Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic German efficiency got lost when German telecom provider T-Com (T-Mobile) expanded to the USA.

My phone service in Germany is with T-Com, where I have a bundled package of high-speed internet at a flat rate (including all of T-Com’s hot spots all over the country), flat rate national (German) calling and flat rate calling to western Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia for 58 € a month. (Maybe they should move Home Office to Germany to save on phone expense.)

So in the USA I thought I would get a T-Mobile "To Go" pay-as-you-go cell phone to have T-Com’s good service. Sure. I got signed up for service, put $100 on the phone, made a couple of calls and went to Germany (in August). When I returned to the USA yesterday, my "To Go" phone would not connect to the network. Even worse, T-Mobile had assigned my phone number from the 251 area code to someone else. When I called customer service, I was connected with some call center with people obviously speaking English as a 2nd language. They told me to go to a T-Mobile store to get it resolved. Which I did, where they told me my $100 was gone and my phone service could not be restored. Wow, whatever happened to German efficiency? I guess that only exists in Germany, not in their U.S. branch. More to follow . . .