FLORIDA — It's happened to all of us. We pay for an item or service, and something goes wrong, but the company ignores our complaint.
Lakeland Pastor Michael Cathey describes himself as a techy who likes upgrading his iPhone every few years. Last fall, Apple and T-Mobile offered nearly $1,000 in rebates on purchasing an iPhone 14. He said he and his wife ordered two.
"We love this offer because they were going to give us, I mean $1,000. You know, total. Half of it is from Apple, and half of it is from T-Mobile off the price of the phone."
Apple quickly paid the couple their $500 offer for both phones. T-Mobile was supposed to pay their $475 rebate through 24 monthly bill credits.
ABC Action News looked over Cathey's statement, which shows credits for his wife's phone but not his.
Over the next nine months, they spent hours online with T-Mobile customer service.
"I reached out through their chat feature, both on the website and on my phone through their app. Always spoke to very kind people, but the answer was always the same. Well, there's nothing really we can do about it."
Kevin Brasler with the nonprofit Consumers' Checkbook suggests consumers post their grievances on the company's X or Facebook feed.
"Large companies, especially these days, have dedicated staff to deal with complaints on social media."
He said spotlighting the problem on social media may prompt the company to act quickly.
"Now hundreds of people see your complaint or in some cases, thousands. So, now the company feels like it can control the situation by responding to you directly on social media to show it's responsive."
Brasler advises to always keep it civil.
Another tactic is to write or call the president or CEO's office.
"The president of the company is not likely to handle their complaints, but they do usually have dedicated staff who can kind of figure out what's going on and contact the person who can actually help that consumer."
In Cathey's case, T-Mobile said it never received confirmation of his new phone purchase from Apple. Apple told him they'd sent it.
"I even walked into brick-and-mortar stores, both Apple and T-Mobile to say hey, can you help me, and they said absolutely not. That's a corporate-level thing."
After 10 months, Cathey contacted ABC Action News.
We reached out to T-Mobile's corporate office and asked about his $475 rebate. Hours later, a customer representative contacted Cathey and offered to pay the rebate in full as a credit, which paid off Cathey's iPhone 14.
When all else fails, you can file a dispute with your credit card, which will temporarily credit you the amount while investigating the disputed charge.
You can also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
If you are out several thousand dollars and aren’t getting anywhere, you may want to consider filing a case in small claims court.
