T-MOBILE T-MOBILE, INC. "DITCH & Switch" or "BAIT & Switch" Philadelphia Pennsylvania

In March 2015, after being dissatisfied with our Sprint PCS carrier, my family and I decided to find out about the “Ditch & Switch” program advertised by T-Mobile.  We went to our neighborhood T-Mobile store where the service representative eagerly explained to us that if we switched:

1. T-Mobile would pay off our two-year contract with Sprint PCS

2. We were required to give T-Mobile our newly purchased Samsung Galaxy S5’s from Sprint (3 phones at approximately $550+ each, totaling well over $1600)

3. We can purchase 4 temporary cell phones (Samsung Galaxy Avant’s at a total price of $400) until the new Samsung Galaxy S6 came out in April 2015.

4. The program that would allow us to do this was called the “Jump” program whereby once we paid off 50% of the 4 Avant cell phones we could then bring them in and “Jump” to the Samsung Galaxy S6.  Although we asked several times if a down payment would be due at that time for the S6’s we were told “No.”  At no time was a down payment ever mentioned by the representative.

5. As a military family, we were told that we qualified for a 15% discount after the deal was made.  All I had to do was go to the website fill out a form and submit it online.

This sounded like a good deal so we made the switch right there and as soon as I got home I applied for the military discount online.

Unfortunately, instead of "Ditch & Switch" we were the victims of a "Bait & Switch" scam.

A. From the beginning, none of the cell phones worked properly and one even had to be returned only to get the same brand of phone which still did not work properly.  We even wondered if these were refurbished or discontinued phones because I can understand one phone not working properly, but all 5 (including the replacement) not working is more than a coincidence.

B. In April 2015, as instructed, we brought the 4 cell phones back and everything went as planned until we were told that we had to give a $306 down payment up front for each phone totaling over $1224, and pay the other $300+ per phone in installments.

We had no choice but to keep the crappy Avant’s because we could not afford that much at once and this is not what was offered in the beginning.  I called T-Mobile a couple of weeks later as these phones and the swindle have been nothing but a problem. 

a. Customer service told us the same thing, that we would have to put up a $1224+ down payment for the 4 Samsung Galaxy S6’s.  It was further stated that the representative should have explained this better and that the down payment was so that we could own the phones faster.  Had we known this we would have kept our Samsung Galaxy S5’s…at least they worked and we only had to pay $25 per month with no down payment (furthermore, we were half way done with the payments at that time).

b. After a stellar payment history, I was charged a $3.99 fee for an app from T-Mobile which was supposed to be a free trial.  Had I not received a text stating my bill was $3.99 past due I would have never known about this charge.  I complained about this and they took it off my bill immediately.

c. After two months with no notice, I asked why I had not received the 15% Military Discount as promised and I was told that they didn’t know why but it would be applied starting with next month’s bill.

One would think that T-Mobile was able to initially make these outstanding offers by first swindling us “New Customers” out of everything, making a profit off of us, then a few months later use those profits to present the very same outstanding offer to “New Customers” (and then some…double the amount of Gigs from 32 to 64 in their new advertisement?)...wouldn't one?