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I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

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Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#81

Post by judk »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #57
Steko wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure for 100% of mortgages people would love to just make a down payment and get the deed and not have to make any other payments for 15+ years but there's nothing ironic about the need to fulfill contractual obligations that aren't awesome for you.

This is true, but mobile contracts are much murkier than mortgages, and this is by design of the phone companies. Consider how much different things would be if people had month-to-month service contracts and they financed their phone upgrades separately (though the payments were rolled together). Imagine if people could just pay off their device debt, cancel their contract, and move to a new carrier. Or imagine if p…

Tmobile's "uncarrier" does exactly what you propose.

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#82

Post by ruswick »

On the one hand, it's nice to see that executives are receptive to their customers. However, the OP clearly states that they did not quality for a free transfer, and the fact that they got it seems sort of arbitrary. What if the CEO hadn't responded, or if the other executive hadn't chosen to cancel the contract? What if that person were having a bad day, and chose not to make such a gesture to the OP? One data point isn't conclusive, especially under such odd circumstances.

Good service is service that is both high in quality and in consistency. I highly doubt the ability of a single CEO to handle every email in the same way (if at all), and I'm not sure if I like the idea of unwarranted perks being handed out at the discretion of executives. It seems too much like a lottery, especially because the OP did not qualify for the transfer in the first place.

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#83

Post by ruswick »

lancewiggs wrote: post #78
dsr_ wrote: post #54

It's terrible customer service. The CEO should not have to get involved. Status as a journalist should not be required. The first doesn't scale, and the second, if true, is hopelessly corrupt. Every customer support supervisor ought to be able to make an exception based on reasonable circumstances. The article should have ended with "and anyone else in my situation, or a similar one, should contact T-Mobile customer…

The CEO is modelling behaviour for everyone else at the company. He should not have to do this for every customer as by now the word should be spreading internally that if the CEO can do it, then so can you/

> if the CEO can do it, then so can you

That's not how it works. I doubt that the customer service reps have the ability to arbitrarily dole out perks with no justification other than that they felt like it.

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#85

Post by jennita »

Once, my phone actually flushed down the toilet, and I tweeted about it. T-mobile ended up sending me an upgraded version of my phone the next day, for free! Pretty sure they did it because they were laughing so hard about my ridiculousness. But that's cool by me. :)

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#86

Post by benjiweber »

glesica wrote: post #52
Steko wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure for 100% of mortgages people would love to just make a down payment and get the deed and not have to make any other payments for 15+ years but there's nothing ironic about the need to fulfill contractual obligations that aren't awesome for you.

I think the meaning was that most Americans resent that they are basically forced into a contract in order to get the plan and device they want. I would rather bring my own device, but the only carrier available to me (until recently) was Verizon, and they won't let me do that. So I (at one time) signed a contract, but I would have been happier to simply pay for the device of my choice and paid for service month-to-m…

Why can't you buy your own devices? I live in the UK and have always bought my own devices, it often works out at about half the price over the term of the contract.

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#87

Post by hknozcan »

I used t-mobile from around 2000 to the end of 2007 in NYC. Never had any problems but data was not a big issue back then. They even assigned me a 212 mobile number from a batch of 10 numbers that they received.

With the right wording and timing, these things happen. Around 2002, I was searching what books to buy and e-mailed Amazon support what books Jeff Bezos has read in the past 6 months. They replied immediately to told me to ask him directly providing his e-mail address. I forwarded the e-mail and got a reply back with a list. This was even cooler than having a 212 number.

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#89

Post by mcherm »

SilasX wrote: post #73
Steko wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure for 100% of mortgages people would love to just make a down payment and get the deed and not have to make any other payments for 15+ years but there's nothing ironic about the need to fulfill contractual obligations that aren't awesome for you.

Yeah, but if you buy a house with cash upfront, you don't have to keep paying interest to a bank. In contrast, if you do the analogous thing with a cell phone plan -- buy the phone upfront -- you still have to pay the implicit "interest" in the higher monthly fee. There's no option to take a lower monthly fee in return for paying upfront. Some marketers noticed they can make people buy more if they stretch out the ph…

> if you do the analogous thing with a cell phone plan -- buy the phone upfront -- you still have to pay the implicit "interest" in the higher monthly fee.

Actually, with T-Mobile (the company in this story) you DO have this option. http://www.t-mobile.com/bring-your-own-phone.html

Re: I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

#90

Post by mcherm »

jamesmcbennett wrote: post #62

Desire Paths 101. See Tom Hulme talk. http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/tom-hulme-john-mae... Taking inspiration from Urban Design where a path runs along the outside of a park expecting everyone to take the architected route. However people cut through the middle when they don't like the given route, following their desire path. Over time, the grass wastes away from the thousands of footsteps and bicycles th…

> the question remains whether he should pave it.

Actually, that question has been answered. T-mobile has started offering no-contract plans, a complete change from the rest of the US industry. The only thing done here was to let a customer move to the new system sooner than they otherwise would.

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