we have been long time tmobile customers and finally switched recently to ATT (evil I know) for the iphone. apparently, tmobile requires you to call them the day you port over your phone number otherwise they charge you for the full month. We called, but of course it was a few days later probably so they are using that as a reason to not pro-rate. Obviously just a bs way to get money. I always liked tmobile and was surprised they were acting like this. I guess att is rubbing off on them. I'll pay but it does piss me off. And of course att has our first bill all screwed up also. Why can't cell phone companies get their **** together? Has anyone ever dealt with this and had success getting around it. any advice?
As far as I know, the moment the port is done , it automatically cancels your account and terminates your contract. At least that's my experience with switching from Sprint to VZW. I don't know too much about the how the GSM carriers work.
apparently not with tmobile. you have to call that day so they can "help" and provide "service". I asked the guy if they make it that day, why not just say within 30 seconds if you are just going make crap up
I think your issue probably has more to do with dealing with stupid employees. Every company has them.
I worked at ATT and so I'm very informed about this. Once the port is complete the service should automatically cancel. And no wireless company under fcc regulations can try to soft sell/retain you once you have told them you are porting. There is absolutely no reason for them to require you to call them because they are prohibited from trying to retain you. At one time at&t was under investigation for this practice. I did a bit of research on this and found out that the T&Cs is how they are trying to make this legal. (of course it is not legal because it is an attempt on their part to sway you after you have decided to go elsewhere, which is against fcc regulations.) Anyway here is what I found it should work for you:
First, understand a couple things. -Cell phone carriers do not have to prorate. Its stated in the contract. -When you effectively port, it automatically terminates the service from the previous carrier. -Prorating, or the lack of, has nothing to do with porting. If Tmobiles system didn't automatically cancel you and caused you to enter a new bill cycle, then you shouldnt owe anything. If you were in the same bill cycle from the time you ported till you called in 'a few days later', then TMobile is going with industry standard. Im not saying its right, but thats how it is.
Thanks what, that info helped I was able to get them to pro-rate it based on us being bound by the 2008 terms and conditions FYI, for everyone, all carriers do this when porting out. So it's worth knowing what you need to do ahead of time
We don't do that at Sprint. Your next bill will display a credit back for the amount of time left in the bill cycle after your port out (because the bill charges are 1 month in advance).
The EXACT same thing happened to me about a month ago. I switched from T mobile to AT&T and was only two days into my T mobile billing cycle and they charged me for the whole month at a higher than usual rate no less. I called T mobile and some girl was a total B about it to me. Telling me blah blah blah it was in the contract; she can't help me. I've been with T mobile forever so I talked to a supervisor and she pro rated the bill for me with no issue. I ended up paying less than $10. They told me they would send me a bill in the mail for the amount, but I just asked to just pay it right then, because i'm sure some how they would have screwed me again if I didn't. So, just call and you can most likely talk them down.
That's great if you don't But when I was googling this problem people were b****ing about sprint doing it also
I'd just let the carrier you're switching to handle the porting process (in my case, Sprint) because it's such a pain in the *** to switch by yourself with these US carriers and their hidden contract BS.
The easiest ways to port your number is to come prepared with your account number from the carrier you're leaving. Lliterally the moment I walked out the VZW store, my Sprint phone got deactivated and my VZW phone was working, with the same phone number that was previously ringing on Sprint. No having to wait for the port to complete or anything.
This is always the way it was supposed to work. In the early days of porting you often had to provide a lot of information about your account # and what not. This would send up red flags to the rep who would attempt a soft saving of the customer. The fcc clamped down on the process, however, and now it should be a hands off affair where the porting deptments of each carrier communicates with each other. But even this is getting compromised by terms and condition rules that seek to extract extra money from you when you leave.
Oh yeah, and chances are, your first bill with at&t is accurate. The first thing you have to look at is your billing cycle date. Say that your billing cycle date was 12-5. Your first bill will be a month of service + activation fees plus 1 day of service and taxes. If your billing cycle date started on the day you signed up for service it will be 2 months of service plus activation fees. at&t bills in advance.
You're right, alot of people always think their first bill with a wireless carrier is messsed up. It's not. It's just expensive lol. It'll get "normal" after the second billing cycle usually
Here's how it works: If a company has a million customers (for example), and they use some quasi-legal tactic where they can get $1 extra from each of those customers, then they just made $1,000,000. That's how all these companies work. There is probably a standard procedure at T-Mobile to charge people for the full month UNLESS they make a big fuss about it. It's probably illegal for them to do that, but if someone doesn't make a fuss, then they're unlikely to file a lawsuit. And, even if they DO file a lawsuit, it would have to be a class-action suit and the lawyers will make all of the money on a suit like that. Just think of it that way. They don't care about you. They care about profit. They don't care if you think they're assholes. They care about profit.
