Welcome to the 21st century?

Why do mobile phone companies suck so much?

I’m with T-Mobile (but from what I hear they’re all pretty much the same) and I recently upgraded Crisp and I’s phones which meant adding a data plan to Crisp’s line. I just checked the latest bill online to find that there is a $7.60 charge on my line and a $1.80 charge on Jackie’s line for “Messaging”- interesting when we pay $20 a month for unlimited family messaging. I always check the bill extra carefully when any changes have been made to our account because something like this seems to happen every time.

So I called T-Mobile to question the charges and they have removed them- but (including the time I was on hold while the almost incomprehensible customer service rep “researched the charges”) it took just under 24 minutes!

I know it’s only $9.40, but why did this happen in the first place, and why did it take so long to fix? If the billing is all computerized mistakes like this just shouldn’t happen- I suspect they have code written into the software that surreptitiously introduces these errors (and notice- the errors are always in their favor) and I’m sure they make a fortune because most people don’t check their bills that closely!