People are very quick to complain about bad service, ill-mannered staff and poor company policies, but it's not often that they'll write about their equal and opposite counterparts.

This morning, I arrived at the end of a week-long interaction with T-Mobile, over an account that I thought I'd closed around a year ago. I use T-Mobile for their 3G data network because they also bundle their wi-fi hotspot access in free of charge, and for the majority of the time that I'm away from home or the office, I'm usually within walking distance of a Starbuck's or other T-Mobile hotspot. 

Before taking a data stick with them, I used just their hotspots with a 30-day contract, but with no clear way to upgrade from the hotspot account to a web'n'walk account, I phoned up to cancel the former just after setting up the latter. Job done, surely?

Little over a year later, it turns out that the account hadn't been cancelled, and that they'd been charging me for a year. Technically, this was because I hadn't called their account loyalty team, but I'd certainly think that if I'd called up to cancel my account, it'd be cancelled, right? That's another discussion for another time.

T-Mobile could have turned this into a long and protracted cat-and-mouse chase, invoked clauses of the contract I agreed to or made me cancel the contract with 30-days' notice but, instead, with no prompting and within 24 hours of my original request, they apologised, arranged for someone to give me a call to fully cancel my account, and also gave me a full refund of the last 12 months' charges.

In my mind, that's exactly how customer service should be.