I tell this story to see if I can't get some attention from someone that can resolve this situation and to let others, who might be interested in the JUMP! program, know that this program has some serious downsides.
This story actually starts a few months back. I had an older HTC device and started researching the leaks of the new HTC One M8. I liked what I read. So, I started checking everywhere for a potential release date on T-Mobile. Of course, at about the same time, T-Mobile was promoting the hell out of the Galaxy S5. My wife had an older S3, so I encouraged her to consider upgrading herself. Both her and my line were enrolled in the JUMP! program.
It just so happened that the S5 and M8 would drop at T-Mobile on the same day. So, she and I came in a week earlier to our local T-Mobile store to see if we couldn't pre-order these phones with a JUMP! upgrade. As you probably already know, the S5 was available for pre-order even using a JUMP! upgrade. That seemed great at the time. Then, when the rep tried my line for the M8, she had to inform me that no pre-order existed for that phone. So she told me to go ahead and come in on release day.
My wife received her S5 a day early. It came with a package to send the phone back, but I thought (wrongly) that she could just trade it in at the store when I traded in my phone for the M8. So, we get to the store, they get the M8 out, inspect my phone and almost complete the order. BUT then a strange robot appeared on the final page saying "Some error occurred." What the hell? After a long, long time (almost two hours) of contacting their retail helpdesk, they discover that because my wife had not sent in her phone yet, I could not get a JUMP! upgrade on my line. That seemed ridiculous and nonsensical to me then, but I think this is actually true now.
We left with the rep holding up her hands, unclear what to do. My wife felt unduly felt guilty, so she sent in her old phone that very night. But it wasn't her fault at all. No one explained this issue and even when reading through the JUMP! contract, I can find no mention of only being able to perform a single JUMP! upgrade on an account even with separate lines. Unfortunately, when she sent it in, she forgot to record the tracking number. I don't know if that would have made a difference, but oh, well.
When I logged into the T-Mobile website, I noticed I got an order number for my wife's exchange, so I checked it daily after she sent in her old phone. Four days later, I checked the order on T-Mobile's tracker and saw that the old phone had been delivered and its initial value assessed. That got me excited! I thought to myself that now FINALLY I can go ahead and get my upgrade.
So I went into the same T-Mobile store, apologizing to the rep if I seemed a bit out of sorts last week. And told her to go ahead and try the JUMP! upgrade now because my wife's phone had been received. Over the next hour, my grin turned into a frown as we both realized I still could NOT upgrade. She even opened a helpdesk ticket on my behalf to verify what the issue was (because now she was confused).
I waited a few more days. I realized that the local T-Mobile store had no way of overriding this issue in the system, so I decided to try an online chat. That was one of the worst experiences ever. Hitting a wall repeatedly is probably less painful and certainly less frustrating. The chat rep kept telling me we had to wait 72 hours for the helpdesk ticket to be completed before my account was able to do a JUMP! upgrade. He even was unwilling to let me know when the helpdesk ticket was completed! Then, I get a follow-up voicemail regarding the chat, telling me to call 611, because the chat dept can't even see the issue on my account. Something about their visibility or something. It was very hard to understand.
So I called 611. The rep I talked to there seemed shocked at my situation and how it got this crazy. She noticed that I had a cancelled upgrade order on my line (when I was testing to see if I could even do that). I never actually checked out, but apparently, it takes 24 hours for a cancelled order to clear the system. She told me that since it was over 24 hours, I could go into the store that very day and finally get my JUMP Upgrade.
I got to the store and the store rep there was dubious. She pointed out that the cancelled order probably had nothing to with it and that the helpdesk told her it was still the pending order of my wife's upgrade causing the problem. She tried it and it failed again. This time she went right to the higher tier helpdesk and they tried to convince her that there was no problem and try it again. She tried it over and over and it failed again and again. Apparently, the phone may have been received, but not completely inspected. Why this would stop a JUMP upgrade on a completely different line I have no idea.
So now I'm stuck with a phone with no idea if or when I can actually use JUMP to upgrade the phone on my line. I also have no clear way to proceed, whether I'll be contacted when I can JUMP upgrade or not.
I'm tempted to dump JUMP altogether if this is the nightmare I get to look forward to. The only issue is I do have a small balance on my IEP. I asked if I could maybe send in my phone as a traditional upgrade and just get an IEP credit when the rest of this stuff worked itself out. No dice. Apparently, the new T-Mobile system is monolithic and can only do one thing at one time.
I would recommend anyone with more than one line enrolled in JUMP to drop it. And if you do any pre-orders, good luck with ever getting the trade-in completed. I have been a loyal customer of T-Mobile the last seven years, recommending them to everyone. That will now stop.