VOICESTREAM SUCKS

Tmobile Wireless has an enormous amount of problems with our handset exchange program. I am currently an employee and I am currently based in our Allentown call center and am utterly disgusted, not just with the horrible, denigrating way we are treated, but also by the way we treat our customers. Specifically our "Smart Access Customers" and also our Handset Exchange Customers.

Smart Access customers are customers who have a low or no credit score and are basically protrayed as villains who do not pay their bills. We are educated from the time of training until the time we hit the floor that they are nothing but trash, and actually talking to people, sure you see that sometimes, however it is only sometimes. alot of our customers are signed into the service with no idea they even have a contract for one year, let alone a $150 spending limit that basically runs the same as a credit card, and also that they have 3 rate plans, a nationwide plan that has relatively few mins in comparison to what our customers actually use, as they are never educated as to how they actually are billed, etc. We also have a 1000 minute plan for 39.99 that has just that, 1000 minutes, which is, again, not nearly enough for our customers. Finally, we have the 3000 minute regional plan, which again, is not enough for our customers as it is regional, has a two or three state calling area, which we scaled down in the middle of people's contracts in some cases, as "it turned out through surveys" that most of our customers only called 2-3 states, however that is completely untrue in most cases. Basically, it boils down that we are not coming out with better plans, not offering Smart Access customers better plans, or even the same plans as monthly customers because they have the demographic profile as being heavy users. Our plans are there to mainly fit people with low or no credit, which, and i am not at allll being racist or regionalist here, but it seems to fit the callign profile of inner city and lesser developed areas, and then we bill them for all they are worth, and threaten them with collection agencies and bad credit unless they pay. Now we all understand that the customer doesnt have to use that many minutes, but yet we have to accept that they do, especially in this lifestyle we all lead, and yet we do nothing but belittle them and treat them like garbage and do nothing to actually help them as our plan was told to us it does.

Secondly, i am going to address our handset problem. The reason i am classifying it as a problem is that is exactly what it is. As many of you know, we have a handset return program, and we also have a handset upgrade program. Also we have a history of using companies with known defective phone equipment and then not doing anything about it. Take motorola for example. Motorola has not made a phone that works with reliability in the two years i have been employed with the company. We have gone from the t2282 and v2282, to the t193, p280, v66, v60, c332 and the list goes on and on, and all have been plagued with known issues and yet we sold them to customers, knowing they were defective, and we would be penalized, disciplined and in one reported case, even terminated for telling people about this issue. We are supposed to pretend it is not happening or something, that all the phones are working and not having any problems, and knowingly sell them to customers and expect them to use it. We grade calls on one and done basis, one time calling in per issue, but we all should be marked off for one and done when they call to get a motorola phone as we know they arent going to work. Which brings me to the handset exchange program, which is utter garbage. we used to have a company called PCS PARTNERS do our Handset Exchanges for us, however, for whatever reason, we got rid of them and built a warehouse in georgia somewhere and since then, it is utter garbage. Ask any other representative when not being graded, and they will tell you, our handset exchange program is a joke. We send out knowingly defective phones, we send out phones that have been returned to the warehouse with a long history, over several accounts, of defective behaviors, and supposedly these are tested, repaired and then graded by QUALITY ASSURANCE, which obviously doesnt happen. One of my friends did an exchange as a customer got a phone in the mail with missing keys and someone's name downloaded on the screen, both of which are supposed to be erased, and then somehow found out, i guess after her supervisor got in touch with the warehouse, that her order was listed as an "unneccessary" exchange. Our exchanges are blamed on customer care, we are told that 60% of all of our exchanges are invalid, useless, and the fault of customer care not troubleshooting. But when you get 60, yes i mean 60 motorola c332 exchanges in one week for no battery charge, and you have done all the ridiculous troubleshooting steps outlined in our intranet system (which is also a joke we wont touch upon) and they all turn out broken, i guess it really must be customer care's fault after all, i really have no other answer. One of my friends is tracking another issue where we keep recycling phones that are known to be defective, which i may have mentioned before. The embarassing thing is that we ALL know it is happening, many of us believe the phones are taken out of one box that a customer returns, and placed into a new box to be sent out, as there are far far far too many phones that are just garbage. And far too many customers are doing multiple exchanges, a reasonable number i feel is 1, MAYBE 2, i could understand 2, not three, and certainly not four or five, and we have five exchanges in as little as three or four months, that we are billing the customer for, that they cannot use their phones for. This is happening exponentially too, not just in one or two regions, it is happening across the whole country, to many of our ten million customers. I know some corporate bigwhig with their pinky rings and excuses and corporate slogans will say that we always give away a nokia 3390 in escalated situations, but the customers have to escalate, numerous times, threaten cancellation, or even threaten to sue us. I have sent phones out because old women, who cannot use their broken phones to call the doctor for their diabetes, are crying. It is pathetic, utterly pathetic. The thing is too is that we are trying to be #3, we are trying to be a good company and put on the facade we are honest, yet we do this. We get yelled at for telling customers the phones are refurbished and of course there is always the excuse that we could have the customer contact the manufacturer, who will turn around, in many instances, and say that they should contact us as we have our own program. it is disgusting, and embarassing and just downright intolerable.

we are resorted to crying, cheating and even lying to get through each day, and i know that will sound incredible, but take this for example, we have approximately 5 minutes to complete a call, many of which require more than five minutes, and we are punished, up to and including termination for having a higher handle time, and alot of times, especially now with all the handset problems, we need higher handle times to do all the fantastic troubleshooting steps that are supposed to work. so alot of times we lie and tell our superiors, who need to approve hanset exchanges to make sure they are valid, that we did the troubleshooting, so we do not get in trouble, so we do not get fired. it is just utterly ridiculous and i know alot of your more conservative people are probably just categorizing me as an embittered employee, but i am a dedicated employee who loves his job, i like talking to people on the phones, i like helping people out, but i cannot tolerate this, i feel like a criminal some days, just lying to customers and i feel so bad and dark just having to lie to these people saying "yes i will escalate this exchange so it will work this time." Sigh, that is all for now, i will get off of the soapbox. Media outlets are more than welcome to contact me, i will speak freely and show my face and reveal my name if asked. I will take a termination to do this. Perhaps in the future i will address our need for mandatory shift realignments and other degrading, horrible things. Read on!

To Bill in Omaha who had such a horrid time working for T-Mobile- please tell the truth. T-Mobile does not own a call center in Omaha. You worked for what is called an outsourcer call center- You were not a T-Mobile employee.

Now, being an employee of Western Wireless, VoiceStream and now, T-Mobile USA for the past 5 1/2 years, you will never find a company that treats their employees better. There are strict guidelines for every single customer care representative on the floor. Granted, we are not at the point of providing the best customer service in the industry, but are on our way there (T-Mobile moved from #6 to #4 in overall customer satisfation in 4 months time). T-Mobile has headhunted the industry for who has this Customer Service Game down and picked the person who made Wal-Mart.com what it is today as their Senior Vice President over customer services for T-Mobile USA.

T-Mobile USA is still in it's infancy- as with any product- buyer beware. Make sure this is the right service for you before you are outside of your return period. After all, you sign a one year service agreement and then call back in 4 months (after using 1200 minutes per month) to say you have no service-- would you consider waiving an early termination fee??? I think not.

My wife and i signed up for phone service last year (2002) in a local mall. The salesman never once mentioned anything about a one year contract. We where specific about what coverage area we needed. He said it will work along all major interstates. i drive truck for a living and depend o ncell phones to make contact with my wife, dispatcher, and costumers. As I am driving along I-80 in Wyoming i notice no phone service. It quit working 60 miles out of Salt Lake and didn't get service until I hit Cheyenne. My return trip was along I-70 thru the Rockies. I made it just outside of Vail, Colo. and lost service again and didn't get it back until I hit I-15 again. And here i thought it worked along ALL major interstates. Does this mean I-80 and I-70 are not major interstates. Also we where told all calls between my wife and myself where free, ha, they charged us everytime. We used these phones for one month and said the hell with it and switched over to verizon who has awesome customer care reps. We tried paying our bill in payments but no they want all 700 bucks at once even though we feel we don't owe close to that. My wife talked to one supervisor the other night and tried to make arrangements and this lady basically called my wife stupid and said pay your d**n bill and hung up on her. I called back got some other lady and expplained we can't afford 355 bucks a month for 2 months, I asked her to devide it up between 4 months and she said no 3 was the best and it would cost us 364 a month explain that. Bottom line is we are fighting this, had we known about a contract we would have never signed. Had we known that customer care was a joke we would not have signed. All i can say is death to voicesream or t-mobile. I hope they go out of business and everyone switches over to verizon cause they are the best i have ever dealt with.

I must admit, being in the wireless business for 5 1/2 years, I have come to know that every company has some serious issues whether it be billing, customer service, level of service or blah blah blah.

However in this case, I must say Tmobile is about half and half. Their service is great (if you are in coverage), but their phone prices suck.

Their custoemr service is horrible, but their rate plans are GREAT (I DARE ANYONE TO ARGUE ME ON THIS ONE). I manage a local wireless agent(a company that sells products for TMobile and receives comissions...in no way affiliated with TMobile. I pride myself on customer service.

Unlike TMObile, I love my customers because they sign my check in essence. I make sure they are happy, with their phones by doing follow up calls and assisting them with any "issues" they may have.

Please understand that I am not degrating or approving of tmobile, but I am defending them when it comes to their rate plans, coverage and overall consumer satisfaction. And dont belive these people that say you can call in and just say someone is dead, you cant. They request an obituary. 821,000 NET CONSUMER ADDITIONS IN 1Q '03 IS PRETTY GOOD TO ME...WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I don't know what the problem you guys have had. I have been with T-Mobile since August 02 (when they launched into Nevada & California. It has been great. I have had few problems and great service. I have found the customer service reps to be very helpful. When I have had problems, they have promptly given me bonus minutes for the month.

We had a problem with a phone going out. They replaced the phone for us. No problems at all.

I don't know what the person who had problems with T-mobile but not with Cingular in California is smoking. T-Mobile and Cingular have a joint venture in Nevada, California, and New York. It is the same network in those 3 states. If you have problems on T-Mobile in California, you're going have problems on Cingular.

GSM might be small now in the country, but check the service map before you purchase it. And, if you did get it and it didn't work at your house, you have 15 days to return it and not be subject to the early cancelation fee. Further, with the recent press releases from AT&T GSM, Cingular, and Western Wireless (Cellular One), GSM will be much larger in the country.

I don't know what the problem you guys have had. I have been with T-Mobile since August 02 (when they launched into Nevada & California. It has been great. I have had few problems and great service. I have found the customer service reps to be very helpful. When I have had problems, they have promptly given me bonus minutes for the month.

We had a problem with a phone going out. They replaced the phone for us. No problems at all.

I don't know what the person who had problems with T-mobile but not with Cingular in California is smoking. T-Mobile and Cingular have a joint venture in Nevada, California, and New York. It is the same network in those 3 states. If you have problems on T-Mobile in California, you're going have problems on Cingular.

GSM might be small now in the country, but check the service map before you purchase it. And, if you did get it and it didn't work at your house, you have 15 days to return it and not be subject to the early cancelation fee. Further, with the recent press releases from AT&T GSM, Cingular, and Western Wireless (Cellular One), GSM will be much larger in the country.

I don't know what the problem you guys have had. I have been with T-Mobile since August 02 (when they launched into Nevada & California. It has been great. I have had few problems and great service. I have found the customer service reps to be very helpful. When I have had problems, they have promptly given me bonus minutes for the month.

We had a problem with a phone going out. They replaced the phone for us. No problems at all.

I don't know what the person who had problems with T-mobile but not with Cingular in California is smoking. T-Mobile and Cingular have a joint venture in Nevada, California, and New York. It is the same network in those 3 states. If you have problems on T-Mobile in California, you're going have problems on Cingular.

GSM might be small now in the country, but check the service map before you purchase it. And, if you did get it and it didn't work at your house, you have 15 days to return it and not be subject to the early cancelation fee. Further, with the recent press releases from AT&T GSM, Cingular, and Western Wireless (Cellular One), GSM will be much larger in the country.

I don't know what the problem you guys have had. I have been with T-Mobile since August 02 (when they launched into Nevada & California. It has been great. I have had few problems and great service. I have found the customer service reps to be very helpful. When I have had problems, they have promptly given me bonus minutes for the month.

We had a problem with a phone going out. They replaced the phone for us. No problems at all.

I don't know what the person who had problems with T-mobile but not with Cingular in California is smoking. T-Mobile and Cingular have a joint venture in Nevada, California, and New York. It is the same network in those 3 states. If you have problems on T-Mobile in California, you're going have problems on Cingular.

GSM might be small now in the country, but check the service map before you purchase it. And, if you did get it and it didn't work at your house, you have 15 days to return it and not be subject to the early cancelation fee. Further, with the recent press releases from AT&T GSM, Cingular, and Western Wireless (Cellular One), GSM will be much larger in the country.

Until recently, i was an employee of t-mobile's "customer care" arm. I finally got to the point where I had had more than enough from (justifiably) irritated customer and obnoxious and incompetent supervisors. Let me start by saying that I am not one of the bums who comes in, goes through training and works on the floor for two weeks before quitting. I was a senior rep and probably about a month away from making supervisor, quality or some other second tier position. However, I became thoroughly disgusted with the company's policies. There's nothing like basically having to tell a customer "I'd like to help you, but my company won't let me." Handset exchanges are a prime example. What follows is an actual account of a call I had a few months ago.

Someone called in having problems with a samsung s105. For those not familiar with this model, its a full color screen, tri-band phone that retails for approx. $300. The gentleman's phone started having some type of problem, with the headset jack, I believe. This guy spent over $200 and another $50 on a leather case to protect it. The phone was in mint condition. We told him we would do a timely exchange which actually took about two weeks. I get annoyed if im without my phone for two hours, let alone two weeks. The phone that we sent him looked like it had been kicked across a parking lot. It may have been in working order, but it looked like crap. I spent the next hour of my life attempting to convince him that it was an equal exchange. I wasn't able to do it.

And now, the other side of things. While I was a t-mobile employee, I refused to have one of their phones. I prefer to pay more money and get less minutes because with my cingular phone, I actually get service pretty much everywhere I go. When I had my old cingular phone, I had some minor problems with it. I walked into a cingular corporate store, and walked out ten minutes later with a brand new phone right out of the box. I just upgraded to motorola v60 from cingular - having been with them for 8 months, I paid $125 for the phone, a belt clip and tax. A tmobile customer of this tenure would have paid about $250 for the phone, excluding tax and the clip.

The moral of this story is that no one should have a phone from t-mobile. If you fall into the category of unfortunate souls who are already signed up, I will elaborate on the ways of getting out a contract outlined by the other gentleman who responded to this report.

1) call in and tell them the account holder is dead. Their policy really is to cancel the account without question. They do not require a death certificate or anything.

2) Provide them with a valid mailing address in north dakota or somewhere else where they don't have service.

3) Tell them that you're in the military and you're getting deployed overseas for more than a year. If you don't tell them it's going to be more than a year, they'll put you on suspend, and you'll still have to finish out your contract, or pay the ETF of $200.

And just a few final words of advice. If you ever send a phone back to them, put one phone in one box. Never send two at time, or they'll say they got one and charge you for the other. Send each back individually, and get a dated receipt and tracking number from the shipping company or post office. Do not rely on the minute usage. It could be up to five days behind and they won't credit you for overage. Call back immediately after changing your plan to make sure it was actually done. A lot of times its not, and if theres no notes in the account to support your claim, you'll have to pay the entire $500 phone bill. Don't bother asking for a supervisor. Most of the time, you'll just get another rep that makes exactly as much as the first guy and may have less experience. If you do get a real supervisor, they will most likely know less than the first guy because they're never on the phones. If you ever want to get free stuff, threaten to cancel the account. Reps are required to make a "save attempt." This could be anything from 200 extra minutes for three months, hundreds of dollars in credit, a free month of service or a free phone. The only time this company is actual decent to you is if you tell them you want to cancel the account. Of course, you'll have to endure two or three people threatening with that $200 fee first, but in the end, its worth it. And lastly, make all your payments in cash at the store and keep your receipts. They tend to take money off your card and never put it on your account. Then you have to make fifteen phone calls and prove it was their fault. This was the only company i have ever run into where the customer is guilty until proven innocent.

Remember their motto:

T-mobile, get more from life.

That's more headaches, insane charges, dropped calls, hassles from customer service, misapplied payments and generally a lot of problems.

I work for a verizon wireless dealer and I have people come in all the time complaing about how T-mobile's service is non-existant and I live in a suburb of Los Angeles. This new network that they use is not all that's cracked up to be. I am also a customer of voicestream/ T-mobile and that was the worst mistake that I ever made. I originally ordered the 19.99 plan and the phone.When I received the first bill the plan that they put me on was 39.99 a month. I called them and they said we don't have a 19.99 plan and called me a liar. By that time I couldn't cancel the phone without having to pay the etf. Just to get a signal on the phone I had to go drive on the freeway. I then went to a verizon dealer to get a phone with them because I was missing calls on the other phone and they hooked me up. I will never get a phone with any company that uses a GSM system again it's not worth it.

I work for a verizon wireless dealer and I have people come in all the time complaing about how T-mobile's service is non-existant and I live in a suburb of Los Angeles. This new network that they use is not all that's cracked up to be. I am also a customer of voicestream/ T-mobile and that was the worst mistake that I ever made. I originally ordered the 19.99 plan and the phone.When I received the first bill the plan that they put me on was 39.99 a month. I called them and they said we don't have a 19.99 plan and called me a liar. By that time I couldn't cancel the phone without having to pay the etf. Just to get a signal on the phone I had to go drive on the freeway. I then went to a verizon dealer to get a phone with them because I was missing calls on the other phone and they hooked me up. I will never get a phone with any company that uses a GSM system again it's not worth it.

I work for a verizon wireless dealer and I have people come in all the time complaing about how T-mobile's service is non-existant and I live in a suburb of Los Angeles. This new network that they use is not all that's cracked up to be. I am also a customer of voicestream/ T-mobile and that was the worst mistake that I ever made. I originally ordered the 19.99 plan and the phone.When I received the first bill the plan that they put me on was 39.99 a month. I called them and they said we don't have a 19.99 plan and called me a liar. By that time I couldn't cancel the phone without having to pay the etf. Just to get a signal on the phone I had to go drive on the freeway. I then went to a verizon dealer to get a phone with them because I was missing calls on the other phone and they hooked me up. I will never get a phone with any company that uses a GSM system again it's not worth it.

I work for a verizon wireless dealer and I have people come in all the time complaing about how T-mobile's service is non-existant and I live in a suburb of Los Angeles. This new network that they use is not all that's cracked up to be. I am also a customer of voicestream/ T-mobile and that was the worst mistake that I ever made. I originally ordered the 19.99 plan and the phone.When I received the first bill the plan that they put me on was 39.99 a month. I called them and they said we don't have a 19.99 plan and called me a liar. By that time I couldn't cancel the phone without having to pay the etf. Just to get a signal on the phone I had to go drive on the freeway. I then went to a verizon dealer to get a phone with them because I was missing calls on the other phone and they hooked me up. I will never get a phone with any company that uses a GSM system again it's not worth it.

To get out of your early termination fee at Tmobile there are a few things you can do:

1) Call in and say you are deceased . Company policy states that they are not to ask any questions, cancel your account and credit the $200.00 fee

2) find and address in North or South Dakota and say you are moving there. Since you are moving out of tmobile coverage area they will credit the etf.

3) Say you are leaving for the military and it will be longer than 3 months. They will credit etf.

There are also ways to "get more" minutes
1) change your mobile number it automatically refreshes your minutes.

2) Change your priceplan (make sure its not a promotional price paln or they will extend your contract) it automatically refreshes your minutes

You can change a priceplan or your number as many times as you want.

Also ask the customer rep your talking to if they will provide you with complete and accurate(honest) information and when they say yes ask who Chris gordon is they will tell you a lie because he doesnt exist. He is a "common corporate practice" to make customers feel like they get personalized attention. Then ask why they just lied to you.

I also had a broken phone but when sending anything back to any company ALWAYS get a tracking number or some type of receipt. Tmobile did replace my phone for $75.00 and sent me a refurbished phone according to the service tech. It did beat paying $40 or $50 more for it.

Everything went smoothly. In all respects did the customer service dept do the right thing for me. Let me say, I do sell Tmobile phones and products but never mentioned that I do this with them since it was my personal phone.

I've always found Tmobile reps to be professional and the phone pickup times are the best. It's one of the reason I recommend them over Cingular, AT&T and Sprint.(All of which I carry). If you ever have an issue, it's best to carry the first conversation over the phone. This is then followed up with a letter(Return receipt) to the President of the company. You'll get a response quickly.

Okay, I worked with a company known as Wireless Retail (HUGE cellular company). We sold Voicestream (now T-Mobile) along with 4 other cellular companies. I never got nothing but complaints and returns when it came to Voicestream service.

The company's GSM technology may be the "wave of the future" but in terms of where it'll work...haha, be sure to CHECK THE COVERAGE MAP!!! They have NO coverage in 75% of the United States!

The company tells you one thing and then when you call or wait for whatever it is they said they turn around and call you a liar.

A customer came into my kiosk one day and claimed that he had be a victim of fraud. He explained that someone got a hold of his account information, came to MY kiosk, and signed up two accounts.

He assured me that it took place there since the activation code for my kiosk had been the one used to activate the phones. Nevertheless, there was no information in our system stating that ANY phones had been activated using this guys information.

I tried to explain to the customer (I knew he was pissed) that ANYONE ANYWHERE could of activated those phones if they had the activation code. He went on to call me a liar and before you knew it I had him, the police, and a "manager" of VS at my kiosk.

They went to MY manager and my manager's manager and somewhere in between all this mess I was told that I was fired because of FRAUD!! What the hell where they talking about?! Well, it appears that the manager of VS told my manager that I had said that the contracts (from whoever DID activate the phones) could be picked up at another location

(NOTE: I never said that). Of course managers are pricks anyway and he believed the p***k from VS and BAM I got fired. The moral of this story is anything having to do with VS (T-Mobile) is total lies! Avoid them at all costs. There are plenty of other cellular providers out there that DO have good customer service and who will NOT lie! Adios.

I'd like to join current employee Shawn's rebuttal for Voicestream/T-Mobile. I am a Senior Representative in our Financial Services Department, and I have been with T-Mobile for over 2 years. I work extremely hard at my job and go out of my way everyday to make sure our customer's issues are resolved. I mentor a team of 18 representatives and strive to make sure that they care about our customers and their opportunity to give our customers polite, efficient, timely customer service and correct information. I am on them all day long. Giving anyone incorrect information is not acceptable to me. Anytime our rate plan offers or promotions change, my team if the first to know. Anytime a procedure changes, my team is the first to know. Each member of my team does care about fixing a customer's problem or issue in that one call. I make return calls to customers every day, to make sure that they are aware what we have done to resolve their issue, if it wasn't something that could be done while they are on the line. How many companies have one single billing system for accounts? Not many. T-Mobile does. If you look through the reports for other mobile service companies on this site, you will find complaints exactly like yours, towards those other companies. All companies have problems, and I'm not trying to make excuses, but there is not one company out there that doesn't have problems periodically with billing or coverage. I guarantee, I have seen almost every problem out there, and very rarely is something new brought to me. If you called my Financial Services team, your issue would be resolved.
Being an inbound call center rep is an extremely stressfull job, and just as I feel for our customers, I feel for our employees also. In the financial services department, we speak with customers have are late on their payments. As Financial Services Representatives, we rarely get to speak with our customers that are satisfied with our service, or the customers that don't have their service suspended for being late. The majority of the calls my department takes each day is from customer's that are unhappy because their bill was paid late, we sent them notices, and they never called us to make an arrangement. Granted, we also deal with billing issues, and other things. But customer's can really be rude. I understand that to our customers, the employee on the phone IS 'the company' and portrays our image, but being calling our reps "incompetent" or "idiots" will not exactly help that representative give you quality customer service or their full commitement to help you with your problem. Do you now how often a customer says "I don't want to speak to a woman. Put me on the phone with a male rep."
As far as training goes, our reps go through 6 weeks of full-time training. We are strict with our employees doing their job. In MY call center, we don't play games in between calls, and we don't have toys. We do have fun at our job, but there are no "nerf-balls flying around" and no singing or marching. In between calls, my team reads through our up-coming rate plan offers, our policies and procedures, and up-coming changes, to keep themselves updated on everything. Knowledge is power and my reps know this.
I'm not denying that we have employees that don't speak to customers politely and I'm not denying that occasionally a customer will be billed incorrectly, but for now at least, I know that I am making sure 18 of our representatives ARE providing excellent customer service. Thank you.

Financial Services Senior Rep
Colorado

I am also a current employee of T-Mobile (Voicestream) and believe this to be an isolated incident. Under the guidance of the current Senior VP of Customer Care (6 months... cut her some slack). She worked for AT&T (currently #1 in cust. satisfaction) and of her own free will chose to come to T-Mobile to help us become better at what we do. Between '99 and '01 the customer base grew from 700,000 to over 7,000,000.

It started in '94 with less than 100,000. You can't have growth like that and not have growing pains. In the last few months we have gained more ground in customer service ratings than any other company in the entire industry as well as customer loyalty. As to the parties and food and such, at our call center "graduation" happens in the lunch/break room with doors closed and my classroom was across the hall.

Our Trainer has told us of things like games being played in the aisles, I assure you that those days are long gone (at least at our center). I could barely hear them let alone the rest of the center. You are encouraged to be relaxed and have fun, but proffesionalism and HR appropriate behavior( no pin-ups) is always key.

There are some bad apples out there but at our center (#1 in company--out of 16) we believe that we can make a difference. There are over 10,000 reps trying to help 8,300,000 customers, its a tough gig but most of us work very hard to do our jobs efficiently and right the first time.

Lastly, when a company grows this fast technical issues are abundant(network issues, billing mishaps, etc.) and one can only do the best they can with what they have in front of them at the time. I challenge anyone who says they have NEVER worked for a company where everything ran 100% perfectly everyday all the time...we are all human we make mistakes...machines do only what we tell them to do...be patient with us, it will get better.

What a Waste of time for you ex-employee that started this forum to write such nonsense. I have worked for Voicestream/T-Mobile for 18 Months and I can tell everyone out there that T-Mobile is not ran in the manor stated above.

If it were, we would not be one of the top ranking Wireless Companies today. It is against Company Policy to have such things that the ex-employee mentioned (i.e. games, remote control toys, books, magazines, game boys, etc.).

As a matter of fact an Employee is not even allowed to have their cell phone on in the Call Center. Employees are allowed to have drinks & snacks at their desks, but not meals.

The term "relaxing psychological distraction" has never existed. As far as partying goes, every once in awile a team might have a pot luck, if that is a party, please let me know, cause I didn't know that.

I will say that on a Holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas, there might be a TV or two playing in the Call Center because the Company wants to reward those who choose to give up their Holiday to work and be there for our Customers (there is an extremely low call volume on Holidays always, so this does not effect our ability to help our Customers in any way).

As far a Graduating Classes go, I want to point out to everyone that T-Mobile Customer Care Representatives go through 6 weeks of training before they are ever totally on their own to even speak to our Customers. That in itself is very impressive and I for one have trained many of those Representatives to help our Customers and resolve the issue the very first time the Customer calls in.

The Graduating employees do get to walk through the Call Center after Graduating and many veteran Representatives on the floor, stand up and clap for the Graduates to show their support, because at T-Mobile, we are all a family.

I agree that in the past there was a lot of noise from the Graduates (that has changed and is minimized now) and employees on the floor that stood up and snapped (possibly like you did) about the noise (possibly even spouting curse words at the Graduates or in general) were walked out because they had a Customer on the line that heard the outburst. That is unacceptable behavior regardless of the situation.

I am still a current employee and am very happy working for Voicetream/T-Mobile because there is a constant commitment to the Customer with true values within the Company. If it were not for the Customer, there would be no Company and we know that at T-Mobile.

Ok All I have to say to the above employee or I should say ex-employee is hwere in the world did you work for withing voicestream. Allthough my center yes has contests and funny days but at no time are we allowed to play with cars and games and make loud noise. Nor can we eat at out desk or listen to music while on calls infact those things are grounds for temintaion and anyone who works for anykind of company should be professional and obviously that is not at all.And any center manager that allowed that should of been reported hello this is a company so to all our customers not all centers are that childish.

Many years ago there was once this great, but small, company known as Powertel. The people were friendly and did as much as possible to help customers because one of the items on the company motto was "'It's not my job' is not part of our vocabulary".

Sadly the investors were courted and deceived by the gigantic company (compared to us) Voicestream. Believing the serpents' hissing that Voicestream brought with it such as "Get More from Life" and thinking that it would be a great thing for our little company we joined forces only to find that many of the people who made the great little company "great" were not needed anymore.

Many of the remaining people of the great little company found that the rules that created our sense of loyalty to company were gone and suddenly they faced a day to day struggle of making a living and staying above 80%. All that once was, was lost forever.

Believe me when I agree with the customers opinion of the VSW. Powertel once employed me and I was very happy there. We had a great sense of family and knew that if there was a problem then other family members were there to help. Customer service would often go out of his or her way to help someone.

If you received a call or a customer came in, no matter what the issue was; YOU took care of it. THAT was one of the things that made us great. Our customer service department became infected with Voicestream sense of business within a matter of months.

The same department that I could once call on that once said with care "Let me see what I can do." suddenly started saying "Hate it for them, if they don't like it they can disconnect." I have seen the customers leaving in droves because of Voicestreams' ethics. I have seen how poorly they treat employees. If you said anything negative or complained about how things operated you were written up. I SAW THIS!

An Executive Director (two steps above) did it to a Retail Store Manager who thought a company directive ignorant! The Regional Retail Manager (right above a RSM) at that time was a former Powertel person and a good man. He was powerless to do anything about the write up.

Shortly there after the market was rearranged so that the RRM would be working out of a city far away. The RRM was an older gentleman who had retired from a giant computer company and had come to work for Powertel as a favor to an old friend, did not want to move. The RRM retired from VSW. The threat to the ED's power was then removed. The former RRM was a great man. He was fair, reasonable, kind hearted and stern when necessary.

As with most executives of Voicestream I see that Ms. Ensminger believes in her company and will continue to do so until she is on the other side. You might ask how I know all of these things, well Ill tell you: I was in management. The company that I once worked for is long gone and I now work for one of those RBOCs that Ms. Ensminger would like to talk down about. But I can gladly tell you that one of the first things that we are told when we begin work is that we will never be the low price leader, but we will ALWAYS be number one in customer satisfaction. If you take a look at my companys website under awards and recognition you will see so many #1s it will make your head spin. I think one thing that will bring Voicestream up from its second rate status would be to unionize its work environment. Of course VSW is against this because I attended a union awareness meeting which might have well been labeled anti-union practices 101. VSW is afraid that a union would eat into its bottom line. Someone mentioned money grubbing I believe?

I will freely admit that I was fired from VSW. I dont want anyone coming back and saying that I hid things. I will say that I was falsely accused of a great many ugly things then not given any chance for rebuttal and fired on the spot. I was not told who my accusers were but I think that the employees under my care who had been written up for gross dereliction of duties a couple of weeks before went to HR and complained about me. I believe my counterpart, which had been eyeing my job with envy for years, also had some part in it. She now has my former job. Now I wonder why I never left long ago. I am so happy in my current and very professional job, which I STARTED at a higher pay rate than VSW. I also freely admitted to them that I had been fired from VSW and gave them the reasons why I was fired. I assured them that the accusations were false and gave them all of the glowing letters of recommendation (all recently written by them) that all of my former bosses with Powertel had given me.

I have also decided to keep my identity anonymous due to fear that VSW will attempt some form of retribution, which I would not put past them.

In closing I would like to say to all that I still have service with VSW and got the same Hate it for you, if you don't like it, you can disconnect." treatment shortly after sign-up when a technical glitch happened. Oh well....

Ummm... Did you read the contract the only thing we agree to is that the customer will pay us no matter what we do not promise coverage everything we do is a courtesy Read the service agreement we own you for 12 months!!!! f.y.i less than 2% of our customers hate us and they don't pay their bills anyways.

Ummm... Did you read the contract the only thing we agree to is that the customer will pay us no matter what we do not promise coverage everything we do is a courtesy Read the service agreement we own you for 12 months!!!! f.y.i less than 2% of our customers hate us and they don't pay their bills anyways.

Ummm... Did you read the contract the only thing we agree to is that the customer will pay us no matter what we do not promise coverage everything we do is a courtesy Read the service agreement we own you for 12 months!!!! f.y.i less than 2% of our customers hate us and they don't pay their bills anyways.

Ummm... Did you read the contract the only thing we agree to is that the customer will pay us no matter what we do not promise coverage everything we do is a courtesy Read the service agreement we own you for 12 months!!!! f.y.i less than 2% of our customers hate us and they don't pay their bills anyways.

Your complaint is in the obvious minority. Or you might just be a neathertal TDMA/CDMA Cingular/Spirng/VZW employee or user.

Face it, the rest of the wireless industry is outraged by our low price to minutes offers. The fact that we get all the cool phones before the other carriers because of our GSM technology. AND THAT WE ARENT CONNECTED TO ANY MONEY GRUBBING "RESTATEMENT OF EARNINGS" RBOC(for those of you its Regional Bell Operating Company).

VOICESTREAM is a PURE Wireless company that has all its resources dedicated to its customers and its wirless technology. The latest Time report validates that by ranking our coverage as most reliable versus Cingular and VZW.

If you are sincere is you frustration contact me directly and I will assist you myself.

Melinda Ensminger
AVP Customer Relations/Compliance
8305467458
mensiminger@vtam.dt.com

I am an ex-employee who once underwent the torture of working as one of their customer service representatives, and I feel your pain tremendously, just as I have deeply sympathized with all the customers I attempted to help during my brief stay with Voicestream.

As I not only have read your problems and bewilderment concerning their customer care, as well as the outrage of other customers on other areas of the Internet, I would like to answer the question everyone wants to know concerning, "What the heck kind of a customer service department is Voicstream's, anyway?" by sharing with you (and all others reading this) insider information on precisely what their "top-notch professional" customer service care department is like as well as my own experience from working in it.

I know that this beginning will sound like simple name-calling, but trust me: I'm not writing the following to be sarcastic or jabbing, I'm saying it because it's true. Voicestream has the most thoroughly and literally childish work atmosphere I have ever encountered, and I'll be happy to explain why.

First, let me describe the workfloor, a huge room filled with cubicles front to back which seat their customer service employees. The "professionals" working there are individuals who are allowed and actually encouraged to bring toys, remote control cars, Game Boys, pin-up magazines, board games, books, radios, drinks, food--you name it, they are encouraged to bring it. During the time between calls (and during them as well), the workers persistently engage in what the company loves to call "relaxing psychological distraction" but what any outsider would call "goofing off". Games, partying, passing around magazines, videogames, paper airplanes, even balls and nerf toys which are shot and tossed around from one end of the area to another. Not surprisingly, this atmosphere tends to attract a lot of older teenagers and college kids, who populate most of the staff. It isn't unusual for an employee to be secretly playing Mario on his Game Boy while on the phone with a customer *at the same time*.

I swear to you that I am not making any of this up.

While I sat quietly trying to remain as calm and professional as I could, food and cracker crumb fights would erupt around me, toy cars were banging into my chair, desk and feet persistently, radios blared all around me, all the while screams and whoops of frenzy erupting everywhere. It was impossible to even concentrate, let alone work with my customers.

Every Friday, which is the day that graduating trainees complete their training (it's either one month or six weeks, I can't remember off the bat), the supervisors spend the whole day leading their indivudual classes one by one in a huge circle right through the *entire* caller area, telling them, "You're graduating! Make as much noise as possible!" as the chosen leader grad carries a Voicestream banner. They also tell the workers on duty to do this, so the result is that the workplace is even noisier than usual as virtually the whole giant room is filled with the persistent screaming coming from everywhere. Once this circular motion by each class is completed (about one class per hour), they then sit in chairs in the very center of the entire floor and proceed to throw a loud party right in the middle of everything, blaring loud music which they all sing along to (parody lyrics to existing current hit songs), more persistent cheering and so on. This, of course, is all heard by customers on the phone, who grow horribly upset over the fact that such needless noise and nonsense is going on while they are supposed to be getting their problems with their service taken care of.

The classrooms are just as ridiculous. Once described by a fellow employee I knew as "a big preschool", it was difficult to concentrate on learning the skills because everything was done with games being played between lessons, and I don't mean stress-relieving games: I'm talking about classrooms invading other classrooms screaming while in session, throwing toilet paper around, putting fake rubber dog manure in people's *personal* purses and belongings, and at one point even going so far as to pulling a "prank" in which one classroom littered another with sardines they had bought from a local store, scattering them and their cans' contents all over the floor, while that class was on break.

I actually witnessed an incident during training in which one class stole a decorative stuffed animal from the classroom I was in, were "holding it for ransom" and actually created *on company time* a mock ransom videotape showing the stuffed toy being "tortured" and "mutilated" (including a "Blair Witch" parody) as the teacher got on camera demanding various things from my classroom before they would return it.

All this on company time when it was supposed to be a "professional" company.

It was simply impossible to work there, and I felt horrible for the customers when I was forced to follow the guidelines which didn't really end up solving the problem at hand--and especially felt embarrassed by the customers hearing all the noise and telling me off for it as though it were my fault.

At one point I went to the head of the company and politely attempted to voice my concerns, but he and everyone else who listened to my complaints kept brushing them off and responding with statements completely avoiding answering my points. Instead, they kept basically saying, "You're just being a poor sport, we're just having a little fun and you're the one who has the problem." The whole attitude was "Take it or leave it."

A second time after having to put up with this outrageous behavior, I went to the head up practically in tears from inside rage, saying I wanted to speak to someone above him so I could *really* voice my concerns. "I'm an employee here, and you people say you support an 'open door' policy!" I said. "Therefore, I want someone else I can contact about this. This is impossible!"

I got the same stubborn, cold response of, "This is all your fault, you're just no fun, etc." I was completely brushed off a second time. I was enraged and disgusted, especially since I knew this was all upsetting the customers as well as myself.

Finally, after one particular Friday when an old woman on my line was desperately trying to make herself heard above the usual horrible noise from Voicestream's grad parties, at the same time telling me off for allowing it to continue, I was attempting to get a supervisor to help this woman with her connection problems. The supervisor didn't want to be bothered because he was too preoccupied with enjoying the grad parties, simply saying, "Just tell her it's technical difficulties in her area. I'm busy." That was too much.

I quit. And as I left, I did something which I have *never* done before at any job--but I mention it because I think it will make those out there enraged with Voicestream feel a little better. I literally yelled at their grad party going on at that moment at the top of my lungs, giving them a strong verbal and informing them that we were upsetting and losing customers and that they couldn't even be heard properly due to their ridiculous trash that they kept allowing and encouraging in the workplace. I also yelled that they obviously didn't give a care about their customers' needs. I found it telling that some of my fellow (older) employees actually cheered me as I did this.

As a small sidenote, I wish to add that I also had problems with the phone I had gotten with them as an employee: I had made arrangements with two different customer service individuals to make payments on my phone, both telling me that it was alright to do so. But despite this, they sent my bill to a collection agency anyway--and when I called to demand why, they said, "No, we never make any such arrangements, you should have paid it all off in full. This is all *your* fault."

I am in total agreement with those who have experienced for themselves just how awful Voicestream is. They are simply the most ridiculous company I have ever had the displeasure of working for, certainly providing the lousiest service I've ever seen. And for a company who claims to care about their customers, they sure have a warped way of showing it--not to mention their "care" about their own workers.

Spread the word. Let people know about what I've typed here, as every word of it is true. I want people to know the inside story concerning their horrible customer service "care".

One thing I *can* share, though--I can honestly say that I *DID* attempt to help each and every customer who reached my line the best I could despite the ridiculous guidelines because I genuinely cared about them and their problems they were experiencing, going overboard with finding *all* the possible information I could to help them despite my supervisor's objections that I was "spending too much time helping them", and that I also tried my hardest to defend those same customers who were being ripped off. Voicestream didn't listen to me, but at least someone told them off for it from the insider. And that's something I am relieved and proud of.