T-Mobile's prepaid refill system goes down; free minutes for all

File this under extremely annoying. According to T-Mobile, all systems for re-upping users prepaid phone minutes (online, phone-based, and refill hotspots) are not only currently inoperable, but have not been functioning correctly for the past three days. As a result, no minutes can be added to customers phones, but T-Mobile says that users of its prepaid service can continue to make calls from their phone with no charge until at least 11 pm tonight, even if they have no minutes remaining. The company hopes to correct the problems they're having by this evening, and we'll bring you more info as it becomes available. In the meantime, use this freebie to catch up with grandma!

Update: Just to clarify, as far as we know this problem is affecting T-Mobile customers in the US. Also, the representative with whom we spoke said that calls would be free until 11 pm -- we have yet to hear an official announcement, however, so proceed with caution.

[Thanks, Eric]

[kirby @ Jul 27th 2007 1:54PM]

It works!

I'm calling random places in Australia, Japan! and it's awesome.

[Cristatus @ Jul 27th 2007 2:00PM]

Something that really irks me is that such a big international website fails to mention which arm of T-Mobile. Do you mean T-mobile in Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Hungary, The Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, Macedonia or Montenegro?

[Ant @ Jul 27th 2007 2:06PM]

hey china, hows it going? thats a funny language there.

yoo russia, is your refrigerator running?well you better go catch it!

hola india, how you better let fat albert out of the can

[Carlin @ Jul 27th 2007 2:14PM]

hrm, i just test it for text messages and phone calls

and well, my minutes still go down x_x

[Ryan @ Jul 27th 2007 2:17PM]

I have t-mobile prepaid and I just made a call and my minutes were not free. Thanks a lot engadget for costing me 1 minute. Please mail a check for $0.10.

[salim khan @ Jul 27th 2007 2:17PM]

welp i just made a call and i got charged. thanks a lot engadget!!!!!

[Julius @ Jul 27th 2007 2:24PM]

Awesome news!

I couldn't get it to work, but if your lucky enough to have gotten any minutes, it's your duty as a moocher to use them to inform your friends about the great upcoming Batman movie. http://www.criticsrant.com/archive/2007/06/22/The-Dark-Knight--First-Prodution-Photos.aspx

Looks better than the rest of the Batman movies...

[you @ Jul 27th 2007 2:29PM]

you are the man for that comment lol

[CommonSense @ Jul 27th 2007 2:50PM]

"Cristatus @ Jul 27th 2007 2:00PM
Something that really irks me is that such a big international website fails to mention which arm of T-Mobile. Do you mean T-mobile in Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Hungary, The Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, Macedonia or Montenegro?"


It's T-Mobile Zimbabwe.....Happy a$$wipe?!?

[Mark @ Jul 27th 2007 2:52PM]

I think what he means is that if you can still call even if you're out of minutes and you won't be charged anything extra.

[1337freek @ Jul 27th 2007 3:03PM]

damn! and i just refilled it with $100 ony 4 days ago..too bad i coulda used all those free minutes

[Bill @ Jul 27th 2007 3:03PM]

It's Prince Albert in a can, not Fat Albert...

[Azsori @ Jul 27th 2007 3:18PM]

You need to watch more Aqua Teen Hunger Force....

[Bill @ Jul 27th 2007 3:28PM]

Good tip.

[paloooz @ Jul 27th 2007 3:18PM]

Wait wait wait ... there was a hilarious comment about New Zealand phone sex. It was modded highest ... why is it gone? Why would someone flag that?

[Jeff W @ Jul 27th 2007 3:56PM]

I had problems trying to use a refill card yesterday but it did finally go through a little after midnight.

[Brendan @ Jul 27th 2007 4:02PM]

it WORKS!!! OMG!! i had zero minutes left, i am going to rack up so many minutes!!!!!!!! somebody give me random numbers to call!!! FCK TMOBILE!!!!

[robhill45 @ Jul 27th 2007 4:20PM]

Wow. Gotta wonder, what would Sprint do in this situation? Probably cancel everyone that made a call during this time. Or, perhaps they'd say it the minutes would be gratis, but then charge for them anyway. At roaming rates.

I don't think I'm thinking mean enough for Sprint... anyone?

[Mark @ Jul 27th 2007 5:32PM]

You need to channel Verizon.

[ark_v2 @ Jul 27th 2007 4:29PM]

I see, so this was T-mobile plan to make people buy more refill cards. Good one T-mobile.

[EMaster @ Jul 27th 2007 5:39PM]

Jeeeeesus!!! Good thing I am off this weekend!!!! I would hate to be answering customer inquiries right now!

[gopadge @ Jul 27th 2007 6:24PM]

First, it's T-Mobile USA, and second they lie, I haven't been able to place a call since Tuesday.

[William Thrash IV @ Jul 30th 2007 3:05PM]

Remember you have to be smarter than the handset to use the handset.

put it down and go look through your picture books.

[Peter @ Jul 27th 2007 7:23PM]

It's been working for me here NYC, I've been making calls all day with no difference in my account balance #999#. My Dad & I both use Mobile 2 go. I even got a $5.00 credit on my Dad's minutes because of the outage this morning. Since he just bought a refill card 2 days ago & when trying 2 place a call, the recording informs U that U do not have sufficient minutes 2 make the call, I called played dumb, called & got the $5.00 credit towards his account.

Keep it going past 11.00PM T!

[Stephen @ Jul 27th 2007 7:28PM]

It's been free for me, too. I've been using my phone all day and my minutes remaining balance has not changed.

[djscott @ Jul 27th 2007 8:03PM]

Not working outside of Seattle. I'm still getting charged... :(

[Dav @ Jul 27th 2007 9:01PM]

The funny thing is this happened yrs ago in the UK with an old mobile operator (one 2 one)that T-Mobile now runs. The issue was that their prepaid servers and were pegged at 100% and they had a rule that when users accounts couldn't be checked due to the server not responding quick effort the call would go through, so they can provide service still. Sounds like the same thing again.

[RB @ Jul 29th 2007 1:46AM]

Seems that their problems still exist. The system was up yesterday just long enough to tell me that I need to buy more minutes, which I can't do because the system is now down again.

[goinveg @ Jul 28th 2007 1:08PM]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/325499_bizbriefs28.html

T-Mobile USA said Friday that its prepaid phone customers may not be able to refill their accounts because of what the cell phone provider called a "systems upgrade issue."

More than 4 million people in the U.S. buy blocks of minutes for their T-Mobile phones, according to the company's latest earnings report. Bellevue-based T-Mobile said customers with no minutes left will be able to keep making and receiving calls within the U.S. until the system is fixed.

[XAVIER @ Jul 28th 2007 4:51PM]

I wonder if this is just for outgoing calls ? , Did anyone try calling themselves in this time periode ?

[TJ @ Jul 28th 2007 5:20PM]

I think this is happening since they are trying to allow the Prepaid system to work with the new FlexPay service that they just launched on July 25th.

[Andre @ Jul 28th 2007 6:00PM]

Had just tried logging into the my.t-mobile.com site as well as checking the t-zones area on my mom's t-mo 2go phone... still down. wondering if the free calls are in effect?

[Jonathan @ Jul 28th 2007 8:12PM]

Also the online account service, MyT-Mobile is completely down for postpaid customers. No payments, no billing and no changes can be made online. If you call 611, they are giving a $5 credit per line for the inconvenience and waiving all phone payments if you need to pay your bill, a $4.95 value.

[matthew spencer @ Jul 29th 2007 1:40AM]

Yea What happened was when they launched flexpay it crashed the systems when they changed the software to allow the use of prepaid cards to fill someones flex account. Im a salaes rep for T mobile and Ive been trying to add some guy's $100 dollar refill card for like 4 days

[andy @ Apr 5th 2008 12:49AM]

cool

[jsn777 @ Jul 29th 2007 10:40PM]

this was a total pain in the ass the first day if you were out of minutes like i was having to hear that annoying voice over and over trying to add minutes all day and almost all night till like 3;43am my phone wakes the whole house up with the minutes added mesasage t-mobile is the anti christ

[Patrick @ Jul 30th 2007 4:03PM]

What would Sprint do? They don't do prepaid so they'd do nothing. Many of the other prepaids DO use Sprint's network (Virgin USA, Iwirelesshome, etc) but they do their own billing.

Anyway, I left T-Mobile three years ago because of prepay issues. When they bought out Voicestream (who in turn had just bought PowerTel which was my carrier), I was unable to refill my phone for over a month. When it worked, it was never smooth. First you could not get the cards anywhere -Powertel let me refill online. And then when they did finally have cards in stores, they didn't work. The codes where no good. And T-Mobile customer no service refused to do jack because I wasn't in their system. They also took away first incoming minute free. Jerks. I was thrilled to walk away from those morons. To hell with them.

More prepaid issues? Normal for T-Mobile as far as I am concerned.

[Josh @ Jul 30th 2007 10:37PM]

I got the sidekick prepaid plan and i can talk for free but i cant use the internet service...

[steroo @ Jul 31st 2007 1:36PM]

@Patrick

Oh my God, tell your shrink next time instead. Really, how long have to carried the cross for all scorned prepaid bretheren. Mergers are always tough, and prepaid gets the the least attention because the revenue per user is less. I think you'd be surprised at the level of service T-Mo is at right now both with customer care and coverage. quit crapping on everyone else's cereal.

[Chris @ Jul 31st 2007 1:45PM]

i cant wait till they fix this crap....i got a sidekick from ebay...and was so anxious to get it...and than i got it ...and i havent been able to use it...i added 25 dollars to my account...and when i check my account balance it sees the money yet the sidekick keeps saying insufficient funds ...bla bla bla....making me very angry :-/ just want to be able to use my new sidekick :-/

[brian @ Aug 3rd 2007 8:30AM]

So, Yeah, August 3rd, My minutes, text messages, and downloads are all still free. This is a nice relief from the 100 bucks every 2 weeks I've been paying for minutes. Although I'm sure when I run out again I'll switch to the flexpay. So much better of a deal.

[Eddie @ Aug 4th 2007 12:27PM]

Ah damn it! I think they fixed it!

[brian @ Aug 5th 2007 9:43PM]

Mine are still free as of today.... LOL, still stuck at 16 minutes with free everything.

[cypruss @ Oct 6th 2007 1:02AM]

who knows of a website or place where you can get or generate the refil codes for minutes, for free?

[aloneboyz999 @ Dec 12th 2007 2:42AM]

who knows of a website or place where you can get or generate the refil codes for minutes, for free? e-mail me or let me know ok thanks. I would appreicate it a lot man.

[aloneboyz999 @ Dec 12th 2007 3:17AM]

who knows of a website or place where you can get or generate the refil codes for minutes, for free?
I would appreicate a lot thanks.

[aloneboyz999 @ Oct 13th 2007 1:56PM]

how do you get free mins on a prepaid t-mobile phone