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T-Mobile giving the gift of forcing more expensive plans on its subscribers
- This month, T-Mobile forced upgrades will start to roll out to some subscribers.
- Folks with Magenta, One, Simple Choice, and other plans should be on the lookout for the automatic upgrade to a more expensive plan.
- You can opt-out of the upgrade, but only after it happens and only by communicating with customer support.
Events this year have significantly chipped away at the “Uncarrier” reputation of T-Mobile. The company has laid off thousands of employees (after committing not to do so when it merged with Sprint), introduced new plans that are slightly more expensive than current ones with very little extra value, and brushed off a few significant data leaks. One would hope the company would turn things around to end the year on a good note, but today’s news doesn’t fit that bill.
According to information posted to Reddit (h/t CNET), there will be T-Mobile forced upgrades for “a small portion of consumer and business accounts” coming as soon as next week. Essentially, T-Mo will automatically switch some accounts from older, cheaper plans to newer and more expensive ones. Gee, thanks, guys.
Here are the older plans and the newer plans they will become:
Current plan:
- Simple Choice / Select Choice
- Magenta
- Magenta 55+
- One
- Simple Choice Business
…will become:
- Magenta or Essentials Select
- Go5G
- Go5G 55+
- Go5G
- Business Unlimited Advanced
In all cases, the new plan will be more expensive than the older plan. There are also new features and perks offered, but you may not care about them or want them.
As mentioned, these T-Mobile forced upgrades will happen automatically. You cannot stop them. However, you’re not entirely powerless.
How to thwart these T-Mobile forced upgrades
You can’t prevent these upgrades from happening, but T-Mobile will allow you to revert back to your original plan. Note the order of events there: T-Mobile upgrades you from your current plan to a newer and more expensive one, and then you revert back to your original plan. You can’t skip the upgrade — you can only revert back after the fact.
To revert to your previous plan/pricing, you’ll need to contact customer support and ask to undo the upgrade. Obviously, the support representative will try to convince you not to do that, most likely by talking about how much better the new plan is.
T-Mobile is probably banking on the idea that only a small percentage of subscribers will actually call customer support. The majority will likely just accept the new plan and new pricing and move on. It’s a quick (and dirty) way to earn more subscriber cash with only a temporary influx of customer support calls to pay for it. T-Mobile’s investors will be happy, while subscribers won’t be.
This doesn’t scream “Uncarrier” to us.