In the five years Joel Atyas spent disputing a $278 charge with T-Mobile, his credit score was impacted and a collection agency came after him. But after filing a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and telling Ars his story, T-Mobile has finally made nice with the former North Carolina-based customer. For now.

"The issue seems to be technically resolved in that the outstanding balance has been removed, and I have been assured that T-Mobile will undertake to repair the damage done to my credit rating," Atyas wrote in an e-mail to Ars.

"I would not say that I’m ‘satisfied,'" he said. "Relieved is a better word. Having to spend hours upon hours over five years to untangle a mess of T-Mobile’s making does not lead to positive satisfaction."

After Atyas e-mailed Ars with his story, we then contacted T-Mobile. Within days, the company had a customer service representative call him. As far as the telco is concerned, it’s been a job well done.

"Closing this out, it sounds like a positive resolution was reached, and that Joel is satisfied," Tolena Thorburn, a company spokeswoman, wrote Ars. "Thanks again for bringing this to our attention so that we could make it right!"

This T-Mobile episode marks yet another instance of large companies (lately, cable companies) behaving badly in recent months.

Still, here’s what happened.

One time charge, a few times

The story begins back in October 2009 , when Atyas was briefly a T-Mobile customer.

"After trying the service in my area for several months, I [eventually] switched to Verizon," he wrote.

"I brought both my own device and phone number with me to T-Mobile," he continued. "During the first of my two months of T-Mobile service, I was erroneously charged for both my own line as well as for phone line that didn't belong to me. This brought my total bill to more than double what it should have been. I initially paid the full balance before I caught the error. In addition to the billing error just mentioned, T-Mobile seemingly lost one of the payments I made via a credit card."

Atyas provided pages of his bills dating back to this period. Indeed, they show that he initially paid $78.44 on October 17, 2009. His own payment records show that later, he also paid $147.10 on October 25, 2009.

"I definitely paid more money than would have been appropriate, and then on top of that they lost the payment despite the credit card payment showing it deducted on my statement and then it went on from there, after I faxed them the statement," he told Ars in a phone interview.

His bill due November 20, 2009 shows that he paid this amount and received a credit, but then this extra charge did not go away. T-Mobile claimed that he owned $142.28 less a credit of $165.17—for a net balance of -$22.89—due by December 16, 2009.

That same monthly amount showed up again on his next two monthly bills, due January 16, 2010, and February 16, 2010. But then for his bill due March 16, 2010, it jumped to $165.73.

That bill in particular shows a "one time charge for insufficient funds" ($20), a "one time charge for POS chargeback" ($10.76), a "one time charge for temporary adjustment reversed" ($78.44), and finally a "returned check" fee for $20.

Next month, that rose further to $185.73 after a "one time charge" of $20 was imposed.

"Finally in July of 2010, I was told by T-Mobile that the errors had been fixed, and I took them at their word," he wrote. "I didn't receive any more bills so I assumed the matter was resolved."

That’s when he finally ended his service with T-Mobile.

A half-decade on

Nearly five years later, Atyas decided that he might be ready to try T-Mobile again.

As he e-mailed:

Jumping to the present, I decided to try T-Mobile's expanded service in my area. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of porting my current number (for what was really just a trial), so I requested a line (with a new phone number) with which to try the service. I was also keen to try the Nexus 6. After sampling the local cell coverage and trying out the Nexus 6, I decided that I would stick with my current mobile phone service and associated device. In the process of getting ready to return the Nexus 6, I left it to charge overnight. I found it the next morning the back cover bulging like it had been shot full of steroids. It seems likely that there was something wrong with the battery. I had kept the device in perfect condition so it was certainly not my handling of the phone that caused the issue.

Unsure what to do, he called T-Mobile’s customer service. After the call connected, he heard an automatic responder tell him that his account had been referred to for collections.

Apparently, T-Mobile had never actually fixed the billing errors and had instead sent the account to collections (and, I'm guessing, incrementally charging me late-payment fees.) This is despite being told back in July of 2010 that all had been resolved, and that there was no unpaid balance pending. Following that last call in 2010, I never received any communication from either T-Mobile or a debt collection agency alerting me to a supposedly outstanding balance.

Atyas eventually was able to talk to a supervisor from T-Mobile, who said that he could not do anything as the account was in collections. When Atyas called Optimum Outcomes, the collection agency, they told him to talk to T-Mobile.

At that point, without knowing what else to do, he filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and e-mailed Ars by mid-February 2015.

"I had no idea that this had happened, but I did notice that my credit had fallen a bit, but i just thought it was a random fluctuation," he said.

By the time Atyas contacted Ars, he had an outstanding bill of around $280.

(Probably) never going back again

When Ars contacted T-Mobile outlining his story, asking specific questions about the company policy and whether it challenged Atyas’ outline of events, we received a very generic response.

"Our CARE team works directly with customers on issues such as these," Tolena Thorburn, the T-Mobile spokeswoman, replied on February 19, 2015.

"They worked very quickly after you brought it to our attention, and my understanding is that the issue is fully resolved. I believe that Joel can and will update you on the resolution when he’s had an opportunity to talk with the T-Mobile team, who left messages yesterday for him."

"Accounts are assigned to collection agencies in an effort to collect debt. T-Mobile contacts customer to work towards a resolution and respond to the Federal Communications Commission with our position," she added.

So where is the case now?

Atyas says after Ars contacted T-Mobile, he spoke with a customer service representative named Tom Phoenix.

"Tom was very pleasant, and seemed to be very motivated to fix everything," he told Ars.

"If only one didn’t have to complain to the FCC to get quality (and timely) customer service," he continued. "As an aside, I feel pretty confident that my defective Nexus 6 was another billing fiasco in the making. Despite having the phone back since February 12, T-Mobile was continuing to bill me for it and showed no signs of issuing a refund. Tom had to do it manually (only after I specifically raised the issue)."

Phoenix also apparently removed the pending $278 balance, told Atyas that "each of the 3 credit collection agencies alerted undo any strikes against credit," and that finally, at the end of the call, "apologized for T-Mobile’s screw up five years ago."

In the end, Atyas went back to his Verizon service and probably won’t be trying T-Mobile again anytime soon.