UScellular & T-Mobile — Local services in Norfolk

tl;dr: Poor coverage outside of NE, spotty customer service

Studied in Ohio for four years and was all over the East coast, and I do not believe I had substantial 4G reception at all. Of course my phone said I had LTE, but it would usually take a few seconds or more to load a simple webpage, much less watch videos or stream music or do anything of value. Even big cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or NYC where you think it'd be easy to come by good internet, I was often stuck with a speed of 0.-something mbps. I spend a lot of time in South Dakota as well and I am often completely without data service altogether in the bigger towns like Aberdeen where you would expect something. Works fine in Nebraska, but wouldn't recommend if you travel.

As far as this specific location goes, I've had good experiences in the past and that largely doesn't affect the review, but they last one star for today. I had an old Galaxy S5mini I had with US Cellular I wanted to sell, and their website said I could take it in to a local store to have them unlock the phone. I came into their building and the two people at the desk immediately told me that it's impossible to unlock them, so I went back to my car to double check that I hadn't misread the website.

Found out I didn't, so I went back in and asked them why it says that on the website. The four employees were sitting around talking/playing on their phones, and the one at the desk rolled her eyes and asked the guy to answer my questions. He said he didn't know why but that they just couldn't do anything. They didn't try to look up if to confirm it or anything, they just said it's impossible and they all seemed very annoyed with me so I left. I went home and called tech support and with a simple search they said that all I needed to do to unlock the phone was to update the software. One bad experience among many good, but still...

Absolute garbage customer service. I walked in and stated the problem with my phone. The guys automatically starts trying to sell me a new phone. I asked if they could just fix my current phone and was told they don’t do repairs anymore. Leave and come back 10 minutes later after discussing options with my husband. Was told we would have to “wait just a moment” out in our car because of Covid. We had our baby with us, which they saw. Well that “moment” was an hour and fifteen minutes later - which we were never notified would be taking any longer. We went back in at the hour mark to see what was going on and sat in the office while they helped two other who had just walked in with “quick questions” and they just totally ignored us. One person came in wanting to deactivate their account the sales rep said “we no longer do that in the office.” So what do they do in the office? Literally only sell phones? That is AWFUL customer service.Literally when we left we got the text saying we could come in, but they couldn’t say anything to us while we were in person in the store? We headed over to Verizon to switch and I needed my US Cellular account number. Call US Cellular and they won’t give me the number over the phone. Uh what? So I drive back over there and I am now in the building for the third time and they ask for my ID a second time which I don’t have because it is with my husband over at Verizon. They proceed to refuse to give me service now because I don’t have my ID even though I have been in the building three times and already previously shown my ID. AWFUL customer service. Verizon was AMAZING and I strongly...

When entering the store, a employee with a big clipboard approaches and informs us only one family member can be in the store at a time. Even if we both have business to take care of. I proceed to check on a new plan they are offering. I am told my old plan is already cheaper (which it is not), the employee can’t do math. I pick out a new phone for my husband. But they don’t have any. Will order and have on Saturday. But wait, they might be phasing out the phone I want. They can’t tell me if the phone is being phased out or not, they can’t tell me what it will be replaced with. I could buy a new brand they are selling. They don’t know much about the new brand and that tells me to stay away from it. I am told to check back later to see what they have. What does later mean......next week next month next year??? I ask for a new screen cover for my phone, they don’t have any. Check back tomorrow. I don’t live in Norfolk. Don’t plan on driving back there tomorrow. I come home to call US Cellular on my phone and am told wait times are really long due to Corona Virus??? How does answering a phone call become slower because of a virus?? Sounds like an excuse for poor service I think. I have been a US Cellular customer since the days of the old bag phones. Might be time to look around to...