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Older plans (pre-2022) should be under the "Un-Contract": https://www.t-mobile.com/news/press/uncontract-carrier-freed...

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.

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:

    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.

FTC complaint can be made here: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

> 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.)

[1] https://apps.adr.org/SimpleFile/faces/SimpleFile.jsf

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/media/71268

[3] https://www.usa.gov/state-consumer

> There is no option to opt-out as of $today's_date

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...

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 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.)

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.

That's why in Europe abusive and surprising (to an informed party) terms and condiations are invalid. Quite aome legal disputes around those so.

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.

Sure, but "end the contract" doesn't mean "upgrade to a higher paying plan without consent".

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.

> 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?

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.

> 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.

Can you share cases where TOS with consumers was struck down? Thanks very much.

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.

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.

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.

I'd be shocked if this wasn't planned out from the time they launched the plan.

Aren't the contracts now technically month-for-month, with the "contract" being the device payment agreement?

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".

T-Mobile also just changes plan details on the fly.

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

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.