T-Mobile: your dead dad's active phone will let you stay in touch

Robert, a Consumerist reader, called up T-Mobile to close his dead father's cellular account; the rep suggested that he should keep paying for it so he could listen to his dad's voice on the voicemail message whenever he wanted.

Robert had a line for his dad on his account, and called up T-Mobile to cancel. "The loyalty rep asked me if he had a voicemail set up," Richard wrote to Consumerist. "I said yes. She then asked if I wouldn't want to keep the extra line open so that I could call it and hear his voice whenever I want to. How low is that?"

Pretty low, but we've heard of similar tactics in the past. Fortunately, when we alerted T-Mobile to this incident, they found it upsetting too. Robert sent us an update shortly after Big Magenta contacted him. After we sent his letter to T-Mobile's media relations team, someone from the office of the president called him. "She apologized for how their salesperson tried to keep my line open," Robert told Consumerist. "She said that it's not how they train their people, and the rep would be re-trained."

T-Mobile Rep Encourages Me To Keep Dead Dad's Mobile Line Open To Hear His Voice [Laura Northrup/The Consumerist]

(Image: John Beattie Eugene Rochas seance, Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)