T-Mobile Data Outage (Part II)

Well it’s been 1 week and 3 and a half days that I’ve been without any data on my phone. I received an update finally from T-Mobile yesterday via text message that everything had been lost permanently. I don’t think I’m being harsh when I say that T-Mobile sucks.

I understand that these things happen. Technology, as great and convenient as it is, is not the most stable thing and has been known to fail and have glitches since the computer was invented. But the way that T-Mobile dealt with it’s loyal customers was where they failed:

• First, without knowing exactly what was going on, tech people/customer service reps over at T-Mobile were advising sidekick users to try restarting their phone or remove their battery to fix the problem. Unfortunately, if you did this, you permanently lost all of your data. T-Mobile now has made it very clear that whatever you do, do not remove the battery or let your phone die, because the system is still unstable and you will continue to lose everything any time your phone restarts.
• Second, the Sidekick phone and data service (powered by Microsoft) is supposed to be backed up continually. That is one of the perks to having this phone. Even if  I threw my phone into a pool in a moment of passionate anger (or something),  all that data on my phone is SUPPOSED to be backed up somewhere in the data-sphere on some huge Microsoft server. This is what was promised to us when we first bought our phones and this is also included in our $20/mo. that we pay for our data services.  In fact, sometimes my data would disappear, only to be returned to me 10 minutes later, fully restored. I could also log-in from any other sidekick or a computer (on T-Mobiles website) with my username and password and have instant access to everything on my phone.
• Third, I called customer service Friday night that my data was lost to ask what was going on. The customer service rep told me my data would in fact be restored between 10pm and 12am of that night. Well, it wasn’t. Making promises you can’t keep? Not very smart. It just made me more mad that they weren’t being up front with me. T-Mobile also promised an update on Monday, the 12th, which left sidekick customers constantly checking the web site all day to find no update. They finally made a quick, lousy, unclear, update late Monday night that left people with even more questions. They stated that they were giving SOME customers who lost data  a $100 gift card to T-Mobile…in about 2 weeks. Wait…what?! You’re telling me that I have to wait 2 weeks to have any compensation from T-Mobile if I even qualify…ANOTHER 2 weeks without a functioning phone…no thank you. In 2 weeks, I’ll have an iPhone. This “compensation” is pretty much a big slap in the face to Sidekick users.
• Fourth, I felt that I shouldn’t have to pay my phone bill this month seeing as all the trouble this has cost me. This whole data outage had particularly bad timing as I was traveling the weekend it happened. With no internet service to email anyone, and no phone numbers to contact anyone, I could really only talk to about 2 people. T-Mobile continually refused to credit my account for a full month’s bill. They just told me to be patient and my contacts would finally be restored. Well I waited and waited, and called every day to get updates and they just told me to keep waiting and that they understand what I’m going through (highly unlikely as everyone I talked was NOT a sidekick user). When I talked to one supervisor, he told me, “This is the biggest thing to happen to T-Mobile. It feels like a hurricane has hit us, complete devastation here.”

I could go on and on about how bad Microsoft/Danger has failed by not backing up or testing their backups and how T-Mobile has failed it’s loyal customers by handling this situation in the worst way possible…but I’m done talking about it.  I’m just going to sit and wait for that class-action lawsuit to be filed (FYI: mention of said lawsuit on the T-Mobile sidekick forum will probably get you blocked from it: If you can’t take the heat, T-Mobile, then don’t fail your customers), switch my service to AT&T and buy an iPhone, send out one of those annoying “I lost my numbers!” Facebook events to all my friends, and slowly try to rebuild my contact book. Good riddance.

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