T-Mobile billing question.

[HoosierDaddy]

I just converted eight lines to the Military/Veteran plan. Since I was not the primary line on the previous account all those lines were on, we were forced to create a new account.

I wanted to make sure both accounts were NOT active at the same time and T-mobile confirmed the old account would be closed at the same time the new one was created and the final bill form the old account would just be for the partial month (from May 26th thru June 18). That account got billed after each service month.

A few days later I get a bill for a full month on the new account with a page heading saying the bill period was was for the day the account was opened thru that same day, so one calendar day.

After a half hour on the phone with T-Mobile going thru 4 people, they finally explained that the new account gets billed in advance and that I should just ignore the thru dates on every page. Of course I don't consider a due date of July 11th (almost 3 weeks after opening the account) as paying in advance, not to mention the bill reflected the discount for automatic payments which was not set up for a few days after the account was opened.

When questioned further, T-Mobile says that there is no such thing as a new "pay after" month" account since 2008 (last 10 years). But I knew that was not true since I had my first T-Mobile account in 2013 and it was billed after the month. So since they were wrong about that, I'm not convinced other things they say are true. I would not be surprised if they just set up the account wrong, i.e. pre-billing instead of post billing.

So it really comes down to if there is such a thing as a new "pay after" account with T-Mobile. Has anyone opened a new T-Mobile account recently and pay after each month rather than the first day of each month?

Personally, I don't care, but the other 6 people (father, son, sister and their spouses) might be not want to kick in their 1/8th of the bill a month earlier than they expected.

 

[fatclue_98]

I just converted eight lines to the Military/Veteran plan. Since I was not the primary line on the previous account all those lines were on, we were forced to create a new account.

I wanted to make sure both accounts were NOT active at the same time and T-mobile confirmed the old account would be closed at the same time the new one was created and the final bill form the old account would just be for the partial month (from May 26th thru June 18). That account got billed after each service month.

A few days later I get a bill for a full month on the new account with a page heading saying the bill period was was for the day the account was opened thru that same day, so one calendar day.

After a half hour on the phone with T-Mobile going thru 4 people, they finally explained that the new account gets billed in advance and that I should just ignore the thru dates on every page. Of course I don't consider a due date of July 11th (almost 3 weeks after opening the account) as paying in advance, not to mention the bill reflected the discount for automatic payments which was not set up for a few days after the account was opened.

When questioned further, T-Mobile says that there is no such thing as a new "pay after" month" account since 2008 (last 10 years). But I knew that was not true since I had my first T-Mobile account in 2013 and it was billed after the month. So since they were wrong about that, I'm not convinced other things they say are true. I would not be surprised if they just set up the account wrong, i.e. pre-billing instead of post billing.

So it really comes down to if there is such a thing as a new "pay after" account with T-Mobile. Has anyone opened a new T-Mobile account recently and pay after each month rather than the first day of each month?

Personally, I don't care, but the other 6 people (father, son, sister and their spouses) might be not want to kick in their 1/8th of the bill a month earlier than they expected.

T-Mobile closes their billing around the 7th of each month. If you opened a post-paid account on let's say the 5th, you'll be getting a bill. Had you opened it on the 10th you'd be using the service for almost a month before seeing a bill. They don't have different billing cycles for each customer.

Sent from my Lumia 950 on mTalk

 

[HoosierDaddy]

T-Mobile closes their billing around the 7th of each month. If you opened a post-paid account on let's say the 5th, you'll be getting a bill. Had you opened it on the 10th you'd be using the service for almost a month before seeing a bill. They don't have different billing cycles for each customer.

Sent from my Lumia 950 on mTalk

Well that is contrary to what T-Mobile is saying. They say I will be getting a bill covering the 19th of each month thru the 18th of the following month, and it will be due on the 11th of each month. The 18th because that was the day of the month the account was opened.

In addition the previous account with the same lines had bills that ran from the 27th of each month thru the 26th of the following month because that was the day of the month that account was opened.

But you referred to a post paid account which is really what I am asking about. T-Mobile was quite adamant today that they have not offered any post paid accounts for the last 10 years. Which, as I said, I have first hand knowledge is false since I opened a post paid T-Mobile account in 2013.

 

[fatclue_98]

Well that is contrary to what T-Mobile is saying. They say I will be getting a bill covering the 19th of each month thru the 18th of the following month, and it will be due on the 11th of each month. The 18th because that was the day of the month the account was opened.

In addition the previous account with the same lines had bills that ran from the 27th of each month thru the 26th of the following month because that was the day of the month that account was opened.

But you referred to a post paid account which is really what I am asking about. T-Mobile was quite adamant today that they have not offered any post paid accounts for the last 10 years. Which, as I said, I have first hand knowledge is false since I opened a post paid T-Mobile account in 2013.

I don't know what to tell you, I opened a post-paid account 3 years ago and so far everything they told me has been true. I would find it very bulls**t-worthy if this is how they're treating our vets.

Sent from my Lumia 950 on mTalk

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I don't know what to tell you, I opened a post-paid account 3 years ago and so far everything they told me has been true. I would find it very bulls**t-worthy if this is how they're treating our vets.

Sent from my Lumia 950 on mTalk

I dug more into the T-Mobile website and it actually says the Veteran account can NOT be a prepaid account without saying it had to be a postpaid. But the One plan does say IT is only a postpaid account and the Veteran Plan said it is identical to the One Plan except for half price. In addition, they have a page listing prepaid plans and the Military plan is NOT listed.

I don't think my problem is anyone singling out military/veterans. In my professional life (although not in my job descriptions - just an aptitude) I was frequently asked to interview various parties in a situation when there were differing statements from them in order to determine the truth. So I can usually detect BS. I suspect this is a case where the people setting up the new account checked some wrong box and the system did not stop that despite what their published documentation says. Then when confronted with the situation, a supervisor looked at it and realized it could be a VERY big job to fix things and a fix they had never attempted, plus they might get dinged for the original mistake (the supervisor was from the department who set up the new account, not a support department). I'm basing that on the type and sequence of contradicting statements - you could "see" their position evolving as they spoke. So a decision was made to try to bluff it out and hope the customer will capitulate.

I am now looking forward to winning a battle over this.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Forgot to update this.

After speaking with someone in the CEOs office, this was all a miscommunication from T-Mobile support. The supervisor I talked to there had misstated that my account was prepaid (along with several other errors).

The reason the contents and due dates of bills changed so much from my prior postpaid account was because the definition of postpaid had changed years ago.

When the previous account was opened, postpaid meant the bill was generated at the end of a billing month and included all usage info for that month and included any additional charges uncured in that month. NOW, postpaid means the bill for the billing month is generated at the start of the month which means it can't contain any usage details for the month it covers or any additional fees for that month. Those get reported in the FOLLOWING bill.

The only thing "postpaid" about current plans is that you have the typical 3+ weeks to pay said bill. So in reality, its actually just prepaid with deferred payment. LoL.

The CEOs assistant was great to work with. She even emailed me the final detailed bill (~90 pages) for the old account in PDF format. I'm big on record keeping and had all of the detailed bills in PDF format going back as long as I was on the account. But since those bills didn't get generated until the end of each billing month and the account was closed before the end of the final billing month there was no way for a customer to do that. You can't log onto a closed account to do anything, including download bills.