T-Mobile customers no longer feel that they are put first by company; many plan their exit

Once a very customer-friendly operation, T-Mobile could see an exodus of subscribers after the price hike

T-Mobile’s January 2017 press release seems to promise that certain plans will not see any price hikes

In one section of the release, T-Mobile wrote, “Today, T-Mobile introduced the Un-contract for T-Mobile ONE – and notched another industry first with the first-ever price guarantee on an unlimited 4G LTE plan. With the Un-contract, T-Mobile signs, and customers hold all the power. Now, T-Mobile ONE customers keep their price until THEY decide to change it. T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile ONE plan. When you sign up for T-Mobile ONE, only YOU have the power to change the price you pay.”

Schlatter says that he is contemplating his options and told me, “In my case, I’m weighing whether my unhappiness over this bait-and-switch is significant enough to change carriers. It’s not the money; it’s the principle. I’m sure the T-Mobile lawyers can weasel out of this, but I hope customers will inflict a lot of pain through complaints to the FCC, FTC, and state attorney generals.”

T-Mobile has made some moves over the last year that might be considered anti-customer

Even if Sievert’s stock sale was part of a plan filed back in November that automatically sells the shares, the fact that we have to question T-Mobile‘s motives at all is so unlike the experience that customers and even those of us in the media got used to during the Legere years. For so long T-Mobile has led the industry in net new postpaid phone subscribers every quarter. It will be interesting to see whether all of the moves that the carrier has made recently that could be considered “anti-customer” will affect its growth.