T-Mobile clearly wants you to become a customer -- the company's "UnCarrier 5.0" move will get you an iPhone 5s to try out for a full seven days. At an event in Seattle today, the carrier introduced Test Drive, a service that will help customers avoid "buying blind," giving you an opportunity to experience LTE at home before you commit to making a purchase. The service launches this Sunday and lets you borrow Apple's latest handset for a week, at which point you'll need to return the device to any T-Mobile store, even if you plan on signing up and purchasing a device.
After you sign up on T-Mobile's website, the carrier will place a hold on your credit card in the amount of $700. Your loaner device (typically a refurb unit) will arrive with two-day shipping, and the clock starts ticking the moment you sign for the package. You'll have free unlimited access to talk, text and data within the US (T-Mobile doesn't want Test Drive to become an international loaner phone service, so this device is for domestic use only). A T-Mo rep will call you on day two to see how the test is going, and you'll get a few reminders as the big day draws near.
If you return the phone with a cracked screen, water damage or entirely non-functional, you'll be charged a $100 fee. The same penalty applies if you lose the iPhone -- if you simply keep the device (which you're absolutely not supposed to do), you'll be responsible for the full $700. It's available only once per household, so no, you can't simply sign up again each week and avoid paying for a phone altogether. T-Mobile isn't the first carrier to run such a program -- Verizon's own "test drive" ran from 2007 through 2009 -- but reps appear to be committed to the initiative, with Test Drive set to continue indefinitely.
Filed under: Cellphones, Apple, T-Mobile
Source: T-Mobile
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