It used to be that cable companies were known for poor customer service. Mobile carriers were more sensitive to competition. Cable hasn't really improved. But T-Mobile this year has gone from top-shelf to subterranean in service quality. Hence this tale of woe.
I recently moved my office, and I need to keep the phone number. Last time I needed to move phone numbers to a neighboring rate center, this past summer, I switched them to Google Voice, which forwards them to wherever I want, including "invisible" numbers in the new physical rate center. But you can't move a wireline number to Google Voice directly. They just don't allow it. So the trick is to port the number to a mobile carrier, then to Google. And everybody says T-Mobile is the easiest mobile carrier to work with -- no contracts, no minimums, and easy SIMs for sale. Last summer, it worked perfectly. I got a cheap unlocked phone, got a SIM from T-M, ported in the number, forwarded the phone to the proper destination, then a few days later let Google Voice port it over. I had a little confusion with T-M over the no-data rate plan price, but it got fixed.
I tried again last week and it was an entirely different situation. I made one mistake, asking for prepaid. Turns out you can't forward calls from a prepaid phone, though you can port it out again. However, T-M made a HUGE error. The number they put on the shiny new SIM was one that was in collection -- the previous owner was behind on a postpaid bill, so whenever I tried to enter the number into T-M's phone jail, it got diverted to a recording giving the collection agency's address! I spent FOUR HOURS on the phone trying to get past that, but finally gave up, went back to the store, and swapped the SIM for another, with a clean number on it. And yes, Ms. Jackson, they did reveal the (CPNI) name of the previous number holder.
Problem two is that T-M's support for prepaid is execrable. They have two prepaid programs, "Legacy" and "Rebellion". New cards are in the latter class. And they presumably think that prepaid customers are all deadbeats anyway, so talking to a rep takes 45 minutes on hold if you get through at all.
But with a clean number, I initiated a number port. I showed the old phone bill, with address and account number, to the store clerk. That was a Thursday. Ports from cable to mobile usually take one day (as did my last two ports). But by this morning (Sunday), no response. So I call in. Oh, the port was REJECTED by the old carrier, because the ZIP code was wrong. Instead of my (old) ZIP code, they had put down the one for Dorchester Center, where I'm guessing one of the store clerks lived. And if there are ANY mismatches, the port fails. I asked them to resubmit with the right ZIP; I have to wait for a response.
So after a couple of hours of no feedback, I have the store replace my Rebellion SIM with a postpay one (credit check, ID check, etc.). And I ask for the port to be restarted to the postpaid account. It takes a while, but eventually it goes in to the system and I'm supposed to hear back within a couple of hours.
Hearing nothing, I call in to the T-M porting center (1 877 789 3106). The person there tells me that he will be the LAST one I'll need to speak to, he'll get it all fixed. And waddayaknow, the port that I had reinitiated this afternoon, to the postpaid account, had a DIFFERENT wrong ZIP code on it! They replaced the "from" ZIP code with my new T-M bill-to ZIP code. So he thinks he fixed it.
As night wears on, I call in again. Now the number is "stuck". The original Rebellion port, rejected, is hanging up the number. And the first guy on the phone sees yet another, nonexistent, ZIP code, which that "last" guy might have left there. It takes two transfers and again over an hour on the phone to Porting to get to someone who thinks he can override that. And it takes him a while to get the right ZIP code. So he's initiating yet another new request for a port.
At this point it's just waiting... and hoping that I can get RCN to keep the number alive after I've left the site where the EMTA is. I will leave it in place, the line forwarded, and hope that the landlord hasn't got a new tenant coming right in. I've spent many hours on the phone with T-M this week and it convinces me that the company has really jumped the shark. They used to be the easiest to work with. None of their phone employees are in the US (all in Guatemala and Phillipines) and most just don't seem to care. They will "stay on the line" with you while transferring you to endless hold, taking more calls to keep up their scores. It's a mess. John Legere should be ashamed. He should be paying attention to his company, not writing cookbooks.
Ironically, this all pointed to a bug in my VZW service. Someone from T-M porting called me back and I just missed getting my Verizon Blackberry to answer on time. I did not see a voice mail, though they later told me they left one. Turns out that Verizon VM to the Blackberry KeyONE doesn't work any more! A security fix broke the message waiting indicator. I found the fix on Crackberry. It required a call to VZ and a level of escalation to second-level support, to change the VM to "basic IMS", not "visual IMS", which no longer works on that model. But the second-level support person in the midwestern US knew how to do that, fixed it, and made a test call, I got the message, and all's well with VZ after a 15-minute call. That's support, and one reason (beside the fact that the signal is much better!) why I stick with VZW even though I don't touch VZ wireline.