T-Mobile Is Pushing Customers to More Expensive Plans, but You Can Opt Out

How-To Geek

By Andrew Heinzman

Published Oct 12, 2023

This only applies to customers on Simple Choice, Select Choice, One, Magenta, and Magenta 55 Plus plans.

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On October 17th, T-Mobile will begin notifying longtime customers of a forced mobile plan upgrade. If you're on the Simple Choice, Select Choice, One, Magenta, or Magenta 55 Plus plan, you'll be migrated to a more expensive package during the November billing cycle. Affected customers can opt out of this automatic upgrade by calling T-Mobile’s Customer Care support line.

News of the forced upgrade surfaced in a Reddit post on October 10th. The story was subsequently picked up by The Mobile Report, and T-Mobile later confirmed its authenticity in a conversation with CNET. According to T-Mobile, "there will be an increase of approximately $10 per line with the migration," though you can save $5 per line by setting up autopay. Automatic payments require a debit card or bank routing details. As CNET notes, customers who are worried about T-Mobile's excessive string of data leaks may want to stick with manual credit card payments.

T-Mobile did not reveal the upgrade paths for its customers. That said, the aforementioned Reddit post included a document with unconfirmed migration details. According to this document, customers on Simple Choice and Select Choice plans will be upgraded to Magenta or Essentials Select packages. Those who are on the Magenta or One plans will be switched to Go5G, and seniors with the Magenta 55+ discounted unlimited plan will transition to Go5G 55+. Again, these details have not been confirmed by T-Mobile.

There's a great irony to this story. All the affected plans were introduced in the mid-2010s during T-Mobile's "UnCarrier" campaign. At that time, T-Mobile promised that it would "put an end to price uncertainty" and criticized other carriers for using short-term promotions to lock down customers. In a 2015 blog post, former T-Mobile CEO John Legere went as far to say that "your price may go down—it won't go up."

The affected customers will be notified of the forced upgrade via text message and email on October 17th. They'll also be told that they can opt out by calling T-Mobile’s Customer Care line, and they'll have a month to make the call. But the ability to opt out isn't a generous gesture from T-Mobile. It's an excuse to draw more money from customers who aren't paying attention.

Source: Reddit via The Mobile Report, CNET