April 19, 2007
T-opping up
It’s tragic to have to turn this blog into a T-Mobile bashing rant site.
But it is dangerously close to being fun.
After all, I’m just reporting the real experience of otherwise typical customers…
So, I’ve signed up my wife for prepaid T-Mobile service, so it will cost us less to make on-net calls to each other. Ordered the SIM card online, arrives promptly (although the invoice is of £0.51, not the promised £0.50 — maybe some exec is making up their bonus by stealing pennies).
I go to the T-Mobile web site to top up. Sign up for service, get a text message authorisation code, log in.
This is the very first thing you see:
Welcome! Step inside! WHACK! Your billing account has been suspended. Given any excuse to reproduce Monty Python quotes, I’ll seize this opportunity:
M: Hello, I want to… Ooooh!
H: No, no, no. Hold your head like this, then go Waaah. Try it again.
M: uuuwwhh!!
H: Better, Better, but Waah, Waah! Put your hand there.
M: No.
H: Now..
M: Waaaaah!!!
H: Good, Good! That’s it.
M: Stop hitting me!!
H: What?
M: Stop hitting me!!
H: Stop hitting you?
M: Yes!
H: Why did you come in here then?
M: I wanted to complain.
H: Oh no, that’s next door. It’s being-hit-on-the-head lessons in here.
M: What a stupid concept.
So, sign up customer, welcome customer, whack customer about the face with meaningless error message. What a stupid concept.
Now for some good news. T-Mobile have worked out that the pre-paid balance is all interest-free capital to play with, and they’d like more of it please. So they have a splendid top-up reminder service:
(There’s probably some good mileage in mobile handset makers putting explicit support into the handset UI for this stuff.)
You know what’s next, don’t you. I should probably put a hundred paragraph break in and make you scroll down in deepest suspense, but let’s save you the effort… just pay close attention to the text below.
Is the “T-” in “T-Mobile” some contraction of an obscure Germanic verylongcompoundwordwiththeobjectandverbatthened that means “it doesn’t work”? If so, I floccinaucinihilipilificate your portal in return!
Of course, once you’re bored of exploring all the service plan options, you can of course always just click the “Return to My T-Mobile” button…
Can’t you?
Here’s another bit of fun: I call Tesco Mobile and get the Porting Authorisation Code to switch carriers. As part of their customer service they will post it to me as well as read it out. I’ve just set up my T-Mobile online account for my wife. The only option to port a number in is to call their call centre. Guess what? Because I registered the account in my wife’s name, she has to call. And the number porting team is only open during office hours, when my wife is usually juggling two hyperactive kids. Isn’t porting in a new number one of the top priorities for new customers? Why make it hard? Why not put it in big letters when you set up your online account, with the boxes needed to do the swap on the front page?
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/859.