r/USCellular

An open letter to former USCC customers and current TMO customers

Dear valued customers,

I am tired. I get yelled at, accused of theft, and cussed out 4 to 7 times a day at work because of bill payments. I'm sorry that company policy dictates and extra charge when you speak to a real person to pay your bill. Yes, even if it is cash. No, I cannot take a check. There are free ways to pay, and even options that save you money. I know its frustrating for you, but you deal with it once a month, I deal with it multiple times daily so it is more frustrating for my coworkers and I.

Please stop,

TMO Retail and CSS employees

P.S. It is the year of our lord 2026, how on God's green earth do you not have a card of any kind.

I know that the customer service representatives hands are tied on allot of things and they can only do what they can do. I'm not looking for any secret cheat code or anything unethical, just a nudge in the right direction to help get my issue resolved. Here's my current situation:

I was on the $300/year prepaid plan with US Cellular as I was the previous year or two. I had renewed in January and I migrated in May as that's when my wife's phone was up for renewal (her plan was the same as I had). I wanted to make sure there were no hiccups so she wouldn't be without a phone, otherwise I'd have waited. Since they advertised that their plans were equivalent or better, didn't see an issue, but since that wasn't true, in the end I signed her up for Google Fi instead. Cheaper, and I believe it used the same towers in my area.

Anywho, since I had over 8 months left of my $300/year plan, I confirmed with the rep that I would be getting around a $200(+tax) credit to my account, they said 1-2 months. Ok cool, I guess. So I called shortly before the 2 month mark for an update, and it turns out to have been 1-2 PAID months. Oh, ok, I must have missed that part, my bad. So waited for shortly before the third month (second paid month) before calling for an update and now it's suddenly 2-3 months. Um, WTF, but what can I do about it.

Now we are at the third month. Again, call a couple days prior to the end of my billing cycle for an update. They look into it, but it is more difficult for them this time since the US Cellular Prepaid department no longer exists. They are still unable to get this settled over the phone at this time and should have it resolved within 72 hours. So that means that I am paying for another month that I feel that I had already paid for. Yeah, in the end the credit should be the same, but this is still an extra bill that I had not accounted for, irritating.

Now I have waited 4 days (extra day to help eliminate lame excuses), and since the credit is still nowhere to be seen, call for another update. Now they still don't know and don't even have a timeframe to when they will have this resolved. Needless to say, but it is a bit frustrating.

So, yeah, I mean they seem to be lost on the subject and I know the CS Reps at the local T-Mobile store are even more restricted than the over-the-phone ones are. Is there a certain department that I should ask to talk to, or any advice that I can give to the CS Rep to help guide them to a resolution? To be truthful, I'd have switched to another carrier myself instead of going through this BS if my $200+ wasn't being held hostage.

I'm trying to find a solution to my problem. My Dad has a Fresno Hotpepper flip phone. Under U.S. Cellular, he was able to make and receive calls, connecting through his automobile. Since his phone was migrated to TMobile, he has not been able to do that. When he pushes the voice activation button on his steering wheel, nothing happens. I paired his phone with my auto and got the same results.

We went to TMobile. They changed the SIM card and rebooted the device. No change. They contacted tech support and worked with the phone, but there was no change. We have unpaired the Bluetooth then paired them again. I have cleared his cache. I don't know what else to try.

Any ideas?

I am here, over two weeks from my store closing permanently. I and my team have all been laid off, and our customers have been prepared, as best as we could.
We talk trash sometimes about our interactions, it was how we would vent, but we went above and beyond for our customers, even if we got no commission for it. We built long lasting relationships and built trust with our customers who became our advocates.
In my market USCellular had the highest market share of customers and we felt the loss when the merger happened.
Since our culture varied from TMO culture they did not want a majority of us.
With all this I say:
T-Mobile, I bequeath to you this demographic of customers, they may need a little more help with their services and devices than your target demographic, they may come into the store more than you are used to, and you may know their name when you see them in public, but these customers with all the extra needs are and could be some of the most fiercely loyal customer you will ever have.
Treat them right and take care.

So, for me, the switch happened. Partially.

Essentially 4 out of my seven lines are requiring manual intervention.

Here’s the kicker: For the past two days, getting ahold of live support has been near impossible. I am curious if this is a persistent issue for customers. The only store that can help me in person is corporate, 50 miles away.

The irony is the text is informing me to contact T-Mobile for a manual fix for sims. The phone support loops on me waiting, the bot in-app constantly says support is unavailable, and email has so far been useless.

I should mention they had it also made it difficult to exchange a valid defective phone under Maine’s Implied Warranty of Merchantability (T-Mobile has assumed liability post-merger), forcing mediation by the state.

Is this a common issue, or just a series of unfortunate events? (No pun intended)