I have two cell phones through my name with T-Mobile. This isn’t because I’m under any apprehension that they are a good, reliable, or ethical company that might give a damn about customers, the environment, or wage slaves–no, its because they were the cheapest.

One phone is mine, it’s the bargain basement model with the bargain basement plan, and it suits me fine. The other is for a teen family member. The accounts are both in my name because I set them up. The bills come jointly, and in my name. As far as the world is concerned, I have two phones.

For reasons I won’t go into I want to check whether a particular call was made from the teen’s phone on a particular day. I have an account on the T-Mobile site, so I tried to check there. I was unable to log in. I thought that perhaps the password had been reset, so I called customer service. I was asked for the last 4 digits of my SSN. I told them I don’t give out my SSN (and they shouldn’t have it because it’s PRIVATE). Was there some other information I could give them, like my address, to confirm I was me? Nope, they’d only take my SSN. Could I speak to a supervisor? Sure. After a seveeral minutes on hold the customer service lady came back and said actually I couldn’t–might she take my number and have one return my call? No problem, I can be patient.

A few hours passed, though it wasn’t yet 9 AM. I’d received no call, and my husband berated me for not simply giving my SSN, something he was sure I must have provided them with in the first place. I think he’s wrong, but I’m willing to play ball at the moment, so I call back.

I’m on hold for a long time. Eventually I get to a cs rep, and explain I can’t log in. She tells me my phone doesn’t exist, which is surreal since I am calling her on it. Then she tells me their website was down and is still not working properly. But perhaps she can help me? Sure she can. I ask her for the phone records and she tells me she cannot provide them. That’s right, I’m not allowed to get the call records from my own phone. Why not? Fear of lawsuits if someone were to impersonate me and acquire the information and then somehow–goodness knows how–use it to harm me. Aren’t they, I ask, afraid of lawsuits for refusing to provide people their own information? Yes, she says, but she still can’t give me the records. How am I supposed to get them then, I ask. Oh, you have to access them online from your account. But my account isn’t working, I say. Yes, she says, but that’s the only way to get the records. When will the website be fixed? She doesn’t know. Apparently it’s been messed up for 3 days and the note she has, which she obligingly reads to me, says the department is “working on it” and will have the site up and working real soon now.

To whom, I ask politely, can I complain about this Catch-22? Customer Correspondence in Albequerque. But I can’t call them, and I can’t email them, the two modes of communication most frequently used. no, that would make complaining too easy and therefore too frequent. I can only reach them by letter or fax, at which point they’ll look into the problem.

To add insult to injury, during the 30 minutes I spent on hold I got to listen to a loop of announcements, including one of T-Mobile congratulating itself on being awarded best customer service by JD Powers.

Ya gotta wonder how much they paid for that.