[blindlaw] needed to re-post.

[William ODonnell]

This email is being sent on behalf of William O’Donnell in care of Yvetta Scott,  The below post is lengthy; however, it is in regard to T-Mobile and some customer service issues that she is having.
    I have been a t-mobile customer since 2005.  I am currently locked into a contract until 2011.  My issue is the inaccessibility of both t-mobiles products and the insensitivity toward my visual impairment by the representatives from t-mobile.  
    I prefer a product that has both a screen-reader and a screen magnification program.  However, screen magnification (ability to increase font to at least 14 PT) is absolutely necessary for me to use my phone affectively.  
    I use phones that have complete data functionality as this is my main source of internet use especially email exchange.  Over the years, I have had phones such as the dash, Samsung slider, and most recently, a blackberry 8320.  These phones that I have had provided the ability to increase the font to a suitable size; however, I ran in to many technical difficulties.  These difficulties ranged from frequent system failures with the phones, as well as the phones rebooting themselves during calls or other important activities.  
    My problem with the screen magnification capabilities is as follows.  My newest blackberry 9700 does not save the font changes to be applied on all the phones functions.  In addition, when I am on the internet, and try to use the zoom-in function feature, the words become jumbled and unreadable.  I proceeded to obtain a phone that met my needs.  This is where the problems began with both the customer service representatives from T-mobile as well as the account specialty department.  Over the past few months, I have had many conversations in an attempt at finding an accessible phone for my needs.  Many times, I have been misinformed about t-mobiles products which turned out to be inaccessible.  An example of this was the G1 and the touch.  In a final attempt at finding an accessible phone, I visited the T-mobile store located at 735 6TH Avenue in New York City on Friday, December 11, 2009 at 4:00PM.  The in-store representative was understanding of my
needs and spent an hour trying to find a phone for me.  In his attempts, He contacted the customer care call center for some suggestions.  After a few moments, a request was given to the representative for me to speak with the customer care agent.  Although I can not recollect the agent’s name, I do recall him saying that “as the technology becomes newer, they are taking out the feature which enables customers to increase the font size.  The call concluded with me realizing that I must cancel my service with this company.  The in-store representative then showed me his personal HTC Touch Pro 2 which has the ability to increase the font size; however, the font can only be increased to an approximate size of 10PT.  
    I have done some research and found that AT&T is able to successfully meet my needs.  I am ready to cancel my contract with T-mobile As a result of T-mobile’s inability to provide an accessible phone for me.  This evening, I contacted T-Mobile to discuss canceling my contract.  Once again, the representative tried to offer me several phones such as the G1 and My touch.  In addition, she informed me that “by law, T-mobile offers phones for the hearing impaired and the blind; however, these are simple phones that do not support data plans.”  She proceeded to tell me that most of their visually impaired customers “don’t use data plans.”  She told me that I would have to pay a cancellation fee of $200.00.  I asked to speak to a supervisor about this since I feel that I should not be subjected to pay this fee.  She then told me that I should contact their legal department at the following address.  T-mobile wireless: Legal department 12920
 South
East 38TH Street Bellevue Washington 98006-1350
I would appreciate any help in this matter as I feel I should not be penalized for canceling a service that I can not use.  I can be reached via email and help in this matter as I feel I should not be penalized for canceling a service that I can not use.  I can be reached via email and telephone at the following.  My contact email is yvtscott at gmail.com and my phone number is (917)407-5666.  Thank you in advance,
Yvetta Scott