Business & Tech

Twitter, T-Mobile Solve Parent's Cell Phone Trouble

Negative situation involving kid's cell phone rectified by social media.

A Manayunk family recently felt at the mercy of its cell phone company, until a Twitter conversation solved the problem.

For many modern families, the decision to give a child a cell phone is tough. The Erb Family thought the occasion of their 10-year-old daughter going away to her first sleepaway camp warranted a phone.

Mom and dad bought a T-mobile phone, programmed contacts and opted against giving her the number—that way only the immediate family and close relatives could contact her.

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She left for camp, but called her parents to say there's a problem. Mere minutes after getting the phone, she began receiving profanity-riddled messages from an unknown sender.

"She said, 'I keep getting weird messages, and they're talking about killing and scary stuff," mom Kelly Phillips Erb said. "There were about 37 messages that were using profanity, and clearly she got a recycled number. These were not appropriate conversations, and she didn't know the person."

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Rejection, at First

Erb, a Roxborough lawyer at the  5901 Ridge Ave. reached out to T-Mobile to rectify the situation. She wanted a new number.

The cell phone company, which she said she's happily subscribed to for 10 years, told her sure—but there's a $15 fee attached to it.

"We didn't even have it a week. It started an hour after she got the phone... T-Mobile didn't even start the new number process, and they were rude about," she said.

The Erbs met with similar results at  store. The manager said he couldn't override that decision—but he was a lot nicer about it, she said.

Tweeting to a Resolution

In addition to working as a tax lawyer and raising kids, Erb blogs at Forbes.com, and has more than 17,000 followers on Twitter @taxgirl. After T-Mobile's response, she vented on the Web.

She tweeted—"Been w @TMobile for nearly 10 yrs. My daughter got a recycled # and she's receiving disturbing texts, they won't waive fee to chg. Really?"

This was followed with advice from her followers, but it also caught the ear of the cell phone corporation.

"I tweeted about it because I was mad, and then their Twitter customer service folks saw it," she said. 

After a Twitter conversation with @TMobileHelp, a represenative called her and worked the problem out. New number, no fee.

Importance of Social Media

Although she certainly experienced a negative situation with the company, she appreciated that they worked through it with her.

"People feel companies don't listen. You feel hopeless. The fact that T-Mobile responded to me, made me feel better. And then they fixed it—so even better," she said.

The interaction justified Erb's love and faith in the Internet. She's had similar encounters with Comcast and U.S. Air, and ended up feeling better about those companies. 

"I love Twitter, and one of the greatest things, on the positive and negative side, is that you can reach people. Sometimes, they'll write back and you'll see they care..." she said. "I think companies that don't respond on Twitter are running the risk of looking bad and missing out on good situations."

Follow Erb on Twitter hereRead her blog here. T-Mobile tweets @TMobileHelpand @TMobile.


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