T-Mobile illegal charge?

[amanda]

T-mobile canceled my account telling me that I was using other carriers towers too much. They assured me that I would not be charged an early termination fee becauae they were the ones who canceled my account. They then told my husband he had 2 weeks to switch carriers to avoid the same early termination fee and we did. We then get our last bill with 2 0 fees listed as other line fee or something. The fees are what their early termination fee would be given how much time we had left on our contract. How do we fight this since they called it something other than the early termination fee it so obviously was?

[NARNTEK]

Send them an email with your concerns about this matter. If they don't respond or don't help, I'd advise you to go get an attorney, or threaten in the letter to do so. This may end up in small claims court-- also, when you signed up, they usually show you a coverage map. If you were around a carrier's area that could be counted as roaming, why would they let you continue & sign up for your service. They would know that they were going to be paying an erroneous/heavy amount of fees to that carrier for your use of their tower. Once they realized that you were using the other towers too much, you were kicked off, which is their policy. BUT! They shouldn't have charged you 2 $200 fees. The standard fee for cancelling a contract with T-mobile (or was when I worked there) was 175 for two non-smart phones a piece.

You have a strong case of something here, and it's definitely illegal. I would really advise you to contact them, but if nothing is handled and only a partial discount is offered to you, fight back and tell them you will seek legal action should they decline to help. If this doesn't go to get you the charge removed, actually seek the legal action. In my case, I had this happen with Verizon over a ring-back tone purchase which had never happened. They claimed I owned quite a fee, and once it was disputed with them, they got rid of their charges.

[Ian]

They aren't charging you an ETF, they're charging you for using the other carriers towers, AKA roaming. It just so happened that the roaming charges are the same as the ETF. The fact that they aren't charging an ETF is quite generous, they're supposed to charge the ETF which would make your bill $400.

Still, if you somehow want to find a way out, call a T-Mobile representative and talk to them. Have your account info ready.

[Glenn]

Sue em