T-Mobile Walks Back Forced Plan Migration, Won't Make People Switch Plans After All

ZeroCool@feddit.ch to Technology@lemmy.world – 294 points –
T-Mobile Walks Back Forced Plan Migration, Won't Make People Switch Plans After All
cnet.com
40

"With the 'plenty of feedback' the company received following the leak, Sievert said that T-Mobile has learned that this 'particular test sell isn't something that our customers are going to love.'"

Who the fuck "loves" paying more for the same service? Why isn't that painfully obvious? How can I get a job making such braindead decisions for ridiculous amounts of money?

Service corporation strategy in 2023:

  1. Plan a change that's obviously bad for customers but good for profit

  2. Hope no one notices

  3. When people notice, try to spin it as a positive

  4. If 3 fails, determine if enough people would leave to care

  5. If you'll lose money, walk it back and act like you're acting in the interest of your customers by canceling the change that only the company wanted in the first place

4 and 5 are optional if you're actually a monopoly.

  1. Wait until the news cycle rolls over and implement a similar plan anyway.

Then I will just subscribe to a different news source that does report on T-Mobile

But didn't you hear? It's not a price increase! It's just a switch to a different plan that gives you the same service and incidentally happens to cost more. Totally different!

I mean to be fair the plan I would have been migrated to does include more, like Netflix. I just don't want those extras and it wouldn't be worth it regardless.

Go into PR. You just need to be fine having feces pouring out of your mouth 24/7 as you lie, then try to cover it up to minimize the damage, but because every company is doing it it's "normal" and a "critical business function".

Appalling.

A security guy popular in the internet, Ollam, recently left Delta's program because they are changing it to be more pay to play vs miles traveled or something. Delta walked it back but he's sticking to his guns. In his rant, he said something poignant. Something to the effect of "if your significant other raises their hand like they're gonna hit you, but they don't? The time to leave is now." (Video)

(Quote)

Is there any other carrier in the U.S. that's any better? Verizon and ATT don't seem any better

Honestly, probably resellers. I use a third party to buy t mobile phone service. Compared to me trying t mobile's home Internet direct, it's a lot better.

But those big three have nothing to do other than cost cut. It's not like they're competing or entering new markets or anything.

MVNOs like Ting or Fi are amazing.

Fi is a no-go for me because its a Google product but I'll look at Ting, thank you. Never heard of it before

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

video

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Deviant Ollam is such a great presenter. He lays out his case without raising his voice at any point.

He's one of my favorite DEFCON guys. Also Modern Rogue dudes and Red Team Alliance.

They also have changed the story at least three times I'm aware of.

I haven't paid close attention to this. What have the changes been?

They were moving people who are on a grandfathered plans to new ones without telling them and people were paying more. I'm not sure how that was legal to begin with. Lol

They were going to, but you could opt out of that move ... if you knew it was going to happen.

On top of that, some people were going to be moved off of "Plan A" onto "Plan B," while other people were going to be moved off of "Plan B" onto "Plan C." The whole thing about ending obsolete plans was hogwash. It was clearly "We want more money."

Oh no, not me. I'm a freak when it comes to my bills. They wouldn't be able to pull this bullshit on me. lol

They would have made it pretty easy to catch too. I get a text from them every month when they charge my auto pay, including the amount.

They were telling them, and giving them the opportunity to opt out (after dealing with a sales pitch).

Still crappy, but exaggerating doesn't help anything.

That's not what I heard/read. It didn't happen to me.

Did you get migrated? They started with a limited test that included outreach before migration and cancelled the plan to expand it after everyone was furious.

No, I didn't. I watch my bills closely. When I heard about this, I started watching my account even more closely waiting for them to do so I can strike. Looks like they stopped the whole thing before getting to me.

You can put pretty much anything you want into a contract.

That doesn't make it legal. This is bedrock established law. There are a million things one can write into a contract that are illegal terms and not legally binding. You can sign a contract saying you have to cut off your arm but that's not a legally binding contract.

Oh, I didn't say it was legal. That's just how they justify this stuff.

Very well said, thank you. There is a name for it. Where they hide their bullshit in a 284674947 pages EULA. Forgot what it is.

I was on their "best" most high end plan up to this past year when they created the go5g shit or whatever.

Now there's two plans a touch better but more expensive than magenta max. Now also, if you want a cheap 2 year phone or the most for trade ins you have to have one of those new plans.

With the newest phone plan, my kids phone was worth $600 for a trade in. But magically it's only worth $140 for a trade in on my current plan.

When we called Customer Service about this they pretended like they didn't know what we were talking about and wanted to know where we heard that information from.

I've worked adjacent to customer service people in a call center. Honestly, they might not have known. Call centers are frequently terrible about giving their reps news BEFORE customers start calling in about it. Plus, low level call center reps generally aren't exactly star employees and may or may not pay attention when told things.

I can second this. The company my company works for usually informs us about implementations AFTER theyve been implemented. If they even tell us at all.

Or shitty companies tell their employees to deny any claims made about the situation.

That is possible, though from my limited experience (2 call centers) companies won't tell Customer Service reps to deny knowledge of something that is public knowledge. They will have some sort of carefully constructed public statement instead. And most reps don't care enough to do anything besides repeat the statement, possibly verbatim.