Lawsuit: T-Mobile Must Pay For Breaking Lifetime Price Guarantee (arstechnica.com) 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Angry T-Mobile customers have filed a class action lawsuit over the carrier's decision to raise prices on plans that were advertised as having a lifetime price guarantee. "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," said the complaint (PDF) filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. "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."
The complaint, filed on July 12, has four named plaintiffs who live in New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They are seeking to represent a class of all US residents "who entered into a T-Mobile One Plan, Simple Choice plan, Magenta, Magenta Max, Magenta 55+, Magenta Amplified or Magenta Military Plan with T-Mobile which included a promised lifetime price guarantee but had their price increased without their consent and in violation of the promises made by T-Mobile and relied upon by Plaintiffs and the proposed class." The complaint seeks "restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation," plus interest. It also seeks statutory and punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent further "wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct." The report notes that the lawsuit centers around T-Mobile's broken "Un-contract" promise made in January 2017, which assured customers that their T-Mobile One plan prices would never increase unless they decided to change their plans. Despite the guarantee, T-Mobile included a significant caveat in a FAQ on its website, stating they would only cover the final month's bill if the price was raised and the customer decided to cancel. Many customers missed this caveat, leading to confusion and frustration when prices were later hiked.
The lawsuit also addresses the transition from the "Un-contract" to a new "Price Lock" guarantee, which initially offered more protection but was later weakened, causing further dissatisfaction. The FCC said it has received around 1,600 complaints regarding these price hikes by late June.
The complaint, filed on July 12, has four named plaintiffs who live in New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They are seeking to represent a class of all US residents "who entered into a T-Mobile One Plan, Simple Choice plan, Magenta, Magenta Max, Magenta 55+, Magenta Amplified or Magenta Military Plan with T-Mobile which included a promised lifetime price guarantee but had their price increased without their consent and in violation of the promises made by T-Mobile and relied upon by Plaintiffs and the proposed class." The complaint seeks "restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation," plus interest. It also seeks statutory and punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent further "wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct." The report notes that the lawsuit centers around T-Mobile's broken "Un-contract" promise made in January 2017, which assured customers that their T-Mobile One plan prices would never increase unless they decided to change their plans. Despite the guarantee, T-Mobile included a significant caveat in a FAQ on its website, stating they would only cover the final month's bill if the price was raised and the customer decided to cancel. Many customers missed this caveat, leading to confusion and frustration when prices were later hiked.
The lawsuit also addresses the transition from the "Un-contract" to a new "Price Lock" guarantee, which initially offered more protection but was later weakened, causing further dissatisfaction. The FCC said it has received around 1,600 complaints regarding these price hikes by late June.
Found a cheaper plan (Score:3)
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Sounds like a deal T-Mobile will jump at. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most class-action lawsuits, the results will be a small amount per subscriber in a one-time cost, and for that T-Mobile will have settled the lawsuit and will be able to continue with charging all those customers $5-10 more per month from then on.
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But the lawyers will get millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions.
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So, business as usual.
Re: Sounds like a deal T-Mobile will jump at. (Score:2)
Maybe. It wouldn't be crazy for the court to decide to impose a full refund though (as the plaintiffs are requesting). Now THAT would really hurt. Could easily run into $thousands per affected customer.
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It is unlikely, but it is certainly possible that the court could indeed impose an order fobiding the price increase and refund for the extras.
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You do realize that it's not worthwhile to pursue a lawsuit normally right? Because $5/month is $60/year. Are you going to sue over $60? Your filing fees and day in court are going to cost more.
Basically if no one sues, T-Mobile wins even more because they got
you will get an $10 uber eats gift card 1 time for (Score:4, Funny)
you will get an $10 uber eats gift card 1 time for it!
Mandatory Arbitration clause? (Score:2)
The courts have consistently upheld them
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Betting this suit gets tossed. (Score:2)
Re:Betting this suit gets tossed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on whether Justice Thomas gets that Indonesian cruise.
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Re: Betting this suit gets tossed. (Score:2)
Set your reply to address to the one you want to transition to. Most people will migrate on their own over the next couple years
A Few Things Are Always Guaranteed in Life (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Death/Taxes are a given.
2) Lawyers always get paid and in case of Class Action lawsuits, they take the lion's share.
3) Businesses will always like to their clients.
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The only thing to do (Score:2)
Dilute the shareholders (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Dilute the shareholders (Score:3)
I always thought class A shares should have to be issued to the plaintiffs. That way companies that regularly do bad things would whittle away their ownership to the people most likely to want the company to do right.
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I saw a great one floating around: Instead of judgments so small they're practically a rounding error in a company's operating expenses the public domain should simply seize partial ownership of the highest level parent company. Permanently. As soon as more than half of the company is in the public domain it gets shut down and split up.
Also the "idiot defense" should instead be a confession of gross negligence.
Re: Dilute the shareholders (Score:2)
Re: Dilute the shareholders (Score:2)
I Wionder (Score:2)
Class action lawsuits member and still no $$ (Score:2)
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Really? I have a friend in Chicago who has a free checking account. No minimum balances, etc. Of course, he got it from a small bank long ago, which was bought, which was bought, which was bought... but the current major bank still has to honor that.
Just like my free checking account with Wachovia, er, Washington Mutual (a "woo-hoo moment" is an ad for a bank? only one going down), sorry, Wells Farrago.