This woman walked into a T-Mobile store to ask a few questions about international roaming. She ended up leaving with a new phone.
They told her it was a free upgrade. It wasn’t.
Desi Del Ray (@desidelray on TikTok) is calling out the Vancouver, Washington T-Mobile location that she says “scammed” her. Her video has garnered over 78,000 views as of Wednesday.
“This is how the T-Mobile store in Salmon Creek, Washington, has literally scammed hundreds of people, including me, out of thousands of dollars, and they continuously keep getting away with it,” she says. “T-Mobile, what the [expletive]. I have receipts.”
How did T-Mobile scam this woman out of thousands?
Del Ray only walked into the T-Mobile store to ask about international charges for an upcoming trip she had. She learned the carrier had free international roaming, and was pleasantly surprised with her customer service experience.
On her way out the door, however, a T-Mobile worker stopped her.
“They were like, ‘Oh, wait, wait, wait. By the way, did you know you have an iPhone 13 and the iPhone 16 is coming out. You also haven’t used any of your free upgrades. And Apple and T-Mobile are running this promotion where you can get the iPhone 16 for free if you trade in your old iPhone,’” Del Ray recalls the store employee telling her.
Del Ray asked whether or not they really meant “free.” She didn’t want to get stuck on a payment plan, as she was happy with the phone she already had. The T-Mobile workers assured her she would only have to pay for the shipping, taxes, and fees to connect the phone.
Those costs ended up totaling $131.47, which Del Ray showed an itemized receipt of at the beginning of her video. The iPhone cost is listed at $0.
The TikToker reiterates how many times she asked the T-Mobile worker to confirm the phone would be free. “I don’t finance anything,” she says in the clip. “I’ve got a high credit score for a reason, people. I do not buy stuff I cannot afford.”
The T-Mobile employee continuously assured her it would be free. Then they laid out all their devices and asked her to pick a phone. Del Ray chose the “cute pink one.”
The workers then asked her to sign an agreement that she would send in her old phone once she received the new one.
How did Del Ray find out?
Del Ray is on a phone plan with her mother and father. Her mother discovered T-Mobile had been charging them for the phone for months.
Confused and upset over being charged for this supposedly “free” phone, Del Ray pulled up to the same T-Mobile location that convinced her to upgrade.
Their reasoning?
“Oh, that’s because you got an iPhone 16 Pro. It was just the iPhone 16 that was free,” Del Ray recalls the T-Mobile worker telling her.
She was stunned. The T-Mobile workers told her that the document she had signed included an agreement on her financing of the phone.
“They didn’t tell me that,” Del Ray says. “This was the red flag that I should have listened to. He said that the agreement, don’t worry about the numbers on the agreement. That’s all gonna get taken off when my old phone gets to T-Mobile. That it was a wash. That it was free.”
But when she returned to the store, which she had done right before she started filming her TikTok, Del Ray says the T-Mobile workers “totally gaslit” her.
“They said I made the whole thing up in my head,” she says. “They literally scammed us out of over a thousand dollars.”
Del Ray was even more upset that she hadn’t even intended on getting a new phone when she walked into T-Mobile that day.
“Now I’m paying for a phone that I literally didn’t even want,” she says. “I was happy with my old iPhone. The only reason I did it was because they convinced me it was ‘free’ and ‘on them.’”
Is this a recurring issue?
Del Ray is not alone in her T-Mobile experience. At least, according to the reviews for the Salmon Creek location.
Several Google reviews for the location cite similar experiences to Del Ray, whether that’s promising a “free upgrade” or claiming customers need to buy “unnecessary devices” for their plan.
“Don’t waste your time in this third party store,” Carrie Knapp wrote in a one-star review. “An employee at this store lied to me and my husband last year when we were trading in our iPhones for new ones.”
Is this a real T-Mobile store?
The location Del Ray went to is a T-Mobile authorized retailer operated by Exclusive Wireless. And as several reviewers noted, which we confirmed on Indeed: Exclusive Wireless employees work on commission.
Many customers believed this to be the reason they were allegedly lied to by employees.
“Terrible, they would gladly let their staff pad your bill so they can collect their little kickbacks,” one Yelp reviewer wrote.
@desidelray @T-Mobile How are you letting this store operate with your name on it when there’s hundreds of 1 star reviews of people just like me that got scammed here!!! You scammed me out of 1000+ dollars!!!! #tmobile #scam #phone ♬ original sound – desi
Did T-Mobile resolve the issue?
Del Ray says she tried to return the new device to the store, but the T-Mobile employees said she would still owe the entire bill.
But the TikToker clarified she has no intention of paying for the phone. The plan is under her mom’s name, and she won’t be making use of her credit score anyway, Del Ray says. “She’s 66. Who cares? We’ll cancel. Who cares if it goes to collections,” she adds.
Del Ray says they’re going to switch carriers. “I guess we’re switching to Verizon then, and [expletive] you. I’m not paying when you scammed me. That’s absolutely insane.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Del Ray, T-Mobile, Exclusive Wireless, and the T-Mobile Salmon Creek location via email.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
