T-Mobile

T-Mobile claims forced price hikes were merely a ‘small test’

Ben Schoon | Oct 19 2023 - 7:18 am PT

T-Mobile caused a panic over the past few weeks as customers heard of an upcoming forced migration to newer plans, which would have massively raised prices as well. Now, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert is claiming that these price hikes and migrations were only a “very small test.”

Earlier this month, panic erupted as a leaked internal document showed that T-Mobile had plans to forcibly migrate its customers from older plans to new plans, often at high expense to the end user. Customers were able to opt out of the process, though, but it still sparked massive confusion and worry over the cost of cellular plans.

As The Mobile Report shared today, an email from T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert tries to explain that the forced migration was only a “very small test” and that the situation has been overblown.

The email implies that the plan was for a small group of customers to be alerted that they were “eligible” for plan upgrade, with that wording used despite the fact that the upgrade still would have been forced if customers hadn’t opted out. Sievert also said that the test “actually hasn’t yet launched,” despite October 17 having been mentioned in the original leak. Whenever it does launch, Sievert says it will target customers who are on older plans, “some up to a decade old,” with the goal of bringing those customers to newer plans.

The email reads:

Last week, some internal training documents were leaked to a website that covers mobile industry updates. The media quickly picked up the information and ran with it, as they often do with leaks. Unfortunately, docs like this without more context – leave a lot of room for interpretation. In this case, it was largely inaccurate and caused a lot of confusion for our customers (rightfully so!).

I’m sure people are also asking many of you what’s going on. So, I wanted to offer a bit more background to help answer questions you may be getting.

First, the biggest piece of missing context was that the leaked materials related to a very small test, which is something that is normal course for our business. Tests like these help us design new programs, offers and promotions, and, probably most important, ensure we are getting the experience right for our customers. In this case, we hope our customers will be thrilled with the new benefits and services they will eventually receive, but we’ll look forward to learning from them along the way. And as always, we’ll make adjustments or shifts as needed over time.

I also want to make it clear that the test actually hasn’t yet launched. When it does, we would reach out to a small subset of customers who are on older rate plans (some up to a decade old) to let them know they have the opportunity to move from their existing plans to newer, better plans that will offer more features and more value relative to what they currently have. None of this has happened yet, but in the near future, eligible customers would get a text and/or email from us before anything changes with their account. All of them will be given the option to stay on their current plan or a similar plan if they choose.

Hope this helps clarify some of the questions you may be hearing. We continue to remain committed to being the Un-carrier, and that means delivering the best network, value and experiences every day for our customers. That hasn’t changed and never will.

Beyond this email, other communication with T-Mobile employees further enforces that no plans have been changed, with customer service representatives being informed that any customers “eligible” for a plan change will “receive a text and/or email notification from T-Mobile prior to any changes being made.”

Apparently, T-Mobile has said that only 1% of accounts would be impacted by any forced rate changes. However, with T-Mobile estimated to have over 100 million subscribers, that’s still a lot of affected customers.