T-Mobile Forcibly Moving People On Older Plans To More Expensive Ones (cnet.com) 64
Long-time Slashdot reader Shakrai writes: T-Mobile, formerly known as the "Un-carrier", confirmed plans today to force customers on older/cheaper plans onto newer/more expensive ones. Astute observers of the cellular industry will surely recall the former CEO, John Legere, assuring customers that they would always be able to keep their existing plans and prices would never rise without their consent. They will also observe that this comes nearly three years to the day after T-Mobile merged with Sprint, with one of the conditions for that merger being they would not raise prices for three years. It's also worth noting that T-Mobile continues to buyback its shares, recently announced thousands of layoffs, and is now paying a dividend. T-Mobile tells CNET that users on its older plans will see "an increase of approximately $10 per line with the migration," starting with their November bill. Those who sign up for AutoPay can save $5 per line (on up to eight lines per account), the spokesperson noted.
"The company adds that those who don't want to have their plan changed will be able to reverse the move, but they'll need to call T-Mobile's Customer Care support line to make that happen," reports CNET. "The carrier is giving users a period of time to call in and reverse the forced switch, but how long that period will be is unknown at this point. It's also unknown whether customers who go back will be able to stay on their older plans for good or if a reversal simply buys a little more time before they're again compelled to switch."
"The company adds that those who don't want to have their plan changed will be able to reverse the move, but they'll need to call T-Mobile's Customer Care support line to make that happen," reports CNET. "The carrier is giving users a period of time to call in and reverse the forced switch, but how long that period will be is unknown at this point. It's also unknown whether customers who go back will be able to stay on their older plans for good or if a reversal simply buys a little more time before they're again compelled to switch."
Telephone companies are deprecated like webp (Score:1, Flamebait)
Garbage technology. Don't use it.
Not Sprint plans (Score:2, Interesting)
While TFS tries to make it sound like it's the legacy Sprint customers who are being migrated to more expensive rate plans, it's presently only original T-Mobile customers who have old T-Mobile plans who are being forcibly "upgraded" to a new rate plan. Not that this excuses what T-Mobile is doing or makes the situation any less shitty for the customers who will see their bill go up. T-Mobile definitely deserves any backlash they get from this, especially since they really have become less competitive fro
Re: (Score:3)
especially since they really have become less competitive from a pricing standpoint ever since gobbling up Sprint.
When Sprint bought Nextel, Sprint went through the same exact problem. Pricing was less competitive and their network went to shit. T-Mobile was first to 5G and had the fastest speeds. Then they took on all that post-nextel baggage and they are in the exact situation that Sprint was in. Whoever buys T-Mobile in the future will go through these exact same season of changes.
Re: (Score:2)
If T-Mobile is able to survive through a technology upgrade as it currently exists, most of those problems would be solved.
Re:Not Sprint plans (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit.
T-Mobile has been buying back stock and paying dividends, which can only happen if a company is profitable. Their net income for the last quarter was over $2 billion.
Oh no... the company is making billions every quarter. Won't someone think of the poor company and its "problems" with reduced competition.
The only people who are seeing "the same exact problem" are the consumers who are being screwed over yet again by industry consolidation that should have never been allowed to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
"net income for the last quarter ..."
Net income does not directly correlate to 'making billions every quarter', an error you should know better than to 'make'. Yes, huge income. Gauging profitability would require some more research. Not that TMO is impoverished, but the reality is that profits keep them in business. If that's a problem for you, even in degree, consider moving into the backwoods and living off the land. My advice, exploit the society you're leaving and buy extra boots.
Look, I'm a very long
Re:Not Sprint plans (Score:5, Interesting)
I wrote TFS and that was not my intent. If it reads that way I apologize. T-Mobile agreed not to raise prices for anyone for three years, not just assimilated Sprint customers, TMUS customers too. That was the point I was calling out, not implying this change was being aimed at folks on Sprint rate plans.
TMUS has gone downhill pretty fast since Legere's departure. I never had the view of him as some sort of savior, like many on the interwebs did, assuming he was somehow better than Verizon or AT&T. He was very clearly using "un-carrier" as a marketing ploy. I'm still shocked by how quickly they've fallen though.
I maintain active lines with both TMUS and Verizon, dual sim lifestyle, and I'm not seeing a lot of difference between them on the customer service side of the house these days. Both fought very hard to make that their differentiator in the oughts, now neither one cares, it has been sacrificed on the alter of the Next Quarter Wall Street God. On service quality it's a coin flip, I keep both because there are tons of locations around me where one or the other is better, or only one of the two works, particularly indoors.
What's really sad, all three (TMUS/Verizon/AT&T) say on earnings calls that they don't want a price war, one could say they're colluding to avoid that, except, they've removed all the perks that establish customer loyalty and have set up an incentive structure with port-in promos and promotional device credits that rewards churn. It's like the cable company, you only win with new customer pricing, except, they don't have a last mile monopoly like the cable company. The only lock-in they retain is Device Payment Plans and with Google/Samsung/Apple all offering their own 0% financing option, how long is that going to remain valid? Just buy your phone from your favorite OEM, port it to Carrier A, wait for the new customer promo/credits to expire, port to Carrier B, rinse and repeat.
Re: (Score:2)
Here are some cheap alternatives [pcmag.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The changes Legere made at T-Mobile are why I switched to them, I think they were the first major carrier to drop contracts and today nobody does them anymore. That shit was wild compared to now, "oh you want to switch plans 6 months in, that'll be $800"
I liked that he was a CEO that seemed to have an attitude of "hey, let's at least make an attempt at not treating our customers terribly" and that was progress for telecom companies.
Re: (Score:3)
TMUS has gone downhill pretty fast since Legere's departure. I never had the view of him as some sort of savior, like many on the interwebs did, assuming he was somehow better than Verizon or AT&T. He was very clearly using "un-carrier" as a marketing ploy. I'm still shocked by how quickly they've fallen though.
I don't think I saw him as a 'savior' sort of person, but he did seem to enjoy being disruptive. Was the "un-carrier" a marketing ploy? sure...but it was a marketing ploy with teeth. While AT&T and Verizon were doing the whole 1/2/5GB data tiers, T-Mobile had actually-unlimited plans available the others didn't. They've gotten worse about it now, but T-Mobile was the only company willing to ship phones with unlocked bootloaders, or unlock them at the customer's request. While T-Mobile Tuesdays has large
I'm just glad we let them merge with Sprint (Score:2)
Surprise! Mergers suck (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of shills convinced their MSFT stock will tank if people wise up about this crap. Who knows, maybe they are right.
Re:Surprise! Mergers suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Vigorous competition results in lower prices for consumers, greater innovation at a faster pace. Also a varied landscape for skilled employees. Lack of such meaningful competition benefits basically just the top management of whatever firm remains in the monopoly/duoply/triopoly(?). Plus the related investment banks, and maybe some shareholders.
As a society we can decide to agree which is preferable. I for one prefer the competition, but as is often the case the latter allows for more concentrated wealth which is more efficient when influencing the politicos.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Surprise! Mergers suck (Score:5, Interesting)
I would say that 'society' does decide on mergers in general by the laws we agree upon. For example, if the shareholders of all the US airlines decided to merge into one, monopoly, mega-airline, they could agree to do so. But the Sherman Act is a law that would prohibit such a merger. That is geared towards outright monopolies. The Sherman Act was in 1890..perhaps we can decide that there is a lower threshold than outright monopolies that we as a society would desire. Like no one firm should have XX% of a defined market. Not personally suggesting that idea, but point is we get to decide the rules. There isn't a 'natural law' of business.
Re: (Score:2)
Society doesn't agree upon laws either. Society ends up with government and the government does both, whether society likes it or not.
And you interpret "mergers" to mean "approve mergers" but not "force mergers" or the reverse of those. What if society wanted one mega-airline, does the Sherman Act force that merger?
Re: Surprise! Mergers suck (Score:2)
The government damned well can decide if a merger substantially impacts consumers in a negative way. Businesses are legal entities governed by laws made by people.
Re:Surprise! Mergers suck (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes competition lowers prices, sometimes competition raises prices. There's no universal rule.
Competition can lead to a price war of increasing prices when there's some real or imagined benefit associated with that price. Universities and the US health service are examples of where prices can go up.
In the case of universities, it's because their degrees are branded and the value of that brand is a direct function of the price they charge. The more they charge, the higher the value of the degree, so the more demand there is for it. The usual laws governing what the market will bear don't apply because it's a prestige item.
In the case of the US health service, the increased competition means there's reduced purchasing power per competitor so less leverage, so suppliers charge more, and that cost carries over. The overheads with the duplicated admin will also lead to higher costs. Which is why the US system is twice as expensive as single payer plans despite competition theoretically lowering the price. There are inefficiencies introduced due to the reduction in scale.
This is part of why economics is the Dismal Science - rules have exceptions and economists are terrible at handling exceptions. (The other reason is that the rules only apply when nobody is aware of them. As soon as you're aware of the rules, your behaviour changes and economics can't model or predict that change in behaviour.)
Re: (Score:3)
Ugh - I've been so happy... (Score:3)
I've been so happy with tmobile for so many years. I'm really bummed to hear this. It looks like there is a way to push back - at least for a bit.
I'm not looking forward to finding a new carrier.
Mobile X: Now I pay 1/3rd the price of T-Mobile (Score:4, Informative)
I recently ran into the "jerk off' plan change with T-Mobile. I needed Canadian coverage for a week on a 10 year plan. The agreement with T-Mobile was to just add that coverage and then return to the old plan. Guess What? That is not what they did. In fact, customer service lied about what they did. And when I called in, and got them to admit it, they refused to restore the original plan!.
So since my phone could also do Verizon 5G bands I moved to MobileX [mymobilex.com] (a Verizon MVNO) for 1/3rd the price of T-Mobile. Here is the pricing per every 30 days:
$2.00 network connect fee.
$4.50 Unlimited Talk & Text
$2.10 per GB of premium data (cost rounded to the nearest penny.)
Data that you do not use rolls over into the next billing cycle as long as you keep the account.
It is also great for low data use cellular IoT devices at $4.10 per 30 day cycle.
BTW, MobileX [mymobilex.com] does not give out referral credits, so I get nothing by mentioning them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the tip!
Re: (Score:2)
How many data breaches has T-mobile had now? Three that I can think of.
I think they need to raise prices just to better secure their infrastructure...
Re: (Score:2)
Inflation (Score:2)
>"that they would always be able to keep their existing plans and prices would never rise without their consent."
I don't think we can expect with this level of incredible inflation that ANY company can retain the same pricing as years ago. They would start losing too money pretty fast.
So far, I have been on the same plan for 9 years. I keep the old plan (despite other promotions and prompting) because I don't want so-called "unlimited data" which is not really true on ANY carrier with "normal/typical"
Re: (Score:3)
Probably should have thought about all those things before they made that promise, eh? I would fully expect lawsuits if this goes through. It's mind numbingly stupid from a PR standpoint. The traditional way to get people off old plans is to offer them good (or at least perceived to be good) promotional offers only available on new plans. That will attrit a large number off. Rinse and repeat with steadily better promotional offers until there are so few customers left on the old plan it's not worth wor
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Promising something and then reneging? We call that breach of contract."
I am not sure general, generic, public comments by a company would be considered a contract. I don't think I was presented with anything in writing from T-Mobile saying they would never raise prices or ever force a plan change. Nor was anything relayed to me, personally. I don't think it was part of the terms of service, either. As long as I am free to discontinue the service, that would be the remedy. T-Mobile's whole shtick
Re: (Score:3)
Found the corporate apologist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The lack of an outcry against the merger still shocks me. People in this country are just stupid. They'll blindly do whatever a corporation tells them to do.
Knew this was coming. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
We quit last year. No more good phone deals and we could feel this coming. My plan was literally 20 years old and they wouldn't give me an phone discounts. Now pay the same for twice the lines on Fi.
You have a 20 year old plan and believe you deserve perks as if youre a new customer paying current prices?
Re: (Score:2)
And, of course, 20 year old phone plans were much worse and more expensive than today. How old is the iPhone? 16 years old. This guy claims his plan is 4 years older than the iPhone. Sorry, he's just a bad liar.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So you were paying twice as much for your lines and that was OK, but the dealbreaker was that they wouldn't "give" you phone discounts? Sure.
$10 increase ... I pay £6 for my service (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in the UK, I use GiffGaff [giffgaff.com]. That £6 is SIM only (I own my 'phone), gives me as many calls & SMS as I can use and 2GB data (which I rarely use), so I am happy, contract is one month at a time. Want more data - they will give 100GB for £20. You guys are getting screwed!
Oh, and we need direct access to your bank account (Score:2)
In the first place I signed up for a promo discount, and never once did I get the advertised price. The first 3 months in a row I called and had to fight for them to apply the discount, which they finally did do, so now it's only about $27/mo more than advertised, due to asterisk-add-ons.
But there's nowhere to run. They're all the same or wo
Re: (Score:2)
I think I am going to switch to the MVNOs. Prepaid 20GB/month with Redpocket is $270/year.
Re: Oh, and we need direct access to your bank acc (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But there's nowhere to run. They're all the same or worse. And by "all" I mean the other two networks that exist.
If they're all the same price-wise, switch to the carrier with the best signal. When suddenly Verizon ends up with 80% of subscribers, T-Mobile and AT&T will realize that if they're not going to match the coverage area, they'll have to actually compete to keep customers.
Re: (Score:2)
maybe we shouldn't have let t-mobile buy sprint
Re: (Score:2)
maybe we shouldn't have let t-mobile buy sprint
We absolutely shouldn't have done that, and I don't know a single person who thought it was a good idea. But when you have a Republican in the White House, the FCC is Republican and the FTC is Republican, so both agencies try their absolute hardest to not regulate business properly. The result is easily predictable, and harms consumers.
Want to prevent similar problems in the future? Never allow another Republican to sit in the White House. Do what you want with Congress, but keep the executive branch bl
Pick Another Carrier Time? (Score:2)
Sounds like you will want to move from your old T-Mo plan to another carrier ... or else T-Mo could "accidently reveal" all of your innermost secrets to the public at large.
And past history has shown that T-Mo is horrible at maintaining the secrecy of it's customer data with all the data leaks attributed to T-Mo.
Hello... (Score:1)
T-Mobile: Sure. Just putting you through to our up-sales department where various reps will keep you on hold & waste hours of your time while trying to sell you even more expensive tariffs with features you'll never use, with confusing introductory offers that make them sound cheaper, & credit vouchers that you'll never be able to use on your tariff. Welcome to Customer Care hell.
Astute obsevers? (Score:2)
An astute observer would recognise that anything a former CEO says is irrelevant. A company's strategic direction is determined by it's current leadership.
Dick move yes, but those people hanging on the words of past leadership are living in completely devoid of the reality of how the world works.
Re: (Score:2)
You are completely devoid of knowledge about how contract law works. "You get to keep this price for life" was part of the sales pitch, and it's part of what customers agreed to.
Re: (Score:2)
You are completely devoid of knowledge of typical US service "contracts." They can be changed at any time, at the option of the company, and if you have any choice it's to either accept the new terms or find another provider, with at most a month's notice (sometimes only a few days).
I was a T-Mobile customer when I lived in the US (Score:2)
Hated them. Text messages were occasionally delayed by up to two days and coverage was spotty. You really need those to come through instantly. Suncom were the worst for SMS, though, huge delays were the norm.
Frankly, I'm not impressed by any cellphone operator at the moment. They're all working to give the least to the customer that they can possibly get away with, whilst charging the most they can afford to without losing customers. But, of course, that's the nature of all commercial enterprise. It's the
Re: I was a T-Mobile customer when I lived in the (Score:2)
T-mobile vs. good coverage (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I just want to know why T-Mobile has such awful coverage. There are areas where I can't get coverage after google-fi dropped US Cellular as one of their service providers. Now they just use T-mobile and it sucks.
The remarkable thing is that after they forced us to switch from Sprint SIM cards to T-Mobile SIM cards, coverage actually got noticeably *worse* and hasn't recovered a year later. The merger was supposed to result in everyone having better service, but it hasn't worked out that way, and I honestly don't understand how that's possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they invest the money to integrate sprint towers and spectrum? They got rid of a competitor. Half of slashdot ate it up like it was genius. I hardly saw anyone in general protest it. Now we're down to 3 carriers. Pure idiocy.
John Legere was a good guy (Score:5, Interesting)
John Legere was a good guy. For a tech CEO he was extremely approachable. I wanted to buy 2 new phones for my kids (their old ones were pretty beat up) The T-Mobile store I went to kept wanting to charge me a $25 "Sim Fee" to transfer the sim from the old phone to the new. I keep a sim popping tool on my keychain, and kept arguing with them I'm not letting them charge me $25 for something I could do myself. They would not relent, and I ended up getting new phones at best buy.
John keeps a pretty solid presence on facebook. When I told him what had happened he responded with, "This is not how we do business, I am so sorry" A week later I noticed the store was shuttered. A month later the store was reopened with new employees. John seemed to actually care that customers were treated fairly by his company. I don't even know who's running TMO now.
Re: John Legere was a good guy (Score:1)
Big carriers gonna die (Score:2)
Tmo managed to fight off Mint Mobile with a buyout, but that's not sustainable.
If Mint could afford to sell me a year of service for 180 bucks, so can the next guy. The days of 100$ mobile phone bills are over.
Merging (Score:2)
I remember all the idiots saying it was good for T-Mobile to buy Sprint, that they'd be able to compete better. Americans never cease to demonstrate their total subservience to their corporate overlords.