If you’re at a store looking to buy a new phone, always try to do some instant research. By that, I mean you should ask to see a working model of the phone the rep wants to sell you. How does it feel in your hand? How’s the build? You want to see if the phone is zippy or if it lags. They might throw out the name of the processor under the hood and you might think it sounds impressive when in reality it is a slower and older application processor.
Metro gaslights a customer
What you are trying to avoid is the experience that some unfortunate consumer recently had at a Metro store. This guy already had a phone for work and wanted one for personal calls and texts. He did the right thing by articulating to the rep what he wanted. He told the rep that he was looking for something “decent” and while he didn’t need a top-of-the-line phone, he didn’t mind spending a little bit of money. He did tell the salesman that he spends a lot of time on his phone and didn’t want something cheap.
The rep told the customer that every model he wanted to hold in his hand was out of stock. That included several mid-range Samsung phones that the customer apparently had an interest in. Not having any of those models in stock was a definite red flag that foreshadowed what happened next. The customer told the rep that he would check out another Metro store even though he really didn’t want to because the closest one was 30 minutes away.
Not wanting to let this fish off the hook, the rep all of a sudden let the customer know about a great phone he had in the back, the T-Mobile Revvl 7 5G. The rep said it was a great phone and the customer was going to love it. As many of you know, the Revvl 7 is the latest iteration of T-Mobile‘s in-house smartphone line and is equipped with only 128GB of storage, 6GB of RAM (on the very low end these days), 2TB of expandable storage, and a triple camera setup (50 MP primary, 2 MP Depth, 2 MP Macro). There is an 8 MP front-facing camera for selfies and video chats. A 5000 mAh battery keeps the lights on. The display weighs in at 6.58 inches with an FHD+ resolution of 1080 x 2048.
So you can see by the specs that this could be considered a “cheap” phone and not what the customer wanted. However, not knowing anything about the Revvl 7, the customer was sold on the device by the rep who even threw in a “free” tablet. Knowing that he’d have to pay for activation and the monthly fee, he declined the “free” tablet on the spot.
The Metro rep is caught in a big lie
The customer explains what happened next. “I get home and the phone is trash. Super slow. Terrible quality and horrible camera. Again, I should have done my research but still, it pissed me off. I mean come on, the Revvl 7? I should have known better. This phone might as well have been a piece of toilet paper.” Most PhoneArena readers would have known that the Revvl 7 5G was not the “great” phone the rep characterized it as being.
When the customer went back to the store four days later, boy did the Metro rep try to gaslight him. They first told the customer he couldn’t return it because they had a 24 hour return policy. That was a dumb lie considering that the receipt showed the 14-day return policy and customer service confirmed that. The customer ended up getting a phone he wanted, the Samsung Galaxy A36 which was back in stock after four days.
Not that the rep cared. Such is the nature of the phone sales business these days that reps can pile one outrageous lie on top of another and not only don’t they care, neither does the company that pays him to pull fast ones on innocent victims.
