Bryan (who I would link to but haven’t yet convinced of the value of blogging) and I spoke yesterday.  He was a local Starbucks and properly tee’d off.  He’d bought a collection of T-Mobile HotSpot “day passes.”  Something like $9.95 a day and you can use them in the future – buy a bunch now and use one on a day when you need a HotSpot.  Pretty cool idea – except they expire after 120 days.

Unfortunately for Bryan, his four day passes had expired and his $40 bucks was gone.  Apparently, a call to T-Mobile Customer Service was anything but – they pulled the, “Of course you’re aware of the terms and conditions, aren’t you?”  Technically, they are correct – but so is a broken clock twice a day.  So, let this blog posting serve as a reminder to check your T&Cs carefully and to voice your concern of T-Mobile’s policy directly to T-Mobile.

I myself had my own negative experience with T-Mobile’s HotSpot a few months ago.  When they first rolled out, I bought a number of minutes for something like $39.95.  I guess T-Mobile felt that plan wasn’t too good, as when I stopped into a Starbucks a few months ago and tried to connect, I found out they canceled the per-minute plan, took all my minutes and then told me I had to subscribe to another plan.  And no, they didn’t refund my money or provide me a credit for my unused minutes.

T-Mobile, if you’re listening … I’ve been a cellular subscriber of yours for years, having switched from AT&T.  Your customer service is usually top notch and the agreements you’ve set up for HotSpots is fantastic.  You just have a little work to do on making the users of your HotSpot service as happy as you do your cellular service.