T-Mobile switches users to pricier plans and tells them it’s not a price hike::T-Mobile: “We are not raising the price… we are moving you to a newer plan.”
I’m on mint, and just waiting for T-Mobile to come after us. Nothing this beautiful can last.
T-Mobile switches users to pricier plans and tells them it’s not a price hike
Submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
darganon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 year ago
T-mobile: hello sir we are calling about your plan and a way you can save money
Me: that isn’t true
T-mobile: umm we can save you money by changing your plan
Me: that statement is false. No company in the history of humanity has spent money to tell their customers how to do less business with them. They are paying you to call me and you expect me to believe that they are paying you money so they can get less money from me in the future? Makes no sense.
nul9o9@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When I worked for ATT, I saw a customer with a legacy unlimited data account. This was after they brought back unlimited data after years of overcharging people for data “overages”.
I absolutely could not convince this person to change to the new plan that was a third of the price.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 year ago
They probably had true unlimited, not the 10gb then throttling “unlimited” that’s offered now. AT&T has like 3 different levels of unlimited plan…
LiveLM@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
To be fair, I would likely behave just like that customer of pure fear of losing a plan I like and never being able to get it back because it’s deprecated.
Buck@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My previous ISP once called me to tell me that i couldn’t reach the speed of my current plan from my house, and offered me to take a cheaper package without reducing my speed.
My current ISP sent me a mail at the beginning of this year informing me they were quadrupling my speed at no extra charge. And they did, I went from 50 up/down to 200.
LukeMedia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What ISP do you have? Is it a local ISP?
Kethal@lemmy.world 1 year ago
T-Mobile has lowered my prices while increasing my service in the past. The fact that they don’t dick me around is one of the reasons I’ve stayed. If they’re going to start this shit, then I’m going to leave.
LufyCZ@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My ISP lowered their (already very competitive) prices for no good reason, so some do exist
Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The reason is retention. For a company that sells a service where they pay a single overhead (like maintaining a structure) it always makes more sense to lose a little money and retain a customer if prices are going down elsewhere.
That is to say if your internet plan is $80 and they have intel that a local competitor has started selling a similar plan for $60, it makes more sense to spend 3 minutes talking to an existing customer about lowering their bill to $60 rather than let that customer discover a cheaper plan and switch to someone else. If they let that customer switch they lose the whole $80 whereas if they just lower that customer’s price they only lose $20.
ZeroPoke@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
My ISP has called me and offered me cheaper internet more then once for the same speed I was on. And one time it was faster and cheaper.
kromem@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s not entirely true. I recall a consulting client who had a customer program where redeemable points didn’t expire.
The thing was, this meant that inactive accounts with just a handful of points ended up costing a ton in accounting upkeep because they had to account for the possibility these years old accounts might suddenly redeem points.
So they rolled out a new program that was legit much better for the vast majority of active accounts to migrate people over.
Yes, it was still them doing something that was to save them money, but the new alternative was also better for the customer too. It was simply closing a loophole they’d not thought about when first designing it which didn’t benefit the customers, it simply led to procedural costs that skyrocketed.
So there are rarely cases where companies will spend money to do something in your interests. It’s just always going to also be in their own interests too.
piranhaphish@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You can tell that this is just a cash grab, as opposed to a technical or administrative motivation, by the mere fact that Simple/Select Choice plans will be migrated to Magenta, while Magenta plans will be migrated to Go5G. So Magenta isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Also, of course, by the fact that you can opt out of the “upgrade.”
I switched to T-Mobile a few years ago and, coming from AT&T, it had been hands-down a positive experience. More features, unlimited data, better customer service, better speeds, all for less than what I was paying AT&T. I even have a line or two that was added for free, no strings attached.
But then there were the many data breaches. And now this.
Looks like I came on board just in time to witness the enshitification
CO_Chewie@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
To be honest, I’m surprised they kept the ‘uncarrier’ image for so long. This was bound to happen, especially after the sprint merger was approved. I really feel T-Mobile pushed the big two to make changes to compete and now all I fear all three will go back to the old ways.
pdxfed@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What makes you so cynical as to assume with less competition oligopolies have more power? /s
Just like Microsoft’s announcement of the closure of the Activision deal trumpeting “more choice” for gamers. Literally just took away a competitor! Kroger’s purchase of Albertsons when we’ve all been dying in the US from grocery price gouging for the last 4 years.
Fuck the legislators, SEC and the courts for letting companies continuously destroy competition while mostly giving up things they wanted to anyway.
ButtDrugs@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They were awesome, but as it common at these compnaies when the CEO driving a lot of these changes left, they brought in some grey-hair bean counter who has been slowly rolling shitty-change onto shitty change. I really loved them when I switched form Verizon around ~2015 but I’m now starting to look at other optoins. Google Fi is currently the top of my list but we’ll see.
Buck@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Why do you not have laws against this kind of shit? There’s no way a company can do that to you here without explicit permission.
hawt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So dumb, they claim they are moving you to a new plan with more features. Here are the “features” of the new plan ONE Plus to Go5g: *$5 more per line x 5 lines = $25 more each month *Lose Kickback which I use on 2 lines = $20 more each month *10GB Hotspot instead of 5GB in Canada/Mexico, something I’ve used once since I’ve been on T-Mobile *720p HD streaming video, down from my 4K unlimited streaming passes
Fortunately, I was easily able to opt out thanks to the heads up from these posts.
Fisk400@feddit.nu 1 year ago
Literally pissing on the customer and telling them it’s raining.
Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
LiterallyFiguratively pissing on the customer and telling them it’s raining.FTFY
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No, they came to my house, lured me outside, and a T-Mobile representative pissed on me from my roof as I walked out.
Fisk400@feddit.nu 1 year ago
Nah I’m good. My general stance on people that correct that kind of language usage is that they are deeply uninteresting people that don’t need to participate in discussions
June@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There was a minute where TMo was the good guy in wireless.
Now, for me at least, Xfinity is the one to have.
Yawnder@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Anything that sounds like T Mo is evil. Case and point: Teemo
LSNLDN@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Got to love a good bit of a corporate gaslighting
prole@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
It’s called rent seeking. Just capitalism working as intended.
Numberone@startrek.website 1 year ago
I genuinely don’t understand why so many people go with the network brand. AFAIK all of the US networks have MVNO’s that operate on their networks at much lower cost. Some of those virtual operators are even owned by the big guys, e.g. Cricket on ATT. My coworkers pay literally hundreds of dollars more per month than is necessary, and what, they get a few Mbps faster data rates? Is that really worth it?
Ennon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In more populated areas it makes sense since Brand customers have prioritized traffic over MVNOs. So if you want any service at all, then…
raptir@lemdro.id 1 year ago
I have both T-Mobile and Visible on my phone and I’ve had to switch to Visible in more congested areas because T-Mobile will crawl.
zettajon@lemdro.id 1 year ago
I’ve never had any issues with the Tmobile prepaid plan in either NYC nor north NJ, although I’m not sure if the prepaid plans have the same lowered priority as Mint, for example.
Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Because those are way lower down the priority list when it comes to network congestion. If you are in a populated area your service will suffer.
krakenx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
T-Mobile bought Mint. Verizon bought Tracphone, which owns Straight Talk. There aren’t many independent MVNOs left. And the ones that are are being deprioritized to the point where the service basically doesn’t work when the tower is busy.
livedeified@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I hope this doesn’t translate to a higher cost for Google Fi in the future.
Molecular0079@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Problem with MVNOs is that they get swallowed up or go defunct. I don’t need my data transferring hands nor do I want to deal with switching cellphone plans. I just need it to work.
They also have terrible options for international data.
raptir@lemdro.id 1 year ago
I’ve stuck with T-Mobile largely for the international data (plus the grandfathered plan I have) but unless you travel intentionally every month it’s likely cheaper to just get an in-country eSIM plan to cover you for traveling.
scottywh@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My experience is similar to yours.
I’ve had Metro for years…
Before they existed there was a time when I had service directly through T-Mobile and before they became T-Mobile, Voicestream.
Metro is great… Super affordable and works as well as full fledged T-Mobile for me.
I think part of it for a lot of people is that MVNOs typically don’t offer financing on phones and they don’t always have the flagships available.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
T-Mobile is moving people to newer, more expensive plans starting with the November bill cycle unless customers call the company to opt out, according to multiple reports.
The forced migration surfaced on Reddit two days ago and was confirmed by The Mobile Report, which published portions of leaked documents indicating how the plan changes will be implemented.
T-Mobile also confirmed the change to CNET, telling the news site that “there will be an increase of approximately $10 per line with the migration.”
T-Mobile’s current plans range from $60 to $100 a month for a single line or $5 more if you don’t enroll in the AutoPay discount.
T-Mobile recently started requiring a debit card or linked bank account to get the AutoPay discount, which may be concerning to users because of the company’s history of data breaches and leaks.
T-Mobile was once a smaller wireless company fighting behemoths AT&T and Verizon but is now one of three major national carriers after acquiring Sprint in 2020.
The original article contains 838 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I seriously don’t understand why it’s legal for companies to just, tell you that you need to pay more for things. Aren’t cellphone plans a contract? How can one party change a contract without the consent of the other party?
elrik@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you are signing a contract authored exclusively by one party you can assume it is designed solely to expand and protect the rights of that one party to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. This can include their rights to modify the terms (usually with some form of notice).
Anything less would be a failing on the part of their attorneys. As a consumer you can agree to their terms or… take your business to a competitor who will offer similar terms.
If you want some specifics, here they are (emphasis mine):
CAN T-MOBILE CHANGE, SUSPEND OR TERMINATE MY SERVICES OR THIS AGREEMENT? Yes. Except as described below for Rate Plans with the price-lock guarantee (including the “Un-Contract Promise”), we may change, limit, suspend or terminate your Service or this Agreement at any time, including if you engage in any of the prohibited uses described in these T&Cs, no longer reside in a T-Mobile-owned network coverage area, or engage in harassing, threatening, abusive or offensive behavior. If your Service, Product, or account is limited, suspended, or terminated and then reinstated, you may be charged a reconnection fee. Your account may still accrue charges even if the Service is suspended. You are responsible for any charges that are incurred while your Service or account is suspended.
Under certain limited circumstances, we may also block your Device from working on our network. If the change to your Service, Product, or Rate Plan will have a material adverse effect on you, we will provide 14 days’ notice of the change. You’ll agree to any change by using your Service or Product after the effective date of the change. We may exclude certain types of calls, messages or sessions (e.g. conference and chat lines, broadcast, international, 900 or 976 calls, etc.), in our sole discretion, without further notice. For information about our unlocking policy, visit www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/consumer-info/policies/sim-unlock-policy.
8rhn6t6s@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Probably sneaked in during renewals.
Bongles@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I remember they had a plan for around $55 where they promised no price increases ever. So instead what they do is create a “new” plan periodically. I went up to “magenta Max” because I wanted some of the features and now they’re doing “Go 5G”. They try to advertise “upgrade every year” but they’ve BEEN doing that since the “jump” program when I first signed up for them years ago.
Basically they create a new plan with minor changes to the specific details and claim it’s not a price change. They hadn’t been automatically changing people until this though.
Drunemeton@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve been on Simple Choice for many, many years now. I get up to 14 lines @ $50/line, each one has unlimited data & talk, plus 50 GB/month tethering. (There are other options included but I don’t use them.
Apparently, last time I looked, Magenta is more expensive, had no extra lines, and tethering is an added cost. Plus those extra features are mostly an added cost as well.
I really hope that we can indeed “opt out” of being forcibly moved to a different plan!
prole@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Rent seeking bullshit.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 year ago
I saw what they did to my family members and immediately complained. I kept my old prepaid contract, which lets me use 1 MiB of data per day for free at no monthly cost due to what I assume is a billing system oversight. It works well with Opera Mini on a feature phone, the battery also lasts a week because I mostly use my smartphone for entertainment.
beetus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How could you keep data use below 1 MiB? That’s a significantly small amount of data in the modern era of anything Internet connected.
Were you mostly on wifi? You said you used your mobile primarily for entertainment, that usually takes data.
I believe you I’m just drawing a blank at how you were using your phone and its data plan!
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 year ago
Two phones:
- feature phone with GSM/2G (EDGE) only - no shutdown of this network on the horizon
- calls, texts (free among family due to shared plan unrelated to my data contract, otherwise $0.20/min, $0.10/text)
- basic internet use (Opera Mini, mostly without images), max 16 kiB/s
- looking up timetables (shortcuts, tactile keys and small form factor allow doing this while running for a train at full speed) (<30 kiB per lookup, <5 kiB if regional only on another website)
- built-in RSS feed reader for news and such (I used to also browse Reddit this way) (<10 kiB per feed)
- some webcomics for entertainment (xkcd, Oglaf) (cca 200 kiB per image)
- basic Google search (opening hours of shops etc.
- no email or similar services because Opera Mini backend handles plaintext passwords and they’re probably not well encrypted in transit
- the phone allows no automatic daily limit so I’d need to reset the counters daily, but it’s easier to just play it safe and watch how many kiB the loading bar shows
- there are no background apps that use 2G so it’s safe to just leave data on: even if my smartphone is rooted, managing data access would be too much of a nuisance
- alarm clock
- FM radio with an 8-year library of recorded songs in low quality (4-bit 16kHz) but make for a fun shuffle playlist
- a few downloaded videos reencoded to 320×240@15 from when I had no other phone
- Snake!
- long battery life, reliable
- Smartphone (rooted Samsung Galaxy J5 2017, Android 10) - no SIM card
- productivity: e-mail, notes, web browsing, train tickets, banking…
- offline mapy.cz maps including route finding
- Lemmy! (Eternity or Jerboa)
- NewPipe: download YouTube videos on Wi-Fi for listening on the go
- library of “high-quality” music (mostly YouTube rips)
- apps I need to use for some services (lunch orders, package tracking etc.)
- PDF reader: ebooks and documents
- F-Droid games
- feature phone with GSM/2G (EDGE) only - no shutdown of this network on the horizon
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They aren’t raising the price, they are just charging you more money. Your plan is being removed, so they can put you on a different plan that costs more. And, at least in my case, is actually inferior to my current plan. Fucking assholes are actually making me consider AT&T which I swore I’d never do.
Grass@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’m still on a no longer available plan with unlimited everything in can and us for less than what my friends are laying for literally nothing. I don’t have voicemail because I hate it and adding it would force me onto a shittier plan anyways last I checked.
mesamunefire@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Our bill went from 80 to 110. We are looking at the bigger networks…and it looks like it’s significantly less than what we are paying.
SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo 1 year ago
I’m paying $190 For 9 lines. I’ll be opting out if they try to swap me, at an additional $10 per line it’d be cheaper to do prepaid on Verizon through us mobile or visible. The other postpaid carriers prices are too high compared even to the more expensive plan T-Mobile would swap me to because my T-Mobile plan includes taxes and fees.
CO_Chewie@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
If you’re happy with coverage, check out Google Fi. Unlimited for $20 a line (for 4+ lines).
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 1 year ago
110 for what? And who has anything cheaper?
mesamunefire@lemmy.world 1 year ago
2 lines. Att has the same for 75 and that’s just att.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
They better not fuck with my plan. It’s bad enough I had to get the boot from Sprint.
Rentlar@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Make sure you call and opt out if you notice anything funny on your bill or account page.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
I had what was their “top tier” Magenta Max plan.
Now with the newer plans they made, if I want to do a phone trade in or upgrade I don’t get as good of a deal on Magenta Max. I only get the better deals if I’m on one of their new and even more expensive plans.
So right now they aren’t (yet) forcing a price increase or making me switch plans, but they did make any future phones obtained through them more expensive for me to get.
LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My wife and I were planning on switching this weekend from AT&T after nearly 20y but that’s not gonna happen.
zettajon@lemdro.id 1 year ago
Switch to their prepaid plans! My wife and I pay $15 each for 3.5GB each, and if one/both of you uses TikTok/Reels then the 6.5GB plan is $10 more. For us, can’t ever beat $30 and we get foreign SIMs when we travel.
Dremor@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Meanwhile in France I get 100GB at 5G speed and unlimited calls for the equivalent of $20. Mobile plans are expensive as fuck in North America 😅
LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s what we are thinking only concern we have is our neighbor who uses I think cricket who’s the prepaid AT&T equivalent says he isn’t having good luck with it. I’m not sure what would cause that and I’d hate to support some like T mobile by using a brand that contract through them. Verizon and US cellular are not options for our area due to service not being good.
sepiroth154@feddit.nl 1 year ago
I’m altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it further.
Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
No, no - that guy is (was, literally) the Verizon spokesman.
sepiroth154@feddit.nl 1 year ago
I did not know that, that is hillarious.