Please Listen to Me, T-Mobile

When you called on March 5th and they told you that you would need to
suspend the service in order to block calls, and you chose NOT to take
any action, you pretty much accepted at that point any charges that
are made onto your bill by whoever took your phone. You don't think
you should be stuck with the charges, SO WHY SHOULD T-MOBILE! They
didn't make the decision to keep the phone on. They didn't have their
phone stolen in the first place. YOU DID. T-Mobile certainly isn't
required to call you and tell you when your phone is being used. It's
your responsibility to know where your phone is, or (PER YOUR
CONTRACT) report it when it's stolen and have the service suspended so
that someone else CAN'T use it.

My advice? Tough break. Get smart...

Why didn't you or your husband ask to have the phone de-activated when
either of you called the first two times???

My son lost his phone while doing landscaping for the city he works
for. He called as soon as he got home, reported it stolen and ASKED
THAT IT BE IMMEDIATELY DE-ACTIVATED so that he did not assess any
further charges.
T-Mobile deactivated the phone and his previous phone number is still
not in use and that was over 18mos ago.

While I agree that T-Mobile rep should have also asked if you wanted
the phone de-activated this should have been requested by either you
or your husband immediately.

I hope you can resolve this issue...but I believe both sides are at
fault here.

the text message she got was from someone who wanted to discuss the
long distance calls not a collections call. That person did say that
if the customer didn't pay it, it would go into collections.

It sounds like the OP was trying to cut a deal to get out of the long
distance charges and somewhere along the line the vendor rep probably
got the idea that the OP wasn't going to pay. This would mean she
would be in violation of her agreement at which point they have the
right to terminate early and charge the ETF as disclosed in the
contract she signed.

Geez - - I've been doing telecom billing for waaaay too long!

This reminds me of when I had Nextel and lost my phone. I had been
grocery shopping, and apparently when I had bent over in the frozen
food area the phone feel out of my pocket. Of course, I didn't know
that at the time. As soon as I had gotten home and realized my phone
was gone I had called my phone and and no answer, I called the store
where I was and reported it being lost, then I immediatley called
Nextel and had them turn it suspend the service. That way should I
find it they could turn it back on for me but if it was actually lost
we could take the next steps.

I am like the others, if you lost it why didn't you cancel or atleast
suspend? I am not accusing you of anything because I would not anyone
to accuse me. Things should have been handled differently. I know some
companies do not like to tell you all of you options but sometimes you
have to ask.

Good luck and I wish you the best with the matter.

Telling T-Mobile that the phone is lost or stolen and instructing them
to "report it lost/stolen and deactivate it" are two different things.
By keeping the voicemail active you are leaving the phone active - -
there is no way to have one without the other. However, no matter how
you look at this situation, it was your responsibility to deactivate
the phone and because you didn't specifically do this, you are
responsible for the charges.

It's all been said, it is your responsibility to ask for the phone to
be deactivated. Since you were inquiring about keeping the VM active
and/or immediately replacing it, the rep could not automatically
assume that you wanted the phone deactivated.

Why would someone not deactivate a lost phone? Many times it's just
that, lost, and they think they know where it is. They don't want to
go through the hassle of deactivating it and re-activating it again.
I run into this all the time at work especially with my sales reps.
They lost their phone but think they left it at the last customer's
house. They don't want to lose any sales calls so they don't
deactivate it.

Indria,

I have to agree that Calm had a wonderful response. I would
also like you to consider a couple of other things that do not make
sense with your situation. First of all you claim that your husband
needs this line for work and his clients, then why would it be such a
long thought process about replacing the handset via the insurance
company or the upgrade program? He would be able to write the charge
off next year in taxes and would be able to replace the line almost
immediatly, seems like a small price to pay for keeping in touch with
clients.

You admit that you were told that there was no way to keep the
service active for voicemail only, and you were encouraged to replace
the phone as quickly as possiable. Obviously the representative would
have been alerted to the potential of charges if the handset was in
malicious hands, or else they would not care if you rush out and
replace the handset..

So lets look at it, Im a customer, I suddenly realize that I need
to make alot of calls over the next few days that will cost a
significant amount of money, So im smart, I will call, report my phone
lost/stolen, not turn the line off, make the calls i need while
dancing around the issue of replacing the handset, run my bill into
HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS. then demand credit for all those calls because I
"claim" it was stolen but did not want to actually replace the handset
for almost 2 weeks despite the "business needs" This does not seem
logical for a company to agree to this, how it would open the door for
abuse from customers on a regular basis.

T-Mobile has done nothing wrong here, YOU HAD the option of
suspending the line, the responsiable action would be to SUSPEND THE
line and prevent abuse. T-Mobile contacted you in regards to excessive
usage on the lines, yet you claim this was harrassment, it is not
harrassment when you did not do anything to prevent the situation !!
Grow up, pay your bills .. next time SUSPEND OR REPLACE THE PHONE WHEN
YOU SEE ITS GONE.

As per your T-Mobile Terms and Conditions:

17. Lost or Stolen Phone.
If your Phone is lost or stolen ("Lost Phone") you will not be liable
for unauthorized airtime charges incurred on the Lost Phone if you:
(a) notify us immediately;
(b) ask us to deactivate the Lost Phone; and
(c) provide within 14 days any documentation we request, including a
police report. You must fulfill the remainder of your Term by
activating a replacement Phone (which may be full price) or the
cancellation fee will apply.

Note above it states you are not liable IF you do all of the above
points. As you state in your letter that you only advised us of the
charges the charges would be valid and non-adjustable.

Also if you had to think about the replacement of your handset then
you must not have thought it very important to prevent unwanted
charges to your account. It would have been very simple to purchase a
new SIM Card and have it added to your account rendering the existing
one as terminated and the line still active with the new SIM Card and
active Voicemail!

You also would have been able to order a handset upgrade and get it
shipped by express or even go to a store the next day; this leads me
to believe that you neglected to manage your account and makes me ask
why you thing T-Mobile is responsible for your choices??

Think about your choices and how they affect you!

Your husband (or the pair of you) is responsible for any calls made on
his phone up until he reported it lost or stolen. That's part of the
contract.

Do you have any proof that he did in fact report the phone lost or
stolen and didn't just ask about getting a new one? Do you have proof
that you reported the phone lost or stolen on the 9th? I doubt that
either of you has conclusive proof because I'm sure you don't record
your phone calls, but what's the best proof you've got?

There are two things that strike me as weird in this story and that
make me wonder whether there was a miscommunication between you and
your husband on one side and T-Mobile on the other such that T-Mobile
didn't know the phone should be deactivated. The first is that you
wanted the new phone so your husband could call his patients to make
them aware of the situation. The second is that you were exploring an
option which included canceling the phone service.

At first I thought that your husband just hadn't been keeping records
so that he could contact his patients and wanted to try to retrieve
their numbers using his new SIM card. But then I started wondering
why, once his phone was replaced, would he need to make them aware of
the situation? From their perspective, there would be a period in
which he wouldn't be responding to their calls because he was unable
to contact them and give them the alternate number, but when he got
the new phone service would resume just as before. I started to
wonder whether your husband and T-Mobile were viewing this as adding a
third line rather than turning off one phone and turning on another.
When I went back over the letter, though, I realized that your husband
discussed the deductible, which would have tipped them off that you
were keeping the same number. Then I began to wonder whether the CSR
thought the phone was damaged but still somewhat operable and whether
when your husband said he'd think about it and call back the CSR
thought that no action needed to be taken.

Also, at first I thought that on March 9th you were asking about
reopening the voicemail, but it actually looks as if you knew that the
phone was still in service and were trying to figure out whether or
not you should cancel service until your husband had a replacement
phone. Since one of the first things that should happen when a phone
is reported lost or stolen is that service for that phone should be
canceled, I'm wondering why that didn't happen and why you appear to
have known it didn't happen. I would probably have dismissed the
first strange thing had it been the only one, but this second one
really bothers me.

What I'm getting at is that this is probably not the best you can do
in making a case that the error was wholly T-Mobile's. You definitely
should not be liable for any calls after you called on the 12th. You
definitely are liable for any calls before your husband called on the
6th. When I read the letter, though, I really can't tell whether or
not you (well, you and your husband) are responsible for the calls
made between the 6th and the 9th and between the 9th and the 12th.
And I'm sure that there were plenty of calls to El Salvador in that
6-day period.

I would really urge you to rewrite this letter. I think you should
skip the parts about Sue Nokes and about "abuse" (you do have to pay
your bills, and they are allowed to send your account to collections
and assess you an ETF if you don't) and about finding "an amicable
resolution to this unfortunate problem" -- as long as T-Mobile
believes that you didn't report the phone stolen until the 13th the
only amicable resolution they're going to be interested in is one that
involves you paying for those calls. I think you should then work on
making the case that those calls are T-Mobile's responsibility because
they only happened as a result of T-Mobile's mistake.