It is a long story and I've been dealing with this for 3 months with many calls to Customer Care and many trips to the T-Mobile Retail Store, I'm so frustrated, so please bear with me.
On March 1, 2014, I have 5 lines on my account and did BlackBerry trade in at the T-Mobile Retail Store(The Block At Orange,CA (8309)). A sale rep named Martin Hale(Sale rep# 3949650) helped me. He first inspected all my 5 BlackBerry phones and all phones turned on OK with no water damage. Then he asked me which phones I want to trade to. I wanted to trade 1 for the Nexus 5 phone and the other 4 for the Alcatel One Touch Evolve, but the Alcatel phones were out of stock. He told me that I can trade 1 BlackBerry for the Nexus 5 on that day. For the Alcatels, i needed to order(and pay upfront) the 4 Alcatels and mailed in the 4 BlackBerries to get the $200 credit for each phone.
I agreed to do that and Martin helped me thru the whole process of trading the Nexus 5, order the 4 Alcatels and process the paperwork for mail in the 4 BlackBerries to get the $200 credit for each BlackBerry. At the end when I walked out of the store, I have paid the price for trading the Nexus 5 in 1 transaction, and the price to order 4 Alcatels in another transaction. I also have a package with prepaid postage to mail in the 4 BlackBerries for trade-in. The estimate Device Recovery Bill credit i expect to receive is $800. Martin told me that it may take up to 3 bill cycle. I mailed in the 4 Alcatels and got confirmation that the phones have been received.
Then on March 11, I received 4 alerts in my T-Mobile account as below:
RMA# TMU90050001541875: Device model received does not match original offer. Device received with liquid damage.
RMA# TMU83050001541876: Device model received does not match original offer.
RMA# TMU31750001541877: Device model received does not match original offer.
RMA# TMU55750001541878: Device model received does not match original offer.
Each with Initial Quote: $200 and Actual Cost: $0.00
I was shocked because the 4 phones were inspected carefully by Martin and packaged for me to mail in. All I did was to mail the package. So on March 14, I called Customer Care about this issue, but Customer Care couldn't help me, they asked me to go to the retail store to have the issues resolved. On March 15, I came to the store and talked with Martin, the same rep that helped me on March 1. He spent about 30 minutes on the call with Customer Care and the Rebate center and came back to tell me that there was a computer error that issued the wrong alerts to a lot of people including me even though the phones are OK, and my 4 BlackBerry phones are actually received ok. He told me that the Rebate center will correct the mistake and I should receive the $800 Device Recovery Bill credit pretty soon.
So I was comfortable with the resolution and wait. But I have been waiting for 3 MONTHS and the credit never come.
On June 19, I came back to the T-Mobile Retail Store to meet with Martin about the issues, he remembered me with the issue 3 months ago, he said he will straighten it out for me. It was late when i came to see Martin and the Rebate center was closed, so I left the info with him along with my phone no for him to contact me after he talked with Rebate center.
Between June 23 and June 25, i have called Martin 3 times to ask about the outcome and he told me that he couldn't resolve the issues, he got bounced back and forth between Customer Care and the Rebate center, and no one gave him a straight answer.
I'm very frustrated about this whole thing for many reasons:
-Why can't I get credit for the other 4 phones that I mailed in, while I could get credit for 1 phone i traded in the store? All 5 phones were inspected and approved by Martin. The rebate center told Martin that there were a computer error and the Rebate center will fix it and process my credit, but they never do that.
-Why can I talk directly with the Rebate center? instead getting bounced back and forth between Customer Care and Martin but still doesn't get me anywhere?
-I can't believe that all my 4 Blackberries don't satisfy the requirements for the trade-in because they were all inspected by Martin, a T-Mobile rep) and he can attest that they were ok with no water damage.
-"Device model received does not match original offer" is not a good reason because the 1 BlackBerry i traded in at the store is the same model as the other 4 BlackBerries i mailed in.
I hope that a T-Force specialist can look into this issue for me. I expect to receive the $800 Device Recovery Bill credit for my 4 BlackBerry trade-ins.
Thanks,