Metro by T-Mobile review: unethical practices

Last weekend, my wife and I took advantage of a good deal offered by Metro and switched from our previous carrier and bought new phones too. We left the store feeling very good about the experience and our purchase. Unfortunately, we had no service anywhere in our neighborhood, which was located well within the coverage area shown on Metro's map. Metro even confirmed that service should have been available at our address, with the phones we bought. We called Metro's tech support, who walked us through a couple of phone fixes that did not, in fact, fix anything. So, we went back to the store the following day to work with a live person, who didn't even look at the phones and simply said he suspected a tower might be down. This was apparently not the case. And, finally, upon seeking a full refund on the 3rd day of this little adventure, we were unable to reclaim the "non-refundable" activation fees for the phones ($15/phone).

Strike 1: Metro's coverage map is wildly inaccurate. I suspect deception!
Strike 2: Metro's post-sale customer service was entirely inadequate!
Strike 3: Our 3-day "experiment" with Metro cost us $30 after refunds, plus incidental costs and significant inconvenience!

It's hard to know how much of this should be blamed on the parent company and how much should be blamed on the local store, which is presumably a franchise. It seems both have some responsibility.

We returned to our previous provider, who suddenly seemed like a pretty good deal after all. We won't go back to Metro.