T-Mobile Billing and Tariff Change

Welliesorter

I've recently changed from a T-Mobile tariff that cost me a little over £27.00 per month to one (supposedly) costing £30. I did this for the sake of getting an upgrade as my old plan is no longer available.

I've just received my first monthly bill, which is for more than £41. Only 10p of that is outside my calling plan. Checking the itemised bill shows me that the extra is for voicemail. I wasn't told that this wasn't included in my 800 minutes per month but that's a relatively minor issue.

I've just had a frustrating conversation with a T-Mobile call centre advisor and am none the wiser. I was told that the reason for the difference in the bill is that I changed tariff two days after my billing date. Therefore, there was a pro-rata refund of part of a month's charges for the original tariff. What the advisor couldn't explain is why this was significantly less (about £22) than the amount that I'd be paying for the full month minus two days or why I'd ended up being charged over £11 more than the new monthly rate.

I'd have expected to pay for a month plus two days at the old rate and a month minus two days at the new one. I genuinely couldn't understand the advisor's explanation of why this hadn't happened. After repeating himself several times, he politely told me that there was no point in continuing the conversation and that there was no point in speaking to someone more senior.

Am I being thick, or is there a piece of information that's missing here? Can anyone with experience of dealing with T-Mobile shed any light on this?

DarkConvict

Bump for you.

wherediditallgothen

The fact that you changed tariff part way through the month may be the likely culprit.

I moved my DD date to earlier in the month with them and I had 1 very low bill, and subsequently 1 very high bill after to even things out.

Check next months bill. A full month on the tariff will give you a much better idea if anything's amiss.

student_84

Can I just double check the timeline: you took an upgrade and changed your price plan at the same time which was 2 days after your billing date?

If I have this right then you will have a refund for 1 month - 2days on your old price plan.
1month -2days for your new price plan (Combi 30?), 1month for your new price plan as you always pay a month in advance. you should end up paying about £31 from what you've said but £41 sounds strange. If you could post the break down of the bill including refunds and debits I could figure out what it was, but t-mobile should have billing advisors (internal department) who should be able to explain the breakdown to a frontline agent.

Welliesorter

Apologies for the delay. I hadn't set notifications so hadn't realised that you'd all been kind enough to reply.

student_84 wrote: »

Can I just double check the timeline: you took an upgrade and changed your price plan at the same time which was 2 days after your billing date?

Yes, exactly that.

If I have this right then you will have a refund for 1 month - 2days on your old price plan.
1month -2days for your new price plan (Combi 30?), 1month for your new price plan as you always pay a month in advance. you should end up paying about £31 from what you've said...

Yes, exactly what I thought. I pointed this out to the person I spoke to and he implied that I was being thick for not understanding his attempt at explaining why this was not the case.

If you could post the break down of the bill including refunds and debits I could figure out what it was, but t-mobile should have billing advisors (internal department) who should be able to explain the breakdown to a frontline agent.

New price plan is called 'Combi 35 Megadeal' old one was 'Flext 20 + web 'n' walk'.

Here's the breakdown from my latest bill:

Charges summary
Your monthly plan charges
Flext 20 + web 'n' walk refund for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 - £22.62
Combi 35 (18) for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 £28.80
Combi 35 (18) £29.79
Combi 35 (18) gives you 800 minutes and 500 texts a
month. Use them any time to call or text the customers of
any UK mobile network or numbers starting with 01, 02 or
03 (excluding Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man).
Unlimited Text for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 Free
Unlimited texts: Use them anytime to text a UK mobile
number or numbers starting with 01/02/03 (excl. Jersey,
Guernsey and Isle of Man
Unlimited Text Free
Unlimited texts: Use them anytime to text a UK mobile
number or numbers starting with 01/02/03 (excl. Jersey,
Guernsey and Isle of Man
WnW Booster (18) for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 £4.11
WnW Booster (18) £4.25
Web n Walk Booster (18 months)
£10 MRC Discount for 8/9/09 to 6/11/09 - £8.51
Monthly charge total £35.82
What you used outside of allowance
Calls
00:11 mins outside of allowance £0.10
Total charges outside of allowance £0.10
That all adds up to £35.92

With VAT the total is £41.31

Any attempts at making sense of this would be much appreciated.

Littlemiss27

Welliesorter wrote: »

New price plan is called 'Combi 35 Megadeal' old one was 'Flext 20 + web 'n' walk'.

Here's the breakdown from my latest bill:

Charges summary
Your monthly plan charges
Flext 20 + web 'n' walk refund for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 - £22.62
Combi 35 (18) for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 £28.80
Combi 35 (18) £29.79
Unlimited Text for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 Free
Unlimited Text Free
WnW Booster (18) for 8/9/09 to 6/10/09 £4.11
WnW Booster (18) £4.25
£10 MRC Discount for 8/9/09 to 6/11/09 - £8.51
Monthly charge total £35.82
00:11 mins outside of allowance £0.10
Total charges outside of allowance £0.10
That all adds up to £35.92

With VAT the total is £41.31

Any attempts at making sense of this would be much appreciated.

Welliesorter your bill has a discount missing from it.

The new plan that you are on (Combi 35 + Web n Walk) would normally cost £40 per month but as you explained you have been given a special mega deal where you only pay £30. It appears that the way they reduce the cost of the tariff is by adding a MRC discount of £10 per month to your bill, you have had this discount added to the bill for the part month (in bold above) but not for your month in advance.

Hope I have explained the above ok as I'm needing my bed!

Welliesorter

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

Welliesorter your bill has a discount missing from it.

Thank you very much! That seems to be the missing information and something that the T-Mobile person assured me was not the case.

Does T-Mobile still have any UK call centres? They used to be OK when they were in Scotland.

Thanks again.

Littlemiss27

They still seem to have a few departments running from UK based call centres. Every time I speak to the upgrades department it seems to be someone from the UK, but I'm not sure about other depts.

If you are not getting anywhere over the phone it might be worth your while taking a printout of the bill to a T-Mobile store and asking if they can help you get the missing discount added back on. They may have a dedicated retailer helpline that is based in the UK.

Hope you manage to get it sorted!!!

Welliesorter

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

...Every time I speak to the upgrades department it seems to be someone from the UK, but I'm not sure about other depts.

I dare say their sales department is in the UK too!

...it might be worth your while taking a printout of the bill to a T-Mobile store and asking if they can help you get the missing discount added back on.

I did that today. Two members of staff looked at the bill and only partially understood it.

They may have a dedicated retailer helpline that is based in the UK.

So it would seem. The man in the shop was speaking for rather less time than I spent with the call centre in Manila last week. I was promised that I'll receive a message in a few days telling me to look for my recalculated bill. We shall see.

Thanks again, especially to Littlemiss27.