T-Mobile's Home internet was an almost $400 Mistake!! T-mobile 5G Home Internet Review and Speedtest

[RV_]

Before we start I know some folks have not had this kind of fail by T-Mobile (TM) and love them. So I am not trying to convince just pass along some recent TM experiences.

This was my experience with T-Mobile for the four days I had it with their new phones activated by them in person. I did not have this device but same hassles you will read in the comments about not getting a refund and having to fight them for months as I did. I got another service using Verizon towers that worked without help. I really wanted the free Samsung phones and their service to work. But I got an even better deal from an MVNO which now costs about the same as Verizon. But I am grandfathered in for much less.

On this one go to 4 minutes into the video.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by RV_

[Chalkie]

I'm one of those that loves T-Mobile for phone service, but I had a terrible experience with their WiFi 5G hotspot and therefore am not interested at all in trying the home internet. The hotspot would report that it only had 4G or even 3G service when my 5G phone had full bars. The home internet service, to my understanding, needs to be near 5G towers in order to function properly and based on the hotspot I don't think I would trust it.

[Lou Schneider]

Aren't these self-inflicted problems? The guy is complaining because 1) he's using the Home Internet outside of the Terms of Service (at multiple locations instead of just at the registered address) and it's not working as advertised.  I presume the reason T-Mobile is doing a gradual rollout of their Home Internet is to ensure they have adequate 5G capacity at the registered address to support this kind of heavy use.  2) T-Mobile charged him for the modem when he attempted to return it after the 15 day trial period.  Cell phones are the same way, no?  You'll be charged for that "free" cell phone if you cancel service before the phone is amortized.

Edited May 29, 2023 by Lou Schneider

[TXiceman]

We tried the T-Mobile home internet. and it worked OK, but not great.  I needed better speed for the ADT system.

We returned it within the free trial period and then the problems started.  They kept billing my credit card for the monthly fee and then after I got that stopped, a charge for the 5G device that was returned.    It only took 6 months to get it straight and get a ZERO dollar statement.  Most of the time you wind up talking with an agent in Indonesian that does not have great English skills and must follow her script. 

Thankfully we did not fall for their pitch to change our Verizon phones to T-Mobile.

Ken

[RV_]

Lou, I don't trust any new service and asked them to show me in writing that I would get a full refund if not satisfied. Nevermind satisfied they never worked for more than a few minutes once a day and only after they fiddled with the new phones they issued. What we shared is having T-Mobile (TM) not honor the 3 day FTC full refund rules with full refund and having to fight with them to get them to honor their own contract. Mine was a free set of two Samsung 5G phones which we bought at one of their local storefronts on a Friday. We signed up and brought our Verizon phones in to be sure they could transfer our contacts and messages over and they activated them. That was the last time they worked. We got them home and no connection. No phone service and I made the mistake of getting both switched over at the same time. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday in their store, in good faith hoping they could get them working, they got them to connect in-store but when I got home they worked once.

We live in town with full 5G and 4G everywhere. They did not connect when we brought them back.

Deals made on a Friday have until Tuesday to return for a full refund by FTC three day return rules.

When we returned them it turned out the guy goofed and had to return and re-trade-in our older trade in phones which was his error. Then claimed we owed them for the trade?? And he admitted they goofed but could not refund that? A total keystone cops comedy. I returned the phones and canceled the service within 3 days ( They can't count Saturday or Sunday) and had already set up an emergency Straight Talk (ST) account with our old phones from Verizon. They connected to ST first time every time. TM got our returns on Tuesday, five days, well within the 7 day refund time. It took hours over a month to get most of my money back but not all.

Self inflicted? We both found TM loses their own paperwork, contradicts themselves, and try to charge our credit cards, and does not make returns easy.

Funny how when we went to two other providers we had no issues, no glitches with our two year old phones.

As I stated up front we know T-Mobile has fans out there and I do not try to say they fail 100% of the time.

However any company can make a good impression when everything goes well. But a company shows its true colors when they have a problem. T-Mobile is a company I will not do biz with ever again.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by RV_

[RV_]

16 minutes ago, TXiceman said:

We tried the T-Mobile home internet. and it worked OK, but not great.  I needed better speed for the ADT system.

We returned it within the free trial period and then the problems started.  They kept billing my credit card for the monthly fee and then after I got that stopped, a charge for the 5G device that was returned.    It only took 6 months to get it straight and get a ZERO dollar statement.  Most of the time you wind up talking with an agent in Indonesian that does not have great English skills and must follow her script. 

Thankfully we did not fall for their pitch to change our Verizon phones to T-Mobile.

Ken

Ken, you know. Mine were Americans at a stix n brix! No language issues and they still failed miserably. Exactly the same issues you had trying to get the refund. I actually had my credit card replaced because they kept insisting and trying to charge it. They beat me out of about 30 bucks in the end. Horrible company and store. I don't like their parent company at all, as we did biz with Deutsche Telekom when we opened the first private Internet Service in Bitburg Germany in 1995 and bought bandwidth from them. They did not like furriners (Auslanders) being tops in Germany. Like some Americans are about foreigners.

My advice? If you have another service that does what you need/want don't try them with both your phones at once if at all. My I's were dotted and my T's crossed. I don't care if they offer free flip phones and 1TB unlimited for 25 bucks I won't bite again.

Edited May 29, 2023 by RV_

[RV_]

Boy did I find a lot of fat finger typos in my posts here. I am sure I missed at least one, but got most of them.😊

[sheldons65]

I’ve had T-Mobile 100Gb 5G service using their Inseego M2000 hotspot about 2.5 years. It works great as part of my triad of traveling internet sources with the main being Starlink Mobility, and the other an ATT 100Gb 4G using a Nighthawk.

I work remotely connected so reliable internet is important.

[RV_]

I think the takeaway is be aware they don't do refunds easily or in full if they can help it. So get in writing the 100% return time fences and time they will take to refund if you are a new customer to TM. If you love them I don't doubt you got great service. However, those of us that got very bad service and then had TM add insult to injury by coming up with re-stocking fees or others they never mentioned up front, and you did not get it in writing saying 100% or were told up front how much you would lose if their equipment they sold did not work as claimed, then no risk.

I won't be back even though I later found they were transitioning to 5G and adding a new service lines/frequencies or some such. I won't go back and check the details although it is all posted here from they bought.

You can look up the whole T Mobile  SNAFU posted here Jun 2021. If anyone does they withdrew the no caps and true unlimited except for those of us that got in. Thanks to T-Mobile I have service with US Mobile with three unlimited lines they do cap at 75GB but no throttling before, and with one Perk which you get only with three lines paying me for my Hulu cost them of $14. So three limes are $25 each and -14 for Hulu makes it $61 bucks and change for three unlimited lines, one we hardly use and is a sim I use in my Surface Pro 7+ that also works in the smaller Surface Go2 M3 tablet. That give us Mobile Internet LTE with no hassle.

So the TM fiasco had a silver lining after we were deprived of any phone service for almost three days. Of course our Internet at home is high speed with fiber to home coming later this year with synchronous 1GBps speed (Same speed up and down) that will cost what our 150Mbps costs now.

By all means try TM but get their refund policies today before you pay.