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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.)
But contact law also strikes down contact provisions all the time.
Generally speaking, contracts between two parties who know what they're doing, with lawyers, are pretty iron-clad.
But TOS with consumers are not. Unreasonable/abusive TOS clauses are struck down quite frequently. Things like consumer protection laws supersede anything in a TOS.
And consumer protection laws are precisely the kind of thing meant to stop companies from playing bait-and-switch with consumers like this.
Absolutely agree re: abusive TOS clauses. My question is this: if you were on a panel evaluating whether it's more abusive to a) migrate customers to a plan that's $10 more or b) end their service because the vendor no longer offers that service, which would you vote for?
Note that consumer panels will have less ability to force a vendor to set prices or provide specific services, so there will not be the third option of c) force the vendor to continue providing the service at the contracted price.
Curious -- how do services raise prices? Is the presumption that a carrier has to give notice, then the user has to opt in or their service automatically terminates?
> in Europe abusive and surprising (to an informed party) terms and condiations
It can't be surprising to any informed party that prices change. Especially right now, it cannot be argued in good faith that a price increase was surprising to anyone.
Does the user have to opt in each time the service changes (for ex if 2G service gets dropped)? Who decides what changes require a user's approval?
In the EU they send a letter informing of price change and give you the right of cancellation except for rate rises in line with the retail price index or inflation which are included in the contract. Truly fixed price contracts are advertised as such, I have one for my broadband, can only be withdrawn by the vendor.
A lot of these older plans were marketed as no contract plans. That was tmobiles whole thing for a while. No more contracts. Obviously there still is via terms and such but it’s a pretty gray area I’m sure lawyers would be willing to argue in court. They also claimed prices would never go up (on your plan).
"No contract" in the telco world means no minimum length clauses (as opposed to something like a "12 month contract" plan, where you legally agree to stay on the plan for at least one year), it doesn't literally mean there isn't a contract.
Right but in the same way I can end the contract and walk away at any time, I would imagine it's totally kosher for T-Mobile to do the same. It's not like either party is locked in.
I mean I can change to a more or less expensive plan by giving the carrier notice, I assume its fair for the carrier to do the same to me no? If you want to guarantee a price plan, sign a term contract.
Feels like customers want to have their cake and eat it: lock the carrier in, but have no obligations of their own.
> Would you feel the same if the landlord of your month-to-month rental upgraded you to a more expensive house?
I mean, if they renovated my unit or even the common areas, and told me I could stay at a higher rent I'd think that was just fine. It happened to me at least once already, come to think of it.
But yeah, they raised the rent on people without term commitments effective immediately, and anyone on a term contract could keep their old rate until it expired.
Again if you don't like the risk of this changing out from under you, sign a term contract, right?
I'm not saying they raise the rent on your current place (which is perfectly fine), I'm saying they move/upgrade you to a more expensive address that you've never seen before.
I mean we know this but do you think the average consumer knows this? They’re still locking people in two two year plans by use of the whole “free phone” or “upgrade” offers.
If the user has changed phones (even keeping the same number) or has for instance begun using 5G (which wasn't available 5 years ago...tmo started rolling it out at the tail end of 2019), they're using a materially different product than they were originally contracted for, and have likely agreed to new terms. Not saying that isn't scammy or scummy, but just like you've changed the product you're using, they can change the product they're selling.
Notably "By contrast, the Un-contract is all give, no take. You can keep your existing Simple Choice plan and we won’t raise your rates. As part of this commitment, customers on existing Simple Choice promotional plans − like the Un-carrier’s ultra-popular 4 lines for $100 with up to 10 GB of 4G LTE data − can keep them for as long as they’re T-Mobile customers."
Seems like a shut-and-close case for a class action lawsuit. Whoever made the decision to push ahead with this seems to have missed some internal due diligence - or there's some tiny legal footnotes I'm missing.
T-Mobile forces customers into arbitration unless you've opted out. Probably straightforward to arbitrate based on terms, but I recommend filing an FCC complaint. Regulators light a fire.
T-Mobile is forcing me to upgrade my mobile plan even though I signed up with
their advertised Price-Lock https://www.t-mobile.com/support/account/price-
lock
There is no option to opt-out as of $today's_date. This is a violation of
my contract, and they are relying on the fact that most consumers do not have
enough knowledge/time to call in and argue with customer representatives for
hours. https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-will-migrate-
customers-higher-cost-plans
T-Mobile is also forcing customers who want to opt out and keep to their
current contracted plan to listen to an unsolicited sales pitch -- this may
violate telephone advertisement and spamming laws.
While the company claims that customers can opt out, multiple customers have.
reported that phone reps refuse to allow opt-out when they call, which is in
general disingenuous behaviors. I believe that the FCC should force T-Mobile
to provide this option through email or an online menu.
> T-Mobile forces customers into arbitration unless you've opted out. Probably straightforward to arbitrate based on terms, but I recommend filing an FCC complaint. Regulators light a fire
File an arbitration claim [1]. Complain to the FCC, and copy the FTC [2] as well as your state consumer affairs regulator [3]. (Ideally, send letters via mail.)
I wonder if this is part of their anticipated legal defense. Oh, you can opt out! No problem! The fact that 90% of customers won't know that fact isn't our fault...
Arbitration is turning into a horror movie for many of these large companies. They thought it was a way to cut the cost of consumer litigation and get disputes settled in an environment that tends to be more corporate friendly. But that only worked when there were just a few claims against the company at a time. Once they started engaging in behavior that caused larger numbers of customers to want to sue, the arbitration fees, which are paid by the corporation, started adding up rapidly and made the entire thing far less attractive than a class action lawsuit and whatever small number of customers that opt out of the class.
I will guess that a class action is off the table because they imposed a mandatory binding arbitration clause (yup, https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/legal/terms-and-cond...). And forced binding arbitration is legal because the Supreme Court seems to be owned by corporations and billionaires.
I suppose we could file complaints with the FTC and the FCC, but I suspect it will not help. After all, they probably got thousands of complaints about Comcast, but that didn't prevent Comcast from taking over the media world.
T-Mobile used to be one of the better ones. But it was probably inevitable that they would succumb to the enshittification process that is devouring the corporate world.
They promise not to increase the rate on your current plan and get around this by just changing the plan you're on vs increasing the rate of your current plan.
> Price Lock is our guarantee that we won’t raise the price of your qualifying rate plan for new accounts. You can rest assured that T-Mobile won’t raise the price of your regular monthly rate plan price for current unlimited talk, text, and data on our network on Go5G Plus, Go5G Next, Go5G, Base Essentials, Essential Savings, Essentials, Magenta, MAX, 55+, Military, First Responder, Unlimited and Lite Home Internet, and Business Unlimited plans as long as you’re a T-Mobile customer and keep your plan. And customers don’t have to do anything to get in on this – everyone who activates after April 28, 2022, with an eligible plan gets Price Lock.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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?
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.
I wish there was some other way. It’s all one huge monopoly and nowhere else to go. So people have no choice other than bending over and getting f’d.
Some say to go with MVNO but I haven’t found one that would check all the boxes for me.
The main networks tend to keep the “premium” features to 1st party customers and MVNO get either lower speed, less data or something.
I wish there was one MVNO that is 1. No BS, 2. Merges 2 or 3 major carriers under one. It could even be the same price..
> 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.
Many providers are on par with this in the US. Mint Mobile has 5gb and unlimited talk/text for $15/mo yearly. With PPP adjustment that might be slightly cheaper than your plan.
Now let's talk about how Germans are being abused with their gas prices.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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-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
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.
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.
> 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.
Do voice calls work (it is a "phone", after all)? Will my texts and emails get through with less than 5 minute latency? Will it jump to wifi when I'm at work or home? If so, that's fine.
I'm not trying to serve websites with my phone, I'm merely communicating.
And I have run out of energy for fighting an increasingly hostile service provider to bring my $130 bill (which used to be less than half that) back down to earth when it could be $15.
I went to Verizon (but they're not an MVNO), T-Mobile is cheap but Verizon is one of those legacy carriers that won't pull quick tricks on you. From time to time, Verizon will try to compete with T-Mobile and offer low priced tiers. Once you get into those, you can grandfather in and wait while the dust settles so you can decide who to move to for the next-generation network.
AT&T and Verizon had really sweet deals at the beggining of the year to pull alway some of TMO's customers but now that TMO raised their prices, ATT and VZW also unsweetened their plans.
TL;DR - T-Mobile grandfathers but you'll have to call T-Force every time to fight for it. AT&T & Verizon don't hassle their customers.
No idea where you're located, but my family has been on US Cellular for about 30 years. In Iowa, they've consistently had the best service available in rural areas.
Anecdote incoming so take it with a grain of salt.
Visible is great, but struggles with moving service between phones. I was told it would take at least a week to move from iPhone to iPhone (both eSIM!).
In my experience, US Mobile (not to be confused with US Cellular) is every bit as good as Visible, but has better customer support.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm pretty happy with Mint Mobile. They are a T-Mobile MVNO (and were acquired by T-Mobile earlier this year) but I don't usually feel like I'm sacrificing anything. I pay $35/mo for unlimited talk and text, and 15GB of data. I haven't run out of data yet even though I stream music while driving. eSIMs are fully supported. When I travel abroad I install a secondary eSIM via Airalo.
Occasionally I'll flip to a different MVNO because they usually have new-customer bargains. When I started on Mint I was paying $15/month for 3 months.
The thing about MVNOs is that they have practically zero customer support - but apparently even that's been slashed at full-fare postpaid providers, so maybe I'm not missing much. Verizon used to have legendary customer service, but apparently no longer.
The annoying thing about this is that it really depends on your location. I heard wonderful things about Mint so I tried it out a while back. It was awful. But I live in NYC and (my working theory is) data prioritization matters somewhere this dense. Mint traffic gets lower priority than T-Mobile proper so I was getting an awful experience.
But if you live elsewhere your experience might be totally different. If you live in a different NYC borough to me your experience might be totally different!
A lot of MVNOs offer eSIMs at least. An easy way to do a test drive.
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):
> 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.
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.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 202 ms ] threadAs an Italian the big carriers are infamous for unilaterally adding to the bill without any recourse
This shouldn't be legal?
Any excuse to allow the mergers will be found because of that.
In a word, it's plutocracy.
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.
---
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.
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?
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.)
Generally speaking, contracts between two parties who know what they're doing, with lawyers, are pretty iron-clad.
But TOS with consumers are not. Unreasonable/abusive TOS clauses are struck down quite frequently. Things like consumer protection laws supersede anything in a TOS.
And consumer protection laws are precisely the kind of thing meant to stop companies from playing bait-and-switch with consumers like this.
Note that consumer panels will have less ability to force a vendor to set prices or provide specific services, so there will not be the third option of c) force the vendor to continue providing the service at the contracted price.
> in Europe abusive and surprising (to an informed party) terms and condiations
It can't be surprising to any informed party that prices change. Especially right now, it cannot be argued in good faith that a price increase was surprising to anyone.
Does the user have to opt in each time the service changes (for ex if 2G service gets dropped)? Who decides what changes require a user's approval?
Feels like customers want to have their cake and eat it: lock the carrier in, but have no obligations of their own.
No.
Would you feel the same if the landlord of your month-to-month rental upgraded you to a more expensive house?
Sure they can increase the rent, and you can move somewhere else, but there is baseline a expectation that the house you rented will not change.
I mean, if they renovated my unit or even the common areas, and told me I could stay at a higher rent I'd think that was just fine. It happened to me at least once already, come to think of it.
But yeah, they raised the rent on people without term commitments effective immediately, and anyone on a term contract could keep their old rate until it expired.
Again if you don't like the risk of this changing out from under you, sign a term contract, right?
Notably "By contrast, the Un-contract is all give, no take. You can keep your existing Simple Choice plan and we won’t raise your rates. As part of this commitment, customers on existing Simple Choice promotional plans − like the Un-carrier’s ultra-popular 4 lines for $100 with up to 10 GB of 4G LTE data − can keep them for as long as they’re T-Mobile customers."
Seems like a shut-and-close case for a class action lawsuit. Whoever made the decision to push ahead with this seems to have missed some internal due diligence - or there's some tiny legal footnotes I'm missing.
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us
Go to Phone > Billing (or go directly from here) https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/3600012...
Phone Issues: Advertised Rate
Text box content:
FTC complaint can be made here: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/File an arbitration claim [1]. Complain to the FCC, and copy the FTC [2] as well as your state consumer affairs regulator [3]. (Ideally, send letters via mail.)
[1] https://apps.adr.org/SimpleFile/faces/SimpleFile.jsf
[2] https://www.ftc.gov/media/71268
[3] https://www.usa.gov/state-consumer
There actually is:
> Customers can opt out by contacting support after October 17th
https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/174uelk/megathread...
I wonder if this is part of their anticipated legal defense. Oh, you can opt out! No problem! The fact that 90% of customers won't know that fact isn't our fault...
I suppose we could file complaints with the FTC and the FCC, but I suspect it will not help. After all, they probably got thousands of complaints about Comcast, but that didn't prevent Comcast from taking over the media world.
T-Mobile used to be one of the better ones. But it was probably inevitable that they would succumb to the enshittification process that is devouring the corporate world.
As they themselves weasel out of it: they're not "raising prices", they're "moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost".
Eg, one day my account stopped being able to log in to Canada to use the Canadian data on my account.
Only changing plans fixed it
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/account/price-lock
> Price Lock is our guarantee that we won’t raise the price of your qualifying rate plan for new accounts. You can rest assured that T-Mobile won’t raise the price of your regular monthly rate plan price for current unlimited talk, text, and data on our network on Go5G Plus, Go5G Next, Go5G, Base Essentials, Essential Savings, Essentials, Magenta, MAX, 55+, Military, First Responder, Unlimited and Lite Home Internet, and Business Unlimited plans as long as you’re a T-Mobile customer and keep your plan. And customers don’t have to do anything to get in on this – everyone who activates after April 28, 2022, with an eligible plan gets Price Lock.
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.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...
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.
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.
They may play dumb so you may have to escalate.
Really disappointing as they used to be great years ago.
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?
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).
my brand being me
Some say to go with MVNO but I haven’t found one that would check all the boxes for me. The main networks tend to keep the “premium” features to 1st party customers and MVNO get either lower speed, less data or something.
I wish there was one MVNO that is 1. No BS, 2. Merges 2 or 3 major carriers under one. It could even be the same price..
> I pay 13 EUR/4 wks (yes, German mobile operators are a bit slippery, too) for 3 GB + unlimited domestic talk and text.
Many providers are on par with this in the US. Mint Mobile has 5gb and unlimited talk/text for $15/mo yearly. With PPP adjustment that might be slightly cheaper than your plan.
Now let's talk about how Germans are being abused with their gas prices.
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.
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_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.
Or will the mandatory arbitration will still hold?
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
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.
https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-to-acquire-m...
Mint uses the T-Mobile network but is one tier below T-mobile subscribers:
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.
I'm not trying to serve websites with my phone, I'm merely communicating.
And I have run out of energy for fighting an increasingly hostile service provider to bring my $130 bill (which used to be less than half that) back down to earth when it could be $15.
AT&T and Verizon had really sweet deals at the beggining of the year to pull alway some of TMO's customers but now that TMO raised their prices, ATT and VZW also unsweetened their plans.
TL;DR - T-Mobile grandfathers but you'll have to call T-Force every time to fight for it. AT&T & Verizon don't hassle their customers.
It’s better than promising free for life and then pulling the plug altogether on the service.
As a Verizon customer, we will have to agree to disagree on this.
Visible is great, but struggles with moving service between phones. I was told it would take at least a week to move from iPhone to iPhone (both eSIM!).
In my experience, US Mobile (not to be confused with US Cellular) is every bit as good as Visible, but has better customer support.
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.
Damn you Ryan Reynolds for selling out.
Occasionally I'll flip to a different MVNO because they usually have new-customer bargains. When I started on Mint I was paying $15/month for 3 months.
The thing about MVNOs is that they have practically zero customer support - but apparently even that's been slashed at full-fare postpaid providers, so maybe I'm not missing much. Verizon used to have legendary customer service, but apparently no longer.
But if you live elsewhere your experience might be totally different. If you live in a different NYC borough to me your experience might be totally different!
A lot of MVNOs offer eSIMs at least. An easy way to do a test drive.
Does anyone use the prepaid plans from Mint or Visible, etc? What are the downsides?
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
[1]: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect