Remember July 27? If you were one of the hundreds of thousands of T-Mobile members (or Metro, Mint, or Google Fi customers riding the same network) who lost service that day, T-Mobile now says it’s willing to make it up to you — sort of.

According to Android Authority, the Un-carrier confirmed it’s issuing bill credits to members affected by the outage, which took down service nationwide before T-Mobile restored things by July 28. But don’t expect anything to show up on your account automatically. 

This is a request-only deal: you have to go into the T-Life app or contact support directly and ask for a credit yourself. No prompt, no proactive email, no “sorry, here’s $10” text blast to affected lines.

And once you do ask, the results are all over the map. Threads on r/tmobile paint a pretty inconsistent picture: some members report getting credited $5 to $15, which barely covers a rounding error on most plans. Others say they walked away with $60, and at least one member claims they landed $80 spread across six months of billing. There’s no published formula here — it really does seem to come down to who you get on the line and how you frame the ask.

T-Mobile’s official line hasn’t changed much from its initial apology: 

“We have fully restored service for all customers and sincerely apologize for the difficulties. We know that customers rely on us to stay connected to what matters most, and we appreciate their understanding as we prioritized resolution.” 

Fine words, but worth noting that Downdetector reports for T-Mobile haven’t been entirely quiet since the 28th — so “fully restored” is doing some heavy lifting in that statement for anyone who’s had a flaky connection since.

If you got hit by the outage and haven’t asked for anything yet, don’t wait for T-Mobile to come to you, because it won’t. Hit up the T-Life app, be specific about the date and how it affected you, and don’t settle immediately if the first offer feels low; plenty of members in the same boat walked away with very different outcomes.

The bigger question hanging over this is one longtime T-Mobile watchers know well: the Un-carrier loves touting its Ookla wins and record NPS scores, but a nationwide blackout with a case-by-case, ask-nicely compensation process is a rough look for a network that markets itself as “America’s Best.” Getting your $15 back is nice. Getting a real, transparent policy the next time this happens would be better.

Source: Android Authority