8 ms·

T-Mobile switches users to pricier plans

179 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

tomcam 3y ago
In my case, they make up for the higher prices by delivering inferior service. It was terrible and I am one city away from their HQ. It was so bad I broke my lease to return to AT&T—-and the joke’s on me. It’s worse.
Iulioh 3y ago
Well, at least they give thw opportunity to keep the old one , even with a minor hassle. As an Italian the big carriers are infamous for unilaterally adding to the bill without any recourse
laweijfmvo 3y ago
> "We are not raising the price of any of our plans; we are moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost." This shouldn't be legal?
- tyingq 3y ago
  I'm not sure they can even show "more benefits".
josh_carterPDX 3y ago
It is amazing to me that the government continues to allow these mergers when time and time again it shows that the consumer end up paying more, not less.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  Because when the company is talking to regulators, the conversation isn't about the benefits to the consumer, the conversation is how to word it so the consumer doesn't realize they're being fucked.
- yukkuri 3y ago
  It's because government is run by people from/with close ties to the businesses and take massive bribes that we quaintly call "campaign contributions" from them. Any excuse to allow the mergers will be found because of that. In a word, it's plutocracy.
  - r053bud 3y ago
    Exactly this. Our leaders are directly compensated for supporting monopolies.
  - josh_carterPDX 3y ago
    Absolutely. Didn't mean for my reply to make it seem like I was too naive to understand WHY it happens. Just amazed that it keeps happening and has happened for decades.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Next election you're going to be voting around one or two big potential issues like abortion or gun rights. As long as we keep focusing on these things the corporate class can buy whatever regulations they want.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
swatcoder 3y ago
Almost 25 years ago, Fucked Company did such a beautiful job of aggregating countless parallel stories as the dot-com bubble started to burst. It made it so easy to see what was going on in aggregate. There’s an opportunity for the same sort of thing now, but tracking all the desperate scrambling for revenue as the “we’ll make money after the next 10x users, promise” loses its ground as a business model.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  And when they started getting filtered out, they created a "luckedcompany" clone with a slightly different logo and string replaced any "fuck" into" luck" before presenting to the user.
  - toast0 3y ago
    I had thought lucked company was for positive announcements?
  - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    When PBS did a story on the site, they kept calling it something like "The Dot Com Deadpool" and would blur out "fucked" on the screen shots in the report. It was a source of sensible chuckles.
- jbm 3y ago
  Even the memes from then still apply. --- LOL @ priced out renters! It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy, now, will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 20-30% yearly price appreciation. Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent.
- rootsudo 3y ago
  Yep, and they have spin off boards from FC but they are all a shell of itself. It's interesting how it goes around again.
crazygringo 3y ago
How is this even remotely legal? I'm genuinely asking. They must have consulted with lawyers and believe it is legal. But even if their TOS say they reserve the right to change anyone's plan at any time... that seems like one of those clauses that judges always strike down. This is just flat-out providing a different service than you contracted for. This is like if I order a $200 SSD from Amazon and instead they ship me a $300 SSD and charge me $300, and there are no returns if I don't cancel the order before it's fulfilled. I don't understand how this is legal. So I genuinely want to know: 1) Is this actually legal? If so, why haven't laws been passed against this kind of corporate bait-and-switch behavior? 2) Is it illegal but just doesn't get enforced? If so, why not? 3) It is illegal, and there will probably be a class action suit, but T-Mobile has calculated they'll still make more profit including a settlement? In which case, why aren't settlements more punitive?
- runako 3y ago
  > I don't understand how this is legal. It's presumably laid out in the contract that their users sign. IANAL but I understand contract law gives wide latitude for parties to make agreements to do things which are generally legal. One could imagine a legal regime that prohibited price or service changes in otherwise-legal contracts. Of course, that also might not be ideal. For example: a vendor used by the provider suddenly changes the capabilities of a piece of equipment such that the original service sold by the provider can no longer be provided at any price. What everybody wants in that scenario is for you to be seamlessly moved to the closest reasonable alternative, not for your service to automatically terminate. Similarly, most people will gripe about a $10/mo change in price, but against the likely alternative of automatic cancellation, the increased fee is what _most_ people will prefer. And again, 100% of them will have agreed to this exception-handling clause when they signed up. > This is like if I order a $200 SSD from Amazon and instead they ship me a $300 SSD and charge me $300, and there are no returns if I don't cancel the order before it's fulfilled. There is a material difference in changing prices (say) 5 years after a contract was signed and ordering a specific item at a specific price a week or two earlier. IANAL but I believe the ordering of goods via the Internet is in fact covered by different laws in a way that services are not. Which again, makes some sense given that service contracts frequently have a term of "forever," during which time everything about the world can change. (Pretty sure my current phone contract was signed over 10 years ago. I'm glad they changed my plan to let me use LTE, for example.)
meepmorp 3y ago
What a great way to convince me to never consider T-Mobile!
- heroprotagonist 3y ago
  I hope you like the only competitor network. This partial monopoly is why they can do this. All of those 'virtual operators' are given deprioritized service but somehow still count as competition when their business is evaluated. Yet another instance of regulatory capture at work.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    AT&T is ruthless but Verizon lets a bunch of mvno operators on qci 8. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...
sn_master 3y ago
RoboForm auto-upgraded my "perpetual" license that I bought over 10 years ago and now it's in "read-only" mode (doesn't allow auto-fill or adding new passwords) unless I pay them a MONTHLY subscription AND it synced all my passwords to their server without my consent.
- hfuyf65 3y ago
  [dead]
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852456
slaw 3y ago
Before T-Mobile merge with Sprint, there were $25/month postpaid plans from both T-Mobile and Sprint.
rescbr 3y ago
In my country, as you can't just switch customer's plans at will, the telcos structured them as limited-time offers that have no commitment or penalties on top of a regulated base pricing which is like 2-4x the going rate. After a year the offer ends and you can keep your current plan at the expensive base rate or you can move to a new plan/offer to get the discounted market rate. That way they can justify increasing rates over inflation and changing contracts at will.
altairprime 3y ago
T-Mobile won't be prepared to process opt-outs until October 17th, so calling before then is unlikely to be an effective use of time. Consider waiting five days. Otherwise, the unprepared call center support representative will not know the magic code to bind your account with.
jvandonsel 3y ago
I blame Ryan Reynolds.
theogravity 3y ago
Opt-out instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread_forced_plan_migration_for_older_plans/k4jcf7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread... Edit: I called T-Mobile and they said they can't use the code until the 17th, and they'd send out a text message informing of the upcoming changes with the ability to opt out. Sounds really shady.
- post_break 3y ago
  They lied to you. I opted out yesterday.
  - theogravity 3y ago
    How did you ask them to do it?
    - post_break 3y ago
      I called and asked them to apply SOC code: grnoptout They may play dumb so you may have to escalate.
      - theogravity 3y ago
        Glad you managed to get it added on. I think I'll just switch to Google Fi if I have to start playing mind games.
  - justin66 3y ago
    Of course, the person you talked to may have lied to you and humored you to get you off the phone.
    - post_break 3y ago
      No I see it on my account. https://i.imgur.com/wWzlMfP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/wWzlMfP.jpg
MandieD 3y ago
I continue to be amazed at how much abuse my fellow Americans take from their telcos. I pay 13 EUR/4 wks (yes, German mobile operators are a bit slippery, too) for 3 GB + unlimited domestic talk and text. If I wanted to waste more time on my mobile, 20 GB would run around 30/4 wks. Of course, this is with a paid-for handset. I’ve never had a contract over here. What is the most economical, yet reliable way to receive (and occasionally send) SMSes on a US number while abroad, preferably with a way to transfer an existing US cell number in?
- tiltowait 3y ago
  It's especially surprising when you consider that cheaper plans exist, probably using the same network you're on, and that changing carriers can be extremely simple. I switched from T-Mobile 3 months ago (when they announced changes to the autopay discount) to Mint. My bill went from $60/mo to $180/yr (breaks down to $15/mo, and I think claiming something is $15/mo when it's actually $180/yr should be illegal, but that's an argument for another day). It's "only" a 5GB plan in comparison to whatever I had before, but my highest month so far has been 1.06GB. Transferring took 15 minutes. It's the same network. Sure, many people don't switch out of ignorance, but I know people for whom the reason is simply laziness (because I told them about the cheaper plans).
  - arjvik 3y ago
    I switched to Mint for a year and had serious issues with deprioritization. I would get “E” service in the middle of a busy city, forcing me to repeatedly reboot my phone. Perhaps it was just a Pixel 7 issue?
    - altairprime 3y ago
      Nope, Mint has a lesser priority on its network than the network operator’s own customers. It means that city is oversubscribed for available capacity and either that the carrier network isn’t being granted the necessary permits to build more capacity, and/or that the carrier network isn’t building sufficient capacity for MVNO demand.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tmobileiscrack 3y ago
Maybe every T-Mobile customer should switch to Mint Mobile or other low cost carriers en masse. They will lower their prices right after the mass exodus. However they are counting on the misleading practice that most people are busy and won't ask questions. Lot's of nonsense gets pushed like this.
- commoner 3y ago
  T-Mobile acquired Mint Mobile in March 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1163743380/t-mobile-buys-mint-mobile-ryan-reynolds https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1163743380/t-mobile-buys-mint... Even before the acquisition, Mint Mobile was just a T-Mobile MVNO. While Mint Mobile has less expensive plans than T-Mobile, and switching would reduce T-Mobile's profit margin, the quality of Mint Mobile's service is also lower: > Mint runs on T-Mobile networks so will get the same coverage except it does not get domestic roaming (on AT&T, Verizon, US Cellular, and other small regional carriers such as ACS/GCI in Alaska) that T-Mobile post-paid or pre-paid does. Mint is “deprioritized” (on QCI 7) meaning it will get slower speeds than most T-Mobile plans (that are on QCI 6). How much slower depends on the exact second how many people are on the same tower & band compared to the capacity of the tower/band, but with speeds usually between 20-90% of T-Mobile Magenta/Pre-Paid customers at the same time & location. https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mobile_faq_updated/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mob... The U.S. wireless carrier industry is in desperate need of more competition. Price increases (such as this one and T-Mobile's earlier removal of the autopay discount for credit card purchases) are exactly what happen when corporate consolidation (T-Mobile merging with Sprint) reduces the number of high-end carriers from 4 to 3.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nikolay 3y ago
I am tired of T-Mobile! Constantly getting breached and increasing prices while offering less! And being arrogant to call themselves "uncarrier." Yeah, you're not a carrier, but a scam!
adwi 3y ago
Final straw for me. Just called and canceled after 15+ years—shockingly, they were loath to actually provide the unlock code to port my number out. Switched to an MVNO on the same network that’s >50% cheaper.
- post_break 3y ago
  13 years here, what MVNO did you pick? I'm looking at visible and US cellular.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    9 years (and 2-3 lines) here, moving to Mint. Should have done this a long time ago...
    - ajcoll5 3y ago
      I've got bad news for you. https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-to-acquire-mint-and-ultra-mobile https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-to-acquire-m...
      - oluwie 3y ago
        I've been using Mint mobile for over a year and never had a problem with them, even during "peak" times. I expect the $30 a month I pay for unlimited everything is about to drastically change.
    - theogravity 3y ago
      Be aware of data prioritization with MVNOs. Mint uses the T-Mobile network but is one tier below T-mobile subscribers: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri... Lower QCI values are better. > QCI 6 is applied to all of T-Mobile's postpaid and prepaid plans (except for Essentials) and Google Fi which also has QCI 6 as well. This means if you want the absolute best from T-Mobile, you want to get a plan directly from them. Even their cheap $10 prepaid 1GB Connect plan has priority data. QCI 7 is applied to T-Mobile’s Essentials plan as well as all MVNOs (besides Google Fi) such as Mint, Metro By T-Mobile, US Mobile GSM LTE, and Tello.
thumbsup-_- 3y ago
They also send their previous customer's accounts in debt collection even if they have paid in full when closing the account. Happened with me. Got a debt collector's letter a few years later. I had the proof of payment but still ended up paying again to prevent damage to my credit. Later on found on reddit that they have done this with many people, some of whom didn't have means to pay again, so ended up taking a credit hit.
- elashri 3y ago
  I have a genuine question in that case. I am no longer a customer so will I be able to take them to small claim court and provide a proof of payment and collect my money again? Or will the mandatory arbitration will still hold?
- schemescape 3y ago
  Given the history of data breaches, my first thought is that this could have been a scam. For anyone else in this position (esp. if you’re fairly certain it’s not a scam), here is some info on what you can do: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/fake-abusive-debt-collectors https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/fake-abusive-debt-collecto... Edit: namely, this part: > your debt collection rights, including your right to get information about the original creditor if you ask for it within 30 days of getting validation information from the collector
post_break 3y ago
How to opt out, call customer service, ask them to apply SOC code: grnoptout to your account. If they don't know what that means ask for a manager to apply the SOC code.
jihadjihad 3y ago
Slightly OT: Has anybody had any luck with an MVNO, like Visible or Mint Mobile? I want to ditch Verizon because $98/mo for spouse and me to use 2GB between us both is just the height of insanity in 2023.
- ZekeSulastin 3y ago
  I’ve used Visible for a couple of years now and they’re fine - I’m currently on their lower tier plan and it works well enough. I do route my phone’s traffic through a Wireguard endpoint on my home network, though, which stops the usual video throttling. Try it for a month before porting if you can - in the end it is still an inexpensive mvno and customer service is one of the places they cut costs.
- delecti 3y ago
  I've been happily using Ting Mobile for about 8 years, and my bill is always under $45 for two lines, 2GB, 1000 SMS, and 100 minutes (it's lower when we use less). It seems that the plan I'm on isn't available for new customers, but it looks like the new plans might actually be even cheaper.
- xmddmx 3y ago
  Was happy with Ting mobile for years, spending about $30/month total for 2 lines. Had to leave Ting as they don't support eSIMs and recently moved to Consumer Cellular, which I'm quite happy with - about 4GB of data for 2 phones for $35/month total.
- pwg 3y ago
  Happy with Tello: https://tello.com/ https://tello.com/
- oluwie 3y ago
  Been using Mint Mobile for a year and love it. Have had absolutely 0 issues with them even during peak times. Switched from a T-Mobile paying $70 a month for unlimited everything to $30 a month with Mint for pretty much the same service. Damn you Ryan Reynolds for selling out.
- 3y ago
hammock 3y ago
Verizon just did this to us
HumblyTossed 3y ago
I'm on a grandfathered ATT plan. I'll bet you ATT is going to try this soon if TMo gets away with it. Does anyone use the prepaid plans from Mint or Visible, etc? What are the downsides?
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Mint users will be deprioritized if the network is congested, hasn’t been a problem for me but in some areas or during large events it could be
  - HumblyTossed 3y ago
    Is that all the time or only after they've used so much bandwidth?
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      All the time, if T-mobile’s network is busy the bandwidth is allocated to T-mobile customers instead of MVNOs
theogravity 3y ago
If you're on T-Mobile, you might want to consider Google Fi. According to this data prioritization guide, Google Fi gets the same quality of service as standard-tier T-Mobile plans (lower QCI values are better, and both are on QCI 6): https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri... > QCI 6 is applied to all of T-Mobile's postpaid and prepaid plans (except for Essentials) and Google Fi which also has QCI 6 as well. This means if you want the absolute best from T-Mobile, you want to get a plan directly from them. Even their cheap $10 prepaid 1GB Connect plan has priority data. Google Fi also gives you unlimited 5G / LTE data when roaming outside the US as well. For their unlimited plus plan, it looks to be on par with the T-Mobile magenta plan in terms of price. https://fi.google.com/about/plans https://fi.google.com/about/plans
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  Trusting something as important as my phone number to an organization as fickle as Google seems insane.
  - otachack 3y ago
    Agreed. Ten bucks says they'll sell off Fi within the next 10 years. See Google Domains sell off to Squarespace as a recent example.
    - hipsterstal1n 3y ago
      And there is no telling who'll buy it... probably a company like Comcast / Xfinity which is already universally hated.
    - hiatus 3y ago
      Why would they do that? Owning the connection between user and internet seems pertinent to Google's interests. Then, even a phone vendor like Apple can't block you from accessing core customer data like location, device id, etc.
  - 3y ago
genpfault 3y ago
Whew, nothing about the Connect[1] plans! [1]: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect
kornhole 3y ago
One of the best things I did to make myself somewhat immune to this stuff: 1. Decouple my phone number from my carrier by transferring my number to a low cost VOIP provider such as voip.ms, jmp.chat.. 2. Switch to a prepaid plan and pay for a whole year for a good deal. Pay as you go plans are also a good option. I pay less than $20 a month for a few phone numbers and 5GB data per month. It is also a more private solution since the carrier does not know who I am. I can switch providers with relatively low friction.
aceazzameen 3y ago
If I have to go through the trouble to opt-out of this, then I might as well go through the trouble of contacting and joining another carrier (Mint, Google Fi, Pulse, whatever). This nonsense helped me realize I'm already paying too much with T-Mobile.
otterley 3y ago
Meanwhile, in India: "After paying $12 for Reliance Jio’s new device, customers pay about $1.50 a month for unlimited voice calls and 14 gigabytes of data, a lower rate than services from rival carriers." (Source: https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/jio-bharat-phone-india-84db73d0 https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/jio-bharat-phone-india-...) Sigh.
dmazzoni 3y ago
This sucks. What sucks even more is that T-Mobile is STILL the least evil of the only three nationwide wireless carriers in the U.S.
joecool1029 3y ago
Yeah so I signed up for T-Mobile Home Internet back in May under the $35/mo for life offer so long as I enrolled in autopay. So I did and the autopay goalppsts were moved to only allow checking/debit cards which is not going to happen. Cancelled autopay out of spite and switched to paper bills. This one is probably in violation of some fraudulent advertising law. I say this because I also bought an Ooma Hub many years ago for my parents to replace their landline which was advertised as free for life. The company pretty quickly realized that things like 911 incur some fees so all future units included some $10-15/yr in fees, mine does not under the original agreement. This leads me to believe they did the math and figured $12 or so per year lost for a small % of customers is cheap insurance to avoid litigation costs for breaching the original agreement. The one I might litigate over is T-Mobile has a scam shield service, that's fine except my Google Voice number shows up under my mom's name whenever I call T-Mobile customers, she's never been associated with this number. I just want the record removed. The company that mines the information for this is called FirstOrion and is not complying with repeated deletion requests filled out here https://privacy.firstorion.com/ https://privacy.firstorion.com/

179 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

In my case, they make up for the higher prices by delivering inferior service. It was terrible and I am one city away from their HQ. It was so bad I broke my lease to return to AT&T—-and the joke’s on me. It’s worse.

Iulioh 3y ago

Well, at least they give thw opportunity to keep the old one , even with a minor hassle. As an Italian the big carriers are infamous for unilaterally adding to the bill without any recourse

laweijfmvo 3y ago

> "We are not raising the price of any of our plans; we are moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost." This shouldn't be legal?

tyingq 3y ago
I'm not sure they can even show "more benefits".

josh_carterPDX 3y ago

It is amazing to me that the government continues to allow these mergers when time and time again it shows that the consumer end up paying more, not less.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
Because when the company is talking to regulators, the conversation isn't about the benefits to the consumer, the conversation is how to word it so the consumer doesn't realize they're being fucked.
yukkuri 3y ago
It's because government is run by people from/with close ties to the businesses and take massive bribes that we quaintly call "campaign contributions" from them. Any excuse to allow the mergers will be found because of that. In a word, it's plutocracy.
- r053bud 3y ago
  Exactly this. Our leaders are directly compensated for supporting monopolies.
- josh_carterPDX 3y ago
  Absolutely. Didn't mean for my reply to make it seem like I was too naive to understand WHY it happens. Just amazed that it keeps happening and has happened for decades.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Next election you're going to be voting around one or two big potential issues like abortion or gun rights. As long as we keep focusing on these things the corporate class can buy whatever regulations they want.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

swatcoder 3y ago

Almost 25 years ago, Fucked Company did such a beautiful job of aggregating countless parallel stories as the dot-com bubble started to burst. It made it so easy to see what was going on in aggregate. There’s an opportunity for the same sort of thing now, but tracking all the desperate scrambling for revenue as the “we’ll make money after the next 10x users, promise” loses its ground as a business model.

Scoundreller 3y ago
And when they started getting filtered out, they created a "luckedcompany" clone with a slightly different logo and string replaced any "fuck" into" luck" before presenting to the user.
- toast0 3y ago
  I had thought lucked company was for positive announcements?
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  When PBS did a story on the site, they kept calling it something like "The Dot Com Deadpool" and would blur out "fucked" on the screen shots in the report. It was a source of sensible chuckles.
jbm 3y ago
Even the memes from then still apply. --- LOL @ priced out renters! It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy, now, will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 20-30% yearly price appreciation. Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent.
rootsudo 3y ago
Yep, and they have spin off boards from FC but they are all a shell of itself. It's interesting how it goes around again.

crazygringo 3y ago

How is this even remotely legal? I'm genuinely asking. They must have consulted with lawyers and believe it is legal. But even if their TOS say they reserve the right to change anyone's plan at any time... that seems like one of those clauses that judges always strike down. This is just flat-out providing a different service than you contracted for. This is like if I order a $200 SSD from Amazon and instead they ship me a $300 SSD and charge me $300, and there are no returns if I don't cancel the order before it's fulfilled. I don't understand how this is legal. So I genuinely want to know: 1) Is this actually legal? If so, why haven't laws been passed against this kind of corporate bait-and-switch behavior? 2) Is it illegal but just doesn't get enforced? If so, why not? 3) It is illegal, and there will probably be a class action suit, but T-Mobile has calculated they'll still make more profit including a settlement? In which case, why aren't settlements more punitive?

runako 3y ago
> I don't understand how this is legal. It's presumably laid out in the contract that their users sign. IANAL but I understand contract law gives wide latitude for parties to make agreements to do things which are generally legal. One could imagine a legal regime that prohibited price or service changes in otherwise-legal contracts. Of course, that also might not be ideal. For example: a vendor used by the provider suddenly changes the capabilities of a piece of equipment such that the original service sold by the provider can no longer be provided at any price. What everybody wants in that scenario is for you to be seamlessly moved to the closest reasonable alternative, not for your service to automatically terminate. Similarly, most people will gripe about a $10/mo change in price, but against the likely alternative of automatic cancellation, the increased fee is what _most_ people will prefer. And again, 100% of them will have agreed to this exception-handling clause when they signed up. > This is like if I order a $200 SSD from Amazon and instead they ship me a $300 SSD and charge me $300, and there are no returns if I don't cancel the order before it's fulfilled. There is a material difference in changing prices (say) 5 years after a contract was signed and ordering a specific item at a specific price a week or two earlier. IANAL but I believe the ordering of goods via the Internet is in fact covered by different laws in a way that services are not. Which again, makes some sense given that service contracts frequently have a term of "forever," during which time everything about the world can change. (Pretty sure my current phone contract was signed over 10 years ago. I'm glad they changed my plan to let me use LTE, for example.)

meepmorp 3y ago

What a great way to convince me to never consider T-Mobile!

heroprotagonist 3y ago
I hope you like the only competitor network. This partial monopoly is why they can do this. All of those 'virtual operators' are given deprioritized service but somehow still count as competition when their business is evaluated. Yet another instance of regulatory capture at work.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  AT&T is ruthless but Verizon lets a bunch of mvno operators on qci 8. https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...

sn_master 3y ago

RoboForm auto-upgraded my "perpetual" license that I bought over 10 years ago and now it's in "read-only" mode (doesn't allow auto-fill or adding new passwords) unless I pay them a MONTHLY subscription AND it synced all my passwords to their server without my consent.

hfuyf65 3y ago
[dead]

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37852456

slaw 3y ago

Before T-Mobile merge with Sprint, there were $25/month postpaid plans from both T-Mobile and Sprint.

rescbr 3y ago

In my country, as you can't just switch customer's plans at will, the telcos structured them as limited-time offers that have no commitment or penalties on top of a regulated base pricing which is like 2-4x the going rate. After a year the offer ends and you can keep your current plan at the expensive base rate or you can move to a new plan/offer to get the discounted market rate. That way they can justify increasing rates over inflation and changing contracts at will.

altairprime 3y ago

T-Mobile won't be prepared to process opt-outs until October 17th, so calling before then is unlikely to be an effective use of time. Consider waiting five days. Otherwise, the unprepared call center support representative will not know the magic code to bind your account with.

jvandonsel 3y ago

I blame Ryan Reynolds.

theogravity 3y ago

Opt-out instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread_forced_plan_migration_for_older_plans/k4jcf7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread... Edit: I called T-Mobile and they said they can't use the code until the 17th, and they'd send out a text message informing of the upcoming changes with the ability to opt out. Sounds really shady.

post_break 3y ago
They lied to you. I opted out yesterday.
- theogravity 3y ago
  How did you ask them to do it?
  - post_break 3y ago
    I called and asked them to apply SOC code: grnoptout They may play dumb so you may have to escalate.
    - theogravity 3y ago
      Glad you managed to get it added on. I think I'll just switch to Google Fi if I have to start playing mind games.
- justin66 3y ago
  Of course, the person you talked to may have lied to you and humored you to get you off the phone.
  - post_break 3y ago
    No I see it on my account. https://i.imgur.com/wWzlMfP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/wWzlMfP.jpg

MandieD 3y ago

I continue to be amazed at how much abuse my fellow Americans take from their telcos. I pay 13 EUR/4 wks (yes, German mobile operators are a bit slippery, too) for 3 GB + unlimited domestic talk and text. If I wanted to waste more time on my mobile, 20 GB would run around 30/4 wks. Of course, this is with a paid-for handset. I’ve never had a contract over here. What is the most economical, yet reliable way to receive (and occasionally send) SMSes on a US number while abroad, preferably with a way to transfer an existing US cell number in?

tiltowait 3y ago
It's especially surprising when you consider that cheaper plans exist, probably using the same network you're on, and that changing carriers can be extremely simple. I switched from T-Mobile 3 months ago (when they announced changes to the autopay discount) to Mint. My bill went from $60/mo to $180/yr (breaks down to $15/mo, and I think claiming something is $15/mo when it's actually $180/yr should be illegal, but that's an argument for another day). It's "only" a 5GB plan in comparison to whatever I had before, but my highest month so far has been 1.06GB. Transferring took 15 minutes. It's the same network. Sure, many people don't switch out of ignorance, but I know people for whom the reason is simply laziness (because I told them about the cheaper plans).
- arjvik 3y ago
  I switched to Mint for a year and had serious issues with deprioritization. I would get “E” service in the middle of a busy city, forcing me to repeatedly reboot my phone. Perhaps it was just a Pixel 7 issue?
  - altairprime 3y ago
    Nope, Mint has a lesser priority on its network than the network operator’s own customers. It means that city is oversubscribed for available capacity and either that the carrier network isn’t being granted the necessary permits to build more capacity, and/or that the carrier network isn’t building sufficient capacity for MVNO demand.

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tmobileiscrack 3y ago

Maybe every T-Mobile customer should switch to Mint Mobile or other low cost carriers en masse. They will lower their prices right after the mass exodus. However they are counting on the misleading practice that most people are busy and won't ask questions. Lot's of nonsense gets pushed like this.

commoner 3y ago
T-Mobile acquired Mint Mobile in March 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1163743380/t-mobile-buys-mint-mobile-ryan-reynolds https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1163743380/t-mobile-buys-mint... Even before the acquisition, Mint Mobile was just a T-Mobile MVNO. While Mint Mobile has less expensive plans than T-Mobile, and switching would reduce T-Mobile's profit margin, the quality of Mint Mobile's service is also lower: > Mint runs on T-Mobile networks so will get the same coverage except it does not get domestic roaming (on AT&T, Verizon, US Cellular, and other small regional carriers such as ACS/GCI in Alaska) that T-Mobile post-paid or pre-paid does. Mint is “deprioritized” (on QCI 7) meaning it will get slower speeds than most T-Mobile plans (that are on QCI 6). How much slower depends on the exact second how many people are on the same tower & band compared to the capacity of the tower/band, but with speeds usually between 20-90% of T-Mobile Magenta/Pre-Paid customers at the same time & location. https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mobile_faq_updated/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mob... The U.S. wireless carrier industry is in desperate need of more competition. Price increases (such as this one and T-Mobile's earlier removal of the autopay discount for credit card purchases) are exactly what happen when corporate consolidation (T-Mobile merging with Sprint) reduces the number of high-end carriers from 4 to 3.

deleted 3y ago

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nikolay 3y ago

I am tired of T-Mobile! Constantly getting breached and increasing prices while offering less! And being arrogant to call themselves "uncarrier." Yeah, you're not a carrier, but a scam!

adwi 3y ago

Final straw for me. Just called and canceled after 15+ years—shockingly, they were loath to actually provide the unlock code to port my number out. Switched to an MVNO on the same network that’s >50% cheaper.

post_break 3y ago
13 years here, what MVNO did you pick? I'm looking at visible and US cellular.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  9 years (and 2-3 lines) here, moving to Mint. Should have done this a long time ago...
  - ajcoll5 3y ago
    I've got bad news for you. https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-to-acquire-mint-and-ultra-mobile https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-to-acquire-m...
    - oluwie 3y ago
      I've been using Mint mobile for over a year and never had a problem with them, even during "peak" times. I expect the $30 a month I pay for unlimited everything is about to drastically change.
  - theogravity 3y ago
    Be aware of data prioritization with MVNOs. Mint uses the T-Mobile network but is one tier below T-mobile subscribers: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri... Lower QCI values are better. > QCI 6 is applied to all of T-Mobile's postpaid and prepaid plans (except for Essentials) and Google Fi which also has QCI 6 as well. This means if you want the absolute best from T-Mobile, you want to get a plan directly from them. Even their cheap $10 prepaid 1GB Connect plan has priority data. QCI 7 is applied to T-Mobile’s Essentials plan as well as all MVNOs (besides Google Fi) such as Mint, Metro By T-Mobile, US Mobile GSM LTE, and Tello.

thumbsup-_- 3y ago

They also send their previous customer's accounts in debt collection even if they have paid in full when closing the account. Happened with me. Got a debt collector's letter a few years later. I had the proof of payment but still ended up paying again to prevent damage to my credit. Later on found on reddit that they have done this with many people, some of whom didn't have means to pay again, so ended up taking a credit hit.

elashri 3y ago
I have a genuine question in that case. I am no longer a customer so will I be able to take them to small claim court and provide a proof of payment and collect my money again? Or will the mandatory arbitration will still hold?
schemescape 3y ago
Given the history of data breaches, my first thought is that this could have been a scam. For anyone else in this position (esp. if you’re fairly certain it’s not a scam), here is some info on what you can do: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/fake-abusive-debt-collectors https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/fake-abusive-debt-collecto... Edit: namely, this part: > your debt collection rights, including your right to get information about the original creditor if you ask for it within 30 days of getting validation information from the collector

post_break 3y ago

How to opt out, call customer service, ask them to apply SOC code: grnoptout to your account. If they don't know what that means ask for a manager to apply the SOC code.

jihadjihad 3y ago

Slightly OT: Has anybody had any luck with an MVNO, like Visible or Mint Mobile? I want to ditch Verizon because $98/mo for spouse and me to use 2GB between us both is just the height of insanity in 2023.

ZekeSulastin 3y ago
I’ve used Visible for a couple of years now and they’re fine - I’m currently on their lower tier plan and it works well enough. I do route my phone’s traffic through a Wireguard endpoint on my home network, though, which stops the usual video throttling. Try it for a month before porting if you can - in the end it is still an inexpensive mvno and customer service is one of the places they cut costs.
delecti 3y ago
I've been happily using Ting Mobile for about 8 years, and my bill is always under $45 for two lines, 2GB, 1000 SMS, and 100 minutes (it's lower when we use less). It seems that the plan I'm on isn't available for new customers, but it looks like the new plans might actually be even cheaper.
xmddmx 3y ago
Was happy with Ting mobile for years, spending about $30/month total for 2 lines. Had to leave Ting as they don't support eSIMs and recently moved to Consumer Cellular, which I'm quite happy with - about 4GB of data for 2 phones for $35/month total.
pwg 3y ago
Happy with Tello: https://tello.com/ https://tello.com/
oluwie 3y ago
Been using Mint Mobile for a year and love it. Have had absolutely 0 issues with them even during peak times. Switched from a T-Mobile paying $70 a month for unlimited everything to $30 a month with Mint for pretty much the same service. Damn you Ryan Reynolds for selling out.
3y ago

hammock 3y ago

Verizon just did this to us

HumblyTossed 3y ago

I'm on a grandfathered ATT plan. I'll bet you ATT is going to try this soon if TMo gets away with it. Does anyone use the prepaid plans from Mint or Visible, etc? What are the downsides?

wlesieutre 3y ago
Mint users will be deprioritized if the network is congested, hasn’t been a problem for me but in some areas or during large events it could be
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  Is that all the time or only after they've used so much bandwidth?
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    All the time, if T-mobile’s network is busy the bandwidth is allocated to T-mobile customers instead of MVNOs

theogravity 3y ago

If you're on T-Mobile, you might want to consider Google Fi. According to this data prioritization guide, Google Fi gets the same quality of service as standard-tier T-Mobile plans (lower QCI values are better, and both are on QCI 6): https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_prioritization_policies_of_the_carriers_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri... > QCI 6 is applied to all of T-Mobile's postpaid and prepaid plans (except for Essentials) and Google Fi which also has QCI 6 as well. This means if you want the absolute best from T-Mobile, you want to get a plan directly from them. Even their cheap $10 prepaid 1GB Connect plan has priority data. Google Fi also gives you unlimited 5G / LTE data when roaming outside the US as well. For their unlimited plus plan, it looks to be on par with the T-Mobile magenta plan in terms of price. https://fi.google.com/about/plans https://fi.google.com/about/plans

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
Trusting something as important as my phone number to an organization as fickle as Google seems insane.
- otachack 3y ago
  Agreed. Ten bucks says they'll sell off Fi within the next 10 years. See Google Domains sell off to Squarespace as a recent example.
  - hipsterstal1n 3y ago
    And there is no telling who'll buy it... probably a company like Comcast / Xfinity which is already universally hated.
  - hiatus 3y ago
    Why would they do that? Owning the connection between user and internet seems pertinent to Google's interests. Then, even a phone vendor like Apple can't block you from accessing core customer data like location, device id, etc.
- 3y ago

genpfault 3y ago

Whew, nothing about the Connect[1] plans! [1]: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect

kornhole 3y ago

One of the best things I did to make myself somewhat immune to this stuff: 1. Decouple my phone number from my carrier by transferring my number to a low cost VOIP provider such as voip.ms, jmp.chat.. 2. Switch to a prepaid plan and pay for a whole year for a good deal. Pay as you go plans are also a good option. I pay less than $20 a month for a few phone numbers and 5GB data per month. It is also a more private solution since the carrier does not know who I am. I can switch providers with relatively low friction.

aceazzameen 3y ago

If I have to go through the trouble to opt-out of this, then I might as well go through the trouble of contacting and joining another carrier (Mint, Google Fi, Pulse, whatever). This nonsense helped me realize I'm already paying too much with T-Mobile.

otterley 3y ago

Meanwhile, in India: "After paying $12 for Reliance Jio’s new device, customers pay about $1.50 a month for unlimited voice calls and 14 gigabytes of data, a lower rate than services from rival carriers." (Source: https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/jio-bharat-phone-india-84db73d0 https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/jio-bharat-phone-india-...) Sigh.

dmazzoni 3y ago

This sucks. What sucks even more is that T-Mobile is STILL the least evil of the only three nationwide wireless carriers in the U.S.

joecool1029 3y ago

Yeah so I signed up for T-Mobile Home Internet back in May under the $35/mo for life offer so long as I enrolled in autopay. So I did and the autopay goalppsts were moved to only allow checking/debit cards which is not going to happen. Cancelled autopay out of spite and switched to paper bills. This one is probably in violation of some fraudulent advertising law. I say this because I also bought an Ooma Hub many years ago for my parents to replace their landline which was advertised as free for life. The company pretty quickly realized that things like 911 incur some fees so all future units included some $10-15/yr in fees, mine does not under the original agreement. This leads me to believe they did the math and figured $12 or so per year lost for a small % of customers is cheap insurance to avoid litigation costs for breaching the original agreement. The one I might litigate over is T-Mobile has a scam shield service, that's fine except my Google Voice number shows up under my mom's name whenever I call T-Mobile customers, she's never been associated with this number. I just want the record removed. The company that mines the information for this is called FirstOrion and is not complying with repeated deletion requests filled out here https://privacy.firstorion.com/ https://privacy.firstorion.com/