from the I'm-not-dead-yet! dept

T-Mobile Users Flood FCC With Complaints About ‘Price Lock 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.

That 2017 promotion was pretty misleading; it promised T-Mobile contracted customers that they could “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.” But there was a big catch: 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.

So in addition to T-Mobile being sued, the FCC has been getting flooded with complaints about the dodgy promotion after T-Mobile’s recent price hike. More than 2000 annoyed customers have flooded the agency with complaints about how they’re very much alive, but their supposed cost savings isn’t:

“I am still alive and T-Mobile is increasing the price for service by $5 per line. How is this a lifetime price lock?” one customer in Connecticut asked the Federal Communications Commission in a complaint that we obtained through a public records request.

“I am not dead yet,” a customer in New York wrote bluntly, saying they had bought a plan with a “guarantee for life.”

Promising one thing and delivering another is, of course, a proud, longstanding telecom industry tradition (see: “unlimited data,” “up to” speed promises, or endless bullshit fees that jack up the cost of your bill).

The FCC declined to comment to Ars Technica as to whether it was actually conducting any sort of investigation into T-Mobile’s behavior. The FTC and FCC could both take action here; but whether anybody actually will remains an open question, especially given telecom and the current corrupt Supreme Court’s joint efforts to declare all corporate oversight effectively illegal.

Telecoms (and the Republican and right wing think tanks that routinely support them) very much want regulators that exist as the policy equivalent of a decorative gourd. Extensions of the government that occasionally put on a hollow performance on issues like privacy and consumer welfare, but never actually do anything about the cause of any of the problems, most notably the steady drumbeat of competition-eroding consolidation for which consumers and labor always pay the ultimate price.