Verizon kept increasing the cost of our cell phone coverage, so my wife and I switched to T-Mobile’s senior $60 plan after checking the coverage map. We were able to use our existing phones and just had to buy T-Mobile SIM cards. The phones worked fine for a while, until we tried to use them in big buildings. No service in them. A friend of my wife was with her at two of those locations and the friend’s ATT phone worked. We switched to ATT prepaid $70 for 2 phones plan (plus around $4 in taxes) on June 13 and the reception has been good everywhere. ATT didn’t charge us for SIM cards; they give them for free. We used our existing phones.

When I called T-Mobile about the problem, an agent said that I should have realistic service expectations. I did. The T-Mobile coverage map showed service in my area and the salesman in the local T-Mobile store said that coverage would be good when he installed his SIM cards in our phones.

Even though we dropped T-Mobile on 6/13, my credit card was charged $60 on July 1. I called customer service and was asked for my password to access my records and have a refund issued. I no longer had it; I had deleted the T-Mobile app from my phone after dropping the service. I tried to explain that T-Mobile could check my account using my name and cell phone number, would see that I was charged two weeks after I dropped the service and that the refund would be issued to the information in my account, but the agent was pig-headed. I asked for a manager and got a dial tone. I called back and a different agent listened and said that it would take 5-7 days to issue the refund. It’s over a week and I haven’t received it. I did, however, receive a Final Bill from T-Mobile which said that I owe $9.

Our county Small Claims Court is ten minutes from my home. I’ll sue the local T- Mobile store if I don’t receive the refund soon.

My advice: avoid T-Mobile and pay a few dollars more for an ATT prepaid plan.

I am considering dropping TV as well. It is bundled with internet services so don't know how that will play out. We dropped all the premium channels to save money but somehow it still keeps creeping up. Our phones stand alone and at last look our phones alone came to 85.00 a month for two- down from nearly 200.00 a month. We bought the phones outright so that dropped all the add ons from Sprint including insurance(s), taxes, fees, fees, and more fees. And we limited data to 4 G a month. Before we made the above changes we were getting close to 400.00 a month for phone, TV, Internet-Ridiculous !!

I spent half an hour on the phone with Spectrum yesterday, trying to find out how much I'd save by dropping TV from my Phone/Internet/TV package. I was paying $130 a few months ago. Now I'm paying $162. The woman said she could switch me to Spectrum, and I'd pay $160 plus fees. I'm paying $130 plus fees now, so that move would have me up near $200 a month. The $162 I'm paying is a "discounted rate" that will soon go up again. As for Spectrum - remember how T-W became Spectrum? - I'm still on the T-W plan. So, apparently, T-W still exists as a ghost company.

After half an hour, she said that if I dropped the TV portion, I would pay $89.98 (for a year) plus fees. Adding Hulu for $40 plus fees, would not save me very much, and after a year, that $89.98 would probably be over NY.
Consumer Reports is trying to do something about those "fees," but the prices for cable are still too high and too variable. It's like buying a plane ticket. I bet no two people pay the same for cable or the same for a plane ticket. To make matters worse, cable has no real competition. I don't need five hundred channels, but that's what I'm paying for, and I have no choice.