I joined up with Voicestream a few months ago because the advertised plan seemed like a great deal. I had been wanting a cell phone for a long time, and getting a lot of minutes for a relatively low cost was quite appealing to me.

It is always fun having a new toy, and I was quite enamored with my cell phone in the beginning. The service seemed good, and the phone worked very well. Then, a few weeks ago I started having problems.

When I am at home, I get terrible reception. I thought initially that this could be because my house is in a sheltered area surrounded by pine trees, but the problems only started there. It became quite common for calls to disconnect with no warning. When talking to someone, it was very difficult for them to hear me and for me to hear them. The battery would show full and suddenly go dead, even after it had been charged recently and very little talk time had been used. I tried countless times to set up voice mail on the phone with no success. The phone would also turn itself off for no apparent reason. A really frustrating thing was that the service would suddenly be inaccessible, making the phone useless. These problems occurred everywhere, not just at my home, leading me to believe that the main problem was with the service itself.

I went to the Voicestream web site (www.voicestream.com) to see if I could get some input on what to do to make my cell phone life a little easier. I do have to say that Voicestream has an excellent trouble shooting guide on the web site, one of the best I have ever come across. Unfortunately, the trouble shooting guide does not answer all the questions.

Finally I decided that my phone must be defective. I emailed Voicestream and described the problems I was having. They responded with direction that I should contact Customer Care and my issues would be resolved.

So contact Customer Care I did. The man on the phone was completely unhelpful. He told me I could upgrade my phone for over a hundred dollars. I explained that spending that much money was not exactly what I had in mind; that I simply wanted a phone and a service that would work appropriately together. I asked if I could simply switch to the other phone that was offered at the time I signed up, and his response was that I could try to negotiate that with the vendor. He was not willing to listen to the difficulties I was having, and I finally hung up in frustration.

Back to email I went. I emailed Voicestream and explained that my problem had not been resolved by Customer Care. I explained that I was very unhappy with their service, and that I would not renew unless they fixed the problems I was having.

Their response was sorry, can't help you. Go to the vendor and see what they can do. They had no explanation for the problems I was having with their service.

As a result of this, I will not renew my contract with Voicestream. I feel that if a company wants to retain my business, they need to go above and beyond to resolve issues and problems that come up. There are far too many other companies out there that are willing to work with their customers and ensure that the customer is satisfied.

I have eight months left with Voicestream, to my dismay. It has been a learning experience for me, though, and I will definitely do a lot more research before I sign up with another company.

It would not surprise me if Voicestream ends up going out of business. The vast majority of Voicestream customers I have talked to do not plan to stay with the company once they have fulfilled their orignal commitment. Too bad for Voicestream, but they need to understand that the customer must be satisfied or they will not have any customers.

At this point, I can't think of anything I like about Voicestream. The negatives far outweigh the positives!

If you are considering either getting a cell phone or switching services, my advice is to stay far away from Voicestream.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 39.95