Denied trade-ins and security risks galore
Do you want to upgrade your phone in a brick and mortar T-Mobile store and have a human being assist you in what should be a simple and effortless process? Not so fast, as our anonymous but reliable-sounding inside source claims employees across the nation are told to “process T-Life upgrades every time, with little room for exceptions.”
What does that mean from a customer perspective? Well, it could and it purportedly does mean in many cases that your in-store trade-ins are rejected without reason or logic. If the device you’re looking to ditch has any fault, be prepared to be informed that T-Mobile will not accept it even in the situations it should.
Don’t be surprised if the operator’s “systems” mysteriously go down if you refuse to use T-Life for your upgrade or if the new phone you want to get is out of stock at the store you’re visiting, as well as all nearby locations.
Meanwhile, if you’re open to using T-Life in a store but aren’t very familiar with how the app works, a T-Mobile employee will take care of everything for you. That may sound all nice and helpful, but some of the lengths they’re encouraged to go to “help” you will definitely raise concerns for prudent customers. For instance, employees might create temporary emails for quick T-Life signup if you don’t remember your account’s password or struggle with the process in any way.
That’s a pretty big red flag from a security standpoint, and believe it or not, T-Mobile employees may even use demo devices to log you into the “miracle” app if they have to. That’s the same demo devices that dozens of other customers will play around with after you, so this is clearly something that shouldn’t happen under any circumstances, let alone be (allegedly) encouraged by store managers and presumably higher-ranking employees.
Prepaid and Home Internet numbers might also be artificially inflated
Apart from doing everything (ethical and unethical) in their power to drive T-Life usage to the moon, employees are purportedly feeling such high pressure to close prepaid sales, for instance, that they sometimes use their own money for activations only to avoid being penalized or even laid off due to not meeting the most unrealistic monthly targets.
That’s in addition to pushing customers to claim various prepaid deals or get Home Internet gateways even if they don’t have any intention of using the two services in the long run. This is all done to artificially inflate the sales numbers Magenta uses to boast its supremacy over the other major US mobile network operators, and employees who refuse to participate in what could be called one of the wireless industry’s most elaborate scams risk being passed up for promotions (in the rare cases they’re available) or even getting fired with “no prior write-ups or warnings.”
Of course, this is all just an employee’s perspective, and while some of the “sleazy sales tactics” detailed in this report have been corroborated by other people in the past, it’s hard to accuse T-Mobile of intentionally inconveniencing, ripping off, and endangering customers’ personal data, as well as abusing employees, when none of these shady practices are put in writing.
