when replaced because of the owner tiring of it. 

Good try, the owner of this site should pull off your false complaint and maybe even turn in your ip for Tmo to sue you for defamation.  Tmo has problems, I won't deny that they aren't perfect, but you don't have to lie to try to hurt them, this only takes away from the things they do bad by discrediting all those with legit complaints now being grouped with you falsely, they deserve better.