T-Mobile Sued For ‘Lifetime’ Price Guarantee That Wasn’t
We’ve noted repeatedly that in the wake of the Sprint T-Mobile merger, wireless carriers immediately stopped trying to compete on price (exactly what deal critics had warned the Trump administration would happen when you reduce sector competition).
Recently, T-Mobile imposed another $3-$5 per month price hike on most of its plans — including customers who believed they were under a “price lock” guarantee thanks to a 7 year old promotion.
In 2017, T-Mobile unveiled a promotion proclaiming that T-Mobile contracted customers on their One plans customers “keep their price until THEY decide to change it” and that “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan.” Except like most of T-Mobile’s promises recently, customers quickly learned that wasn’t true.
T-Mobile raised rates on everybody, including users on plans that were supposedly locked in. Annoyed customers initially filed complaints with the FCC, and now they’ve filed suit. A fresh class action lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey says the company misled millions of wireless subscribers:
“Based upon T-Mobile’s representations that the rates offered with respect to certain plans were guaranteed to last for life or as long as the customer wanted to remain with that plan, each Plaintiff and the Class Members agreed to these plans for wireless cellphone service from T-Mobile. However, in May 2024, T-Mobile unilaterally did away with these legacy phone plans and switched Plaintiffs and the Class to more expensive plans without their consent.”
T-Mobile has since claimed that the original 2017 promotion had some notable fine print: namely that T-Mobile didn’t really mean that your price would never change, only that T-Mobile would pay your final monthly bill if the carrier raised the price and impacted customers decided to cancel. A since deleted FAQ supposedly made that clear, but the original announcement didn’t.
That’s still pretty obvious misrepresentation, but well within the norm for an industry that loves to abuse even basic dictionary definitions of words and phrases like “unlimited,” “cellular coverage,” or “customer service.”