T-Mobile's broken price lock promise officially has a class-action suit

Remember the good ol’ days of T-Mobile when firebrand CEO John Legere was at the helm? He was all about making the customers happy! Why, in 2017, Legere helped roll out an incredible new feature for carrier subscribers called Un-contract, which locked in a monthly price for T-Mobile subscribers forever. The original press release even said, “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay.” Surely, T-Mobile — the hip, cool, “uncarrier” — would never renege on that promise, right? Right?

Unfortunately, that fantasy bubble burst in May this year when T-Mobile announced it would, in fact, raise prices on those legacy T-Mobile plans featuring Un-contract. Although the price hike was fairly small — $2-$5 per line per month, depending on various circumstances — it still pissed off a lot of subscribers. Now, a group of those folks have banded together to file a class-action lawsuit against T-Mobile (via WIRED).

The lawsuit accuses T-Mobile of “wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct.” The plaintiffs are seeking “restitution of all amounts obtained by [T-Mobile] as a result of its violation,” plus interest. We’re not sure how much money this would actually be but, typically, suits like these hit the six-figure mark.

T-Mobile class-action suit: What’s happening?

Before filing this suit, the plaintiffs tried to complain to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the price increases. This only resulted in a form response from T-Mobile saying that it never promised not to raise prices — which, to be honest, is true.

You see, although T-Mobile’s “Un-contract” promotion sounds ironclad, the fine print gave the company an easy out. Essentially, T-Mobile wasn’t promising to never raise prices: it was promising you wouldn’t need to pay if it raised prices. By the Un-contract rules, any customers who saw prices raised on their Un-contract plans could immediately leave T-Mobile with no repercussions and their final bill paid by the company.

Since the FCC couldn’t help here, the plaintiffs’ only recourse was to file this lawsuit accusing T-Mobile of using deceptive advertising tactics related to the Un-contract promotion. In other words, the plaintiffs are arguing that most people would have assumed that the Un-contract feature meant they would never see a price increase, regardless of what the specific terms might have actually been. If they can prove that in court, T-Mobile will need to pay damages out to customers.

Of course, T-Mobile could settle the lawsuit so it never goes to court. We have reached out to T-Mobile to ask what its next steps might be, but we likely won’t hear back until after the weekend.

Regardless, this class-action suit is yet another blotch on T-Mobile’s reputation. Between these sneaky price increases, the overall increases in costs for new customers, the weakening of perks, and other changes the carrier has made over the past two years, many folks are losing faith in T-Mobile.