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Boost Mobile did this recently when my wife and I switched cell carriers. They advertised a $30/month/line plan (after a 3-month introductory period at an even

Boost Mobile did this recently when my wife and I switched cell carriers. They advertised a $30/month/line plan (after a 3-month introductory period at an even lower price), but we are now paying closer to $45. This has pissed me off enough that I want to look for another carrier, but this seems to be SOP for this industry. Telcos behave like nothing less than a criminal cartel, so I was hardly surprised by this play. Nice to know it has a name. Another comment here pointed out that the FTC is aware of this practice and has solicited comments from the public. Quoting from their linked article on `ftc.gov`: > FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz asked consumers to share their drip pricing stories with the FTC. Consumers can call us at 1-877-FTC-HELP. I gave them a call, and the first thing the automated system informed me is that one can file a complaint online: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

TuringNYC 4y ago
My favorite is when wireless carriers can charge a "Regulatory Recovery Fee", which is basically part of the price, but can magically change and magically appear on your bill. The fact that the FTC is fussed about free chat apps rather than wireless carrier practices in the US is obscene.
- myself248 4y ago
  You know it doesn't have to be one or the other, right? They can care about both?
  - claytonjy 4y ago
    They have limited resources, so caring about one they don't currently care about necessarily removes resources from something they currently care about.
  - TuringNYC 4y ago
    Regulatory recovery fees have been around for over 20yrs in the US. Sure, the FTC could tackle both, but they 20yrs have gone by, and you still cannot actually get the final price for a wireless contract in the US until after you sign up for a 2yr plan. Instead we're focusing on chat apps which were born in the past decade, require no 2yr plans, and for that matter, dont even cost money and have 50 free competitors. Great prioritization.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Along these lines - does anyone comprehend how the taxes and fees can vary month-to-month on your phone bill? For an unlimited plan, there's really no variation month-to-month. It should be the same freaking bill each month - yet it's always a few-to-a-dozen cents different each time.
  - kriskrunch 4y ago
    A Verizon rep told me it's because the taxes are per day, and the total is impacted by different number of days one month to the next. I haven't compared to verify.
    - TuringNYC 4y ago
      when you sign up, it isnt $7 vs $6.93...rather, it is shown as 0 (by not including it.) It doesnt even show up on the cost when you sign up. Suggesting this is a ACT/365 issue is really a slight of hand to ignore the bigger issue. Also, the calendar can be calculated for the entire year (or the next 100 years for that matter.) It makes no sense that you can sign a 2yr contract and be locked in yet they cant present a table of actual charges for each month for the next 2yrs when you're signing up. Mortgage paymnets also vary by days due to interest accruals, yet they have developed the "sophistication" (read: regulation) to create a chart of what each month's charge will be for the next 30yrs. Not to mention, you could also calculate the yearly regulatory fee and just amortize it on a 30/365 basis if you so desired. There are 10 ways to slice this cake, this isnt rocket science, this is straight up customer abuse and the FTC is just as guilty for ignoring it. Imagine any other industry that could get away with this. Imagine you sign up for a $13.99/mo Netflix plan and you mysteriously got charged an additional $3 or $5 "because we cant calculate days per month in advance, because reasons." Or imagine you buy a burger at McDonalds but get charged a different amount once you pay and commit to purchasing the burger "because we cant calculate in advance whether you get 30 fries or 33."
- flandish 4y ago
  It should be law that “recovery” fees, for a service as critical to infrastructure, be tax deductible as charity/donation. If Eversource fucked up and didnt have enough resource to deal with a storm, and the state paid with our taxes to bail out, how is that different than them charging us a line item for that same end goal?
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Please someone tell this to Entergy.
- kmoser 4y ago
  This reminds me of the old land line "touch tone fee" you'd pay for touch tone service, even long after nearly everybody had migrated away from the original pulse dialing. Not only did the phone company charge for it long after they really needed to, but you had no assurance the fee was really going to pay for that particular part of the service you were getting. This is one of the big problems with these add-on fees: they claim to be for one service, but there's nothing preventing the company from using the money for something else entirely.
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    I remember reading that early on in the telephone age, some people had leased their phones from the telephone company for $5 a month or so rather than buying one outright. They then proceeded to pay that lease fee for decades, ultimately paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more than the cost of the phone, and continuing to pay that fee even when replacement phones could be had for $10 or less.
ericmcer 4y ago
The same happens with my ISP. I just call customer service and tell them I want to cancel. They offer me a significantly better price for a year, I take the new price and after the year it goes up again and I call to cancel again.
- myself248 4y ago
  Yup, once a year like clockwork. Call the ISP, play a game of brinksmanship to avoid being taken to the cleaners. Meanwhile my conflict-averse friend is paying $94/mo for less bandwidth than I get for $25. It's psychological discrimination, is what it is.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    I am extremely envious, as my local/rural ISP has a monopoly in the area. I am paying $100/month for a 20Mbit DSL line, because there is no competitive pressure to upgrade.
    - kjksf 4y ago
      Starlink?
      - voakbasda 4y ago
        Too many trees that I can't just cut down. I tried them out when they first launched, and it wants a view of the North sky. If I could point it to the South (or even straight up), I would give it another try. However, I am no longer convinced that it would be worth the cost to upgrade. Too many people have reported overall degraded service in the face of rising subscriptions. Moreover, my DSL service includes static IPs, so I can't simply switch over.
        yencabulator 4y ago
        I'd even argue if you can get 20 Mbps DSL that you're happy with, you're probably not in the target audience for Starlink. I'm on Starlink and the alternative is more like a 2 Mbps DSL...
dcdc123 4y ago
T-Mobile plan prices are inclusive of all fees and taxes.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Multiple data breaches thrown in as well!
  - nulbyte 4y ago
    At this point, I wouldn't trust anyone who claims they haven't been breached.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I am very impressed that my Cricket bill is what they say it would be -- inclusive of taxes even. They say $25, $25 is what my card is actually charged, total! I almost couldn't believe it until it happened over and over again. So it's not actually industry-wide... and hopefully even serves as a differentiator?
- abawany 4y ago
  Most prepaid vendors afaik seem to offer a tax-included price - two examples are Visible and Mint.
  - HelixEndeavor 4y ago
    Why are prepaid carriers so much better then traditional ones, it seems? I've been on Metro for years, service is identical to T-Mobile at a fraction of the cost with no hidden fees.
    - vikingerik 4y ago
      Competition. You can switch to anyone else easily when it's prepaid with no contract durations getting in the way, so they have to behave well to keep your business. I've been on AT&T prepaid for years at 30/month with only sales tax on top of that.
    - abawany 4y ago
      They are not perfect though - roaming tends to not be available and they can get deprioritized more than the post-paid plans, sometimes painfully so; I was once outside an Ikea trying to notify them to bring out my order and the deprioritization was so bad that I had to walk into the store and use its wifi to notify them to bring out the order. Most prepaid companies are now owned by the primary carriers in the US afaict: Metro by T-Mobile, Visible etc. by Verizon, and Cricket by AT&T, for e.g.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      The weirdest thing is that Metro is literally 100% owned by T-Mobile. And Cricket by AT&T. Just different business models.
post_break 4y ago
Visible is $30 all in.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Not anymore. It's $45 for the actually-usable plan if you have a modern flagship smartphone. Gone is all the "party" pricing stuff that made them so popular in the first place.
  - post_break 4y ago
    How does the $30 plan not work with a modern phone? I'm curious because it looks the same as the $45 plan only it has prioritized data?
    - Alupis 4y ago
      The $30 plan is missing the real 5G data speeds. Your phone will say 5G, but your throughput will disagree.
QuarterReptile 4y ago
FWIW, TMobile seems not to do this.
AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
T-Mobile's pricing is quite straightforward (but more expensive than you state). $50/line for 2 lines, $10/watch for 2 watches, $5/line for international plan adds up to 130/month and I pay 130/month, nice round flat numbers for years now taxes/fees/etc are all rolled into the advertised price and not hidden after the fact.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I really appreciate T-mobile’s transparent pricing even if their coverage is more iffy. Not all carriers act the same.

TuringNYC 4y ago

My favorite is when wireless carriers can charge a "Regulatory Recovery Fee", which is basically part of the price, but can magically change and magically appear on your bill. The fact that the FTC is fussed about free chat apps rather than wireless carrier practices in the US is obscene.

myself248 4y ago
You know it doesn't have to be one or the other, right? They can care about both?
- claytonjy 4y ago
  They have limited resources, so caring about one they don't currently care about necessarily removes resources from something they currently care about.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  Regulatory recovery fees have been around for over 20yrs in the US. Sure, the FTC could tackle both, but they 20yrs have gone by, and you still cannot actually get the final price for a wireless contract in the US until after you sign up for a 2yr plan. Instead we're focusing on chat apps which were born in the past decade, require no 2yr plans, and for that matter, dont even cost money and have 50 free competitors. Great prioritization.
Alupis 4y ago
Along these lines - does anyone comprehend how the taxes and fees can vary month-to-month on your phone bill? For an unlimited plan, there's really no variation month-to-month. It should be the same freaking bill each month - yet it's always a few-to-a-dozen cents different each time.
- kriskrunch 4y ago
  A Verizon rep told me it's because the taxes are per day, and the total is impacted by different number of days one month to the next. I haven't compared to verify.
  - TuringNYC 4y ago
    when you sign up, it isnt $7 vs $6.93...rather, it is shown as 0 (by not including it.) It doesnt even show up on the cost when you sign up. Suggesting this is a ACT/365 issue is really a slight of hand to ignore the bigger issue. Also, the calendar can be calculated for the entire year (or the next 100 years for that matter.) It makes no sense that you can sign a 2yr contract and be locked in yet they cant present a table of actual charges for each month for the next 2yrs when you're signing up. Mortgage paymnets also vary by days due to interest accruals, yet they have developed the "sophistication" (read: regulation) to create a chart of what each month's charge will be for the next 30yrs. Not to mention, you could also calculate the yearly regulatory fee and just amortize it on a 30/365 basis if you so desired. There are 10 ways to slice this cake, this isnt rocket science, this is straight up customer abuse and the FTC is just as guilty for ignoring it. Imagine any other industry that could get away with this. Imagine you sign up for a $13.99/mo Netflix plan and you mysteriously got charged an additional $3 or $5 "because we cant calculate days per month in advance, because reasons." Or imagine you buy a burger at McDonalds but get charged a different amount once you pay and commit to purchasing the burger "because we cant calculate in advance whether you get 30 fries or 33."
flandish 4y ago
It should be law that “recovery” fees, for a service as critical to infrastructure, be tax deductible as charity/donation. If Eversource fucked up and didnt have enough resource to deal with a storm, and the state paid with our taxes to bail out, how is that different than them charging us a line item for that same end goal?
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Please someone tell this to Entergy.
kmoser 4y ago
This reminds me of the old land line "touch tone fee" you'd pay for touch tone service, even long after nearly everybody had migrated away from the original pulse dialing. Not only did the phone company charge for it long after they really needed to, but you had no assurance the fee was really going to pay for that particular part of the service you were getting. This is one of the big problems with these add-on fees: they claim to be for one service, but there's nothing preventing the company from using the money for something else entirely.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  I remember reading that early on in the telephone age, some people had leased their phones from the telephone company for $5 a month or so rather than buying one outright. They then proceeded to pay that lease fee for decades, ultimately paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more than the cost of the phone, and continuing to pay that fee even when replacement phones could be had for $10 or less.

ericmcer 4y ago

The same happens with my ISP. I just call customer service and tell them I want to cancel. They offer me a significantly better price for a year, I take the new price and after the year it goes up again and I call to cancel again.

myself248 4y ago
Yup, once a year like clockwork. Call the ISP, play a game of brinksmanship to avoid being taken to the cleaners. Meanwhile my conflict-averse friend is paying $94/mo for less bandwidth than I get for $25. It's psychological discrimination, is what it is.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  I am extremely envious, as my local/rural ISP has a monopoly in the area. I am paying $100/month for a 20Mbit DSL line, because there is no competitive pressure to upgrade.
  - kjksf 4y ago
    Starlink?
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      Too many trees that I can't just cut down. I tried them out when they first launched, and it wants a view of the North sky. If I could point it to the South (or even straight up), I would give it another try. However, I am no longer convinced that it would be worth the cost to upgrade. Too many people have reported overall degraded service in the face of rising subscriptions. Moreover, my DSL service includes static IPs, so I can't simply switch over.
      - yencabulator 4y ago
        I'd even argue if you can get 20 Mbps DSL that you're happy with, you're probably not in the target audience for Starlink. I'm on Starlink and the alternative is more like a 2 Mbps DSL...

dcdc123 4y ago

T-Mobile plan prices are inclusive of all fees and taxes.

mixmastamyk 4y ago
Multiple data breaches thrown in as well!
- nulbyte 4y ago
  At this point, I wouldn't trust anyone who claims they haven't been breached.

jrochkind1 4y ago

I am very impressed that my Cricket bill is what they say it would be -- inclusive of taxes even. They say $25, $25 is what my card is actually charged, total! I almost couldn't believe it until it happened over and over again. So it's not actually industry-wide... and hopefully even serves as a differentiator?

abawany 4y ago
Most prepaid vendors afaik seem to offer a tax-included price - two examples are Visible and Mint.
- HelixEndeavor 4y ago
  Why are prepaid carriers so much better then traditional ones, it seems? I've been on Metro for years, service is identical to T-Mobile at a fraction of the cost with no hidden fees.
  - vikingerik 4y ago
    Competition. You can switch to anyone else easily when it's prepaid with no contract durations getting in the way, so they have to behave well to keep your business. I've been on AT&T prepaid for years at 30/month with only sales tax on top of that.
  - abawany 4y ago
    They are not perfect though - roaming tends to not be available and they can get deprioritized more than the post-paid plans, sometimes painfully so; I was once outside an Ikea trying to notify them to bring out my order and the deprioritization was so bad that I had to walk into the store and use its wifi to notify them to bring out the order. Most prepaid companies are now owned by the primary carriers in the US afaict: Metro by T-Mobile, Visible etc. by Verizon, and Cricket by AT&T, for e.g.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    The weirdest thing is that Metro is literally 100% owned by T-Mobile. And Cricket by AT&T. Just different business models.

post_break 4y ago

Visible is $30 all in.

Alupis 4y ago
Not anymore. It's $45 for the actually-usable plan if you have a modern flagship smartphone. Gone is all the "party" pricing stuff that made them so popular in the first place.
- post_break 4y ago
  How does the $30 plan not work with a modern phone? I'm curious because it looks the same as the $45 plan only it has prioritized data?
  - Alupis 4y ago
    The $30 plan is missing the real 5G data speeds. Your phone will say 5G, but your throughput will disagree.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

FWIW, TMobile seems not to do this.

AdamJacobMuller 4y ago

T-Mobile's pricing is quite straightforward (but more expensive than you state). $50/line for 2 lines, $10/watch for 2 watches, $5/line for international plan adds up to 130/month and I pay 130/month, nice round flat numbers for years now taxes/fees/etc are all rolled into the advertised price and not hidden after the fact.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I really appreciate T-mobile’s transparent pricing even if their coverage is more iffy. Not all carriers act the same.