- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
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.”
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I’m altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it further.
No, no - that guy is (was, literally) the Verizon spokesman.
I did not know that, that is hillarious.
I’m on mint, and just waiting for T-Mobile to come after us. Nothing this beautiful can last.
When did they buy Mint?
About a 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.
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 the announcement they would add a surcharge for credit card payment. And now this.
Looks like I came on board just in time to witness the enshitification
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.
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.
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.
Literally pissing on the customer and telling them it’s raining.
LiterallyFiguratively pissing on the customer and telling them it’s raining.FTFY
No, they came to my house, lured me outside, and a T-Mobile representative pissed on me from my roof as I walked out.
My bad then.
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
Got to love a good bit of a corporate gaslighting
It’s called rent seeking. Just capitalism working as intended.
There was a minute where TMo was the good guy in wireless.
Now, for me at least, Xfinity is the one to have.
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T-Mobile is still awesome. My 5G plan is $70 a month for phone and Apple Watch and I got a free year of MLB and MLS and a bunch of other stuff.
That’s not to defend this bullshit “opt-out” move but at this point it’s still a rumor and hasn’t happened yet. We’ll see how they play it out.
Fair enough.
It’s just that I pay $30/month per unlimited line that include UWB with Xfinity mobile, which runs on Verizon’s network.
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?
In more populated areas it makes sense since Brand customers have prioritized traffic over MVNOs. So if you want any service at all, then…
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.
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.
I have used StraightTalk a couple years ago with the T-Mobile SIM. In the countryside, I could barely do anything, whereas my friend on prepaid T-Mobile worked “as normal” as you’d expect. So their MVNO priorities are a bit of a gamble.
In SoCal it can get pretty bad, and I’ve been to Disneyland and other events (concerts/sports) where the phone simply doesn’t work at all. I’m on a Verizon MVNO right now that seems to be fine, but the AT&T and T-Mobile based ones both have issues around here.
Right I’m saying does the prepaid T-Mobile plan count as an MVNO? If it’s directly from them vs a separate company like Mint
No, it isn’t an MVNO, but I do think it gets lower priority than their premium plans.
This is correct, as many people have pointed out though, this is an urban issue. Priority data doesn’t really play into the world of rural users who don’t have enough people in town to congest their single tower
I didn’t have any issues with Metro when I lived in San Diego and Apple Valley back in 2015 through early 2016.
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.
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.
I hope this doesn’t translate to a higher cost for Google Fi in the future.
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.
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!
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?
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…
If you are on a price-lock guaranteed Rate Plan, we will not increase your monthly recurring Service charge (“Recurring Charge”) for the period that applies to your Rate Plan, or if no specific period applies, for as long as you continuously remain a customer in good standing on a qualifying Rate Plan. If you switch plans, the price-lock guarantee for your new Rate Plan will apply (if there is one). The price-lock guarantee is limited to your Recurring Charge and does not include, for example, add-on features, taxes, surcharges, fees, or charges for extra Features or Devices.
Probably sneaked in during renewals.
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.
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!
I saw what they did to my family members and immediately complained. They let me keep 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. The new contract would bill me $0.50 for every day I went online (capped at 150 MiB).
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!
Two phones:
- feature phone with GSM/2G (EDGE) only - no shutdown of this network on the horizon (Nokia 220 is my trusty old pal even if better (Symbian) phones are very cheap right now)
- 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.), even Google Images
- 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 estimate the sum of how many kiB the loading bar showed
- 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 on it 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 - gems like Citation Needed, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Bad Apple!!, The Llama Song
- 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
Awesome, thanks for the details. Bummer that your plan changed you really had it worked out :(
It didn’t. I complained on time and they let me keep my plan.
The prepaid plan has the following daily cost of data:
-
1st MiB free (oversight?)
-
pay CZK 0.25 ($0.01) per every 256 kiB after that
-
once you pay CZK 10 ($0.40) for 10 MiB, the next 90 MiB is free for the day
This is obviously a godsend to feature phone users, and every early mobile internet adopter would have taken this plan in 2003 when WAP websites were usually no more than 4 kB. A 1¢ or 2¢ overpayment if you somehow manage to go over is not too much, either.
The new plan:
- if you transfer any data, you pay CZK 12 ($0.50) straight away and can use 150 MiB that day
They touted it as an upgrade (150 MB/12 CZK is a better rate than 100/10) but it obviously isn’t, as many users will use less than the first MiB. But as opposed to in-your-face ads they ran for the original plan, this one was only mentioned in their monthly bulletin nobody subscribes to. To quote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”
“Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”
“But the plans were on display …”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”
There was no “we’ll upgrade your plan unless you opt out” prompt – people just started getting switched. I was lucky that my grandpa alerted me about his plan getting changed before mine was. I called the hotline and opted out just in time. The plan shows up as `` in my billing app but it still functions as normal. No new customers are admitted to the plan now so I really feel I dodged a bullet.
The service providers here cater to complaints so that they don’t escalate into an anti-trust lawsuit that could break up their cartel. They will bill you obscenely but keep you “happy” with cheap gift giveaways, good customer service and excellent coverage. There is no option on the market for cheap data even if you’re willing to give up some speed, reliability, free sunglasses or smiling customer reps.
-
- feature phone with GSM/2G (EDGE) only - no shutdown of this network on the horizon (Nokia 220 is my trusty old pal even if better (Symbian) phones are very cheap right now)
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.
I’m still on a no longer available plan with unlimited everything in can and us for less than what my friends are paying 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.
