For as much as I detest violent monopolies and cheer for free markets, this does not mean that every private company is always perfect. In fact, they can get away with some pretty terrible business practices, that is if the consumer (the market) doesn't let other consumers know about their experiences. So with that said, I am going to share a personal story of how I feel my wife and I were misled and taken advantage of, courtesy of T-Mobile.
I started a new job a few months back, and had to return my work cell phone. The service provider at my work was T-Mobile. My wife was on a subsidiary of Sprint, called TING. A pay as you go kind of service. The salesman at the T-Mobile store showed us a promotion they were running. It went like this: BOGO iPhone 8, exchange a qualifying iPhone (we did, an iPhone 5 which qualified) and port in a # from a different company (we did, my wife's # came from TING, a subsidiary of Sprint). How the BOGO worked was that we had to pay the tax up front on $1500 ($750 per iphone8) and then they would mail out 4-8 weeks later a gift card worth $750 that we could use anywhere, or to pay off one of the phones. I'm not big on having the newest and fancy things (like the newest iPhone) but my wife is and you know what they say, happy wife, happy life. And tbh, it was a decent deal. It was 0% for 2 years, so they essentially financed it up front. We were happy to be done with the whole switching phone carrier ordeal, it seems to always take for ever and never goes right.
Fast forward 6 weeks later, we were happy as clams waiting for the gift card to come in the mail, when my wife gets a voice mail from a representative at T-Mobile stating that "We did not qualify for the BOGO offer, have a good day." Ummmmm…..what?!?. Her reason was that TING was not a subscriber that was listed in the terms and conditions. If it would have been Sprint it would have been fine, but TING didn't qualify.
BUT!!! This was not what I was told by all 5 salesmen I talked to at the store. They specifically stated..."You will have your gift card in 4-8 weeks". There was no "you might get your gift card" or "there is a chance you won't get your gift card". It was a slam dunk "you will get your gift card in 4-8 weeks!". No if's, and's, or but's about it. Do you honestly think I would have signed up for a BOGO deal if there was any chance what so ever of not qualifying???
You can probably imagine my chagrin when my wife told me this. So I called the salesman who signed us up and he says "I imagine why you're calling is because you didn't get your gift card?" Ah, yeah, no shit sherlock. He gets back to me and says he's blaming corporate and they're blaming him. I don't really care, not my problem, get me what you said I would get.
At some point I get offered a $700 credit to go towards my account, for the mishap. I say no thank you, that's not what we agreed to. He says he'll talk to his manager and call me back.
A week goes by with nothing.
I call back and speak to another salesman that was there, he says he'll leave a message for the other salesman and the manager. No response for 2 weeks. Nothing.
I call back. Speak to the same guy who said he left the note for his co-workers. He makes some calls and calls me back with an offer for an $800 credit towards my account. Um, no. That's not what the agreement was.
I spend the next 2 hours on the phone getting transferred back and forth between customer service, T-Mobile's rebate center, and their retention department. I offered 2 solutions to this problem,
#1: Get me the gift card of $750 that I was promised and we will have no more issues.
OR
#2: I will return both iphone8's, cancel our service, and I want my (or a new, since they probably already salvaged mine) iphone5 back, and we will take our business elsewhere.
source
The reason I see this as a Bait & Switch is that they promised me something and then switched it on the back end. They turned a gift card worth $750 that could be spent ANYWHERE into a CREDIT at THEIR company. Dealing with all this phone crap is so annoying that I am tempted to just take their stupid credit and be done with this because it has been such a drain. But at the same time, the principle still stands. This is terrible business ethics.
If I offered you a deal such as: Buy X and in 6 weeks I'll give you a $100 gift card and you agree. But 6 weeks comes up and I now say, "you can only use this gift card to buy more of X", you would probably feel cheated, no?
A new manager started at the store and he was lucky enough to get me on the phone for his first day. He said there is nothing he could do regarding the gift card and his only recourse was giving a credit. I doubt I can get my Iphone5 back even if we cancel, so I feel like I'm losing regardless.
His only other solution (which puts a lot more work on my plate) is to take the credit offered and cancel the service, and then sell one of the iphones on the open market to pay off the remaining balance, thus leaving us with one iPhone 8. UGH. I'm not sure what to do.
Any input, suggestions, or legal advice from anyone out in Steemlandia? I would appreciate any and all wisdom. Thank you for reading.