T-Mobile appears to have a bigger problem on their hands with third party stores than previously thought.
The Mobile Report recently covered claims of toxic workplace culture and shady sales tactics from one of the companies selling T-Mobile services: Arch Telecom. They are a T-Mobile ‘Third-Party Retailer’ (TPR), or dealer, for T-Mobile services.
This should be a win-win. T-Mobile saves on operating costs and provides smaller businesses in wireless an opportunity to thrive, and in exchange the company ends up with more of a retail footprint. Unfortunately the lax oversight these business apparently have allows them to promote pushy sales tactics at the expense of the customer.
Arch Telecom responded to our coverage (and the initial Reddit posts) with an internal communication and allegedly deleted swathes of chat logs, which we also covered. This led to even more reports of misbehavior sent to us from current and former employees of the company.
The Mobile Report is still receiving a staggering amount of testimonials detailing more shady sales practices and toxic workplaces stemming from third party retailers.
Additional Employees Come Forward
Below, we will relay statements that have been made to The Mobile Report. Some sources have approved sharing their screenshots. The Mobile Report exercises caution to only publish what can be deemed trustworthy.
It is important to know these are personal accounts provided to us, and have not received any “official” communications from these companies.
Arch Telecom
First up, we have more reports about Arch Telecom, the third-party company we previously reported on last week.
The Mobile Report received documents provided by employees of Arch Telecom detailing the prior claims of toxic sales culture. This began with a tip The Mobile Report received directly about a higher up manager ominously referred to as “Q”. In reaching out to our sources, it didn’t take long for information about “Q” to come out.
In these tips, we have reports of a higher up leader multiple sources have called “Q” pressing for sales targets far above expectation and threatening jobs if performance is not achieved. Be mindful these are not direct messages – “Q” sets an expectation to everyone to not expect a job if their standards are not met.
Blanket threats like this are common. A 27% activation conversion minimum on all location traffic is higher than the standard even Arch Telecom sets company-wide.
It seems Arch Telecom was inspired to make a mild change, though.
In a message from an employee sent to one of our sources, it’s claimed a weekly call was cancelled that was allegedly used to figure out how to manipulate T-Mobile promotions and feed toxic leadership competition.
Apparently, leaders at Arch Telecom not only have to personally outsell other leaders, but their own sales reps as well. They must maintain their own sales target and are asked to constantly take sales for themselves. This also is a major part of why these locations are challenged to ‘do it right’.
Are they leaders, or sales representatives? Arch Telecom is unable to tell the difference. It can be hard to be an effective leader when you are forced to compete with your own employees.
Do you work for a third party retailer? Have something to share? Send us a Tip!
GP Mobile
The other tips we’ve received involve a different third-party company, one that handles mostly the Southeast of the US, but has locations as far up the coastline as New York and Maine.
A source provided internal communication from GP Mobile detailing some questionable business practices. The concern the source raised was specifically about how stores handle customer-returned devices.
It’s important to note that this information is from a source that is no longer employed at the company. We believe the accuracy of the information, but it is very possible the company has changed since this rule was in place.
T-Mobile apparently requires devices that are returned for any reason by a customer to be sent back to T-Mobile warehouses. However, as shown below, GP Mobile employees were told they are not to return phones to T-Mobile’s warehouse, because they would take a ‘loss’ on the device.
Instead, they’re supposed to repackage the phone and sell it again, and potentially disguise a used device as new.
T-Mobile’s logo is also plainly visible in the communication, implying this was an approved practice.
An important note: The slide appears to have been made as far back as February 2019, given that it’s saying to push Magenta Max (a now grandfathered plan) and mentions 2/26 being a Tuesday. The source for this document was a former employee who was laid off, so it’s very possible the reselling of devices as new may no longer be taking place.
We do not make any claims of how the company currently handles these devices. That being said, the fact this was ever a thing in the first place is troubling. We hope GP Mobile has changed their processes since then.
That’s not the only concern The Mobile Report uncovered with GP Mobile, though.
It appears that a ton of GP Mobile’s training material (the redacted link for which is in the original slide image above) was viewable externally. We were able to uncover a great deal about the inner workings of GP Mobile and T-Mobile. All of these resources were effectively on the open internet. Of course, we will not be sharing the link for obvious reasons.
Update 7/22: The link to the GP Mobile training documents now leads to a 404 Not Found, suggesting the company has removed the documents in response to this article.
The documents included how employees go about requesting security tokens, how to access systems (with links), and HR processes. Other internal processes were also fully detailed, including documenting sales coaching, onboarding support and commissions charts.
Finally, multiple calls with employees openly discussing internal T-Mobile and GP Mobile standards were viewable by anyone with the link. It was an unsecure gateway to a trove of GP Mobile and T-Mobile proprietary information.
Importantly, we stress that no customer information was included on this particular page. We are simply making note that the information was publicly accessible.
The company may make the claim that “only those with the link could view it”, but as people familiar with security best practices know, relying solely on security through obscurity isn’t a good idea. A single share of the link from a mistake or even a disgruntled employee is all it would take to become exposed. Given it is still the same link from five years ago, it has outstayed its welcome to assume it is still secure.
What all of this means for customers
It cannot be stressed enough that many of these practices snowball into major customer impacts.
For the toxic sales culture and leadership threats for Arch Telecom – how does that translate into a likeable customer experience? Employees of Arch Telecom locations fear for their jobs constantly, unless they can find a way to manipulate their conversation with you in their favor. Their goal isn’t serving you right – it is making as many possible changes to your account to add devices, products, and services you might not need.
Never once is it said to ‘right fit’ – it is only about converting and adding more. To shop at Arch Telecom the way leadership wants is to have your account potentially slammed for a variety of products you never wanted or asked for.
Stores are constantly fighting out of the hole of ‘chargebacks’ from prior months. A ‘chargeback’ is when a commissionable employee sells a product that is returned within a window – effectively ‘charging back’ the commission they earned on it. Multiple sources claim stores fight out of multiple thousands of dollars in chargebacks a month at Arch Telecom – a testament to their sales practices. This is not unique to Arch Telecom either. Sources state this is a fairly regular practice at multiple other TPRs.
For GP Mobile, the concern is also magnified. If the act of reselling used devices as new is still a thing today, it’s not great. Not only is it fraud to resell used items as new without informing the buyer, but cell phones potentially contain personal information, especially if not properly wiped. Would you be comfortable knowing a phone that had your sensitive information on it at one point was resold to a stranger as a new device? Not only that, but as a buyer, would you be upset paying full price for a device that you knew was actually used by someone else at some point?
T-Mobile has been no stranger to data privacy concerns. With multiple data breaches since the Sprint merger, it is becoming clearer that their lack of attention towards TPRs is a major concern.
“Connectivity Source”, another TPR, had employee data leaked last year. Can you trust T-Mobile with your data when third-party authorized retailers are not adhering to security standards for their own processes?
Making all of this worse, most T-Mobile customers are not even aware that the store nearby might not be owned by T-Mobile. Third party stores are required to place a sign and the company name on the door, but otherwise the store looks identical to any other T-Mobile retail location. From a customer standpoint, the experience at a corporate store vs a third party should be identical, and clearly they are not.
In the end, it is your choice as a consumer to do business where you please. That is the benefit of competition in the wireless industry. T-Mobile has competitive perks and has a right to be loud and proud about their network today. However, the cost of admission, especially if you have to business with a TPR, might not be worth the price in the end. At the risk of data security or account mismanagement, an online self-service option might be the best way forward until this is addressed.
T-Mobile’s current strategies need reexamining
T-Mobile recently announced ‘Your Name, Our Wireless’, a program for wireless companies to become T-Mobile “Mobile Virtual Network Operators” (MVNOs). The company makes the claim MVNOs ‘unlock new revenue streams and boost customer engagement’ with the program.
T-Mobile then states the program is comprehensive, scalable, flexible, and fast and reliable. Looking at the relationships T-Mobile keeps with TPR locations, businesses should maybe exercise caution looking into this program. If T-Mobile cannot keep TPRs under proper scrutiny, and complicit in the brand damage they cause, would you trust them with your MVNO business as well?
What can be done?
The right move for T-Mobile would likely be first to audit and revisit their TPR guidelines for better accountability, to ensure the brand they want to sell to others holds the value they expect.
The company should regularly check in on their third party companies, perhaps even doing a few secret shopper transactions at various locations nationwide. It’s important to keep an eye on the companies that represent the T-Mobile brand, and that currently isn’t being done properly.
It’s no secret T-Mobile is a network leader, winning third place in Ookla’s ‘Fastest 5G Mobile Networks of 2024’. Their network performance isn’t the only thing to worry about, though. The brand reputation is also important. More competition can be beneficial for the wireless space, but if it is all unregulated anti-consumer sales practices at each one, it will do more harm than good to the industry.
On Friday morning, we here at The Mobile Report reached out to both T-Mobile PR and T-Mobile Consumer Group President Jon Freier directly via email. No response has been received at time of publication, but we’ll update if we hear back.
Does T-Mobile need to wipe their slate clean of third-party retail? What steps do you think the magenta carrier needs to take to make this right? Let us know your thoughts below.
