Closure on T-Mobile

Twenty-one days into owning an iPhone, I am still all giggley everytime I find a new feature or just simply amazed by how intuitive it is to use the phone and how creative it is. Hopefully by now everyone who has heard of the iPhone acknowledges that AT&T is the sole wireless carrier that provides services for the iPhone. I was a former T-Mobile subscriber and made the switch in a heartbeat, well almost a heartbeat - I made three calls to T-Mobile before switching over, via iTunes, to AT&T with my new iPhone.

So we received our last T-Mobile bill. Excited to see the final bill, bringing closure with T-Mobile, only to find a $200 termination fee. It's pretty cleverly described in the bill for the $200 line item - account termination fee. It doesn't state early termination, because our account was no longer in contract, so it somewhat misleads people into believing it to be either the early termination fee (which in this case they couldn't have gotten away with it - I called T-Mobile 3 times before switching to iPhone with AT&T to make sure we no longer had a contract and there was to be no fee involved in terminating the contract, the the 3 times made sure such conversation got recorded for "quality" purposes) or the account closing/termination costs - which technically do not exist if there is no valid cause for such penalty. Most people probably would have bit the bullet, but I wasn't going to let T-Mobile get away with this one.

Remembering how I was nearly harrassed during each of the three calls I made to T-Mobile to making sure IF I had switched away from T-Mobile, I was not going to be penalized, for getting deliberately transferred to a "specialist" whose is trained to (try to) talk people out of switching away from T-Mobile because of the arrival of the iPhone, I prepared my mind for another agony. Much to my delight, the T-Mobile rep that answered my call maintained diplomacy and agreed to look into the account, in detail, after I reminded him of the three calls I had made and that I knew they were being recorded. He eventually stated that there were some "discrepencies" in the account, but he does show the notes that it was agreed there was going to be no early termination fee (which by the way he stated was what the $200 was charged for). After about 10 minutes on the phone, he volunteerly took the fee off - which will take 48 to 72 hours to process - so we will see. Not about to let me off the hook that easily, he said "so I see you might have been interested in getting the iPhone, did you get it?" Funny he asked, of course I got it. I went off telling him how great the iPhone is, how it is a revolution, I actually got the admittance, for the first time by a T-Mobile customer rep, that "it's too bad T-Mobile doesn't offer the iPhone". I reminded him that T-Mobile is the sole service provider for iPhone in Germany come this fall, he followed by saying "it's too bad it's not here though". He went on by saying how he loves Apple products - he has the iPod, Shuffle, loves iTunes, and would love to play with an iPhone - true passion for Apple finally shown. We concluded the call by him asking me to reconsider T-Mobile in the future when they do have the iPhone, and I asked him to go check out an iPhone finally, we both laughed. Well, the finally thing for me to do to put our now terminated T-Mobile contract to closure is to make sure the $200 was taken off as agreed, which a situation any dignified service provider should rightfully fix.