T-Mobile class action lawsuit over broken lifetime price guarantee

A T-Mobile class action lawsuit has been filed by customers on plans with a lifetime price guarantee. The carrier broke that apparent promise by cancelling legacy plans, and switching them to a more expensive one.

The lawsuit relates to a number of plans sold with the promise that “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay” …

T-Mobile’s lifetime price guarantee

T-Mobile sold a total of seven different plans with a lifetime price guarantee:

• T-Mobile One Plan
• Simple Choice plan
• Magenta
• Magenta Max
• Magenta 55+
• Magenta Amplified
• Magenta Military Plan

For each of these, the company said this:

New Rule: Only YOU Should Have the Power to Change What You Pay – Introducing Un-contract […] 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.

Many customers signed up on the basis of that promise, unaware that the company’s small-print rendered it virtually worthless. All the company was actually promising was to allow them to cancel the contract if the price was ever increased, with T-Mobile covering the cost of their final month of service.

T-Mobile class action lawsuit

The carrier subsequently discontinued many of these plans, offering to switch customers to a new one, with price rises of up to $5 per line.

Wired reports that a class action lawsuit has now been filed on behalf of affected customers.

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.”

New language, same old small-print

While T-Mobile stopped using the term “lifetime price guarantee,” it switched instead to advertising something it called the “price lock guarantee.” This was essentially the same thing by a different name, with the same small-print.

BBB National Programs – which grew out of the Better Business Bureau – said this was misleading, and called on the carrier to stop advertising it. T-Mobile last month agreed to comply.

Image: T-Mobile and 9to5Mac