T-Mobile customers demand traditional paper bills (sorry, trees)
Filed under: Deutsche Telekom
T-Mobile's done a U-Turn. The cell-phone company has discovered that some of its customers want to keep paper records of their bills and other financial documents, and they don't want to pay a fee for that privilege.After announcing a plan to charge its 33 million customers $1.50 per month to get a paper copy of their bill in the mail, T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom (DT), was inundated with complaints and legal threats. To its credit, it quickly reversed its plan, the AP reported.
T-Mobile announced on its Web page that, upon reflection, it would not impose the fee "for now." The statement elaborated: "Instead, we'll be taking more time to determine the fairest way possible to encourage people to go paperless."
Was T-Mobile really trying to conserve our environment? New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wasn't buying it. "My office will not sit back and let a company change its prices under the guise of 'going green,'" Cuomo said in a statement.
And T-Mobile, Cuomo added, can't legally levy new fees without giving customers the option of bailing out of their contracts early. Stay tuned for T-Mobile's next "green" initiative.
D-Day for Harry Reid: Can he wrangle 60 votes for Senate health reform bill?
Fed stalls on Chinese bank deal, costs taxpayers $1.7 billion
Dell in a handbasket: Should founder Michael Dell resign?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-17-2009 @ 9:32PM
Dylan said...
Sam, this is a consumer victory; as you discuss, T-Mobile's backing-down comes in response to angry reactions from customers. For those who are tired of constantly being overcharged by cell companies via these kinds of surcharges and gimmicks, it's clear that there can be relief. And my question is: Why stop here after getting T-Mobile to play a little more fairly? I work for the consumer advocacy division of the company Validas, where we electronically audit and subsequently reduce the average cell bill by 22 percent through our website, http://www.fixmycellbill.com. Put simply, Validas guards against frivolous and unnecessary charges that inflate your cell bill more than it should be for your usage. You can find out for free if fixmycellbill.com can modify your plan to better suit your needs by going to the website.
For more info, check out Validas in the media, most recently on Fox News at http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/consumer/conlaw/lower_cell_phone_bills_072409 .
Good luck to everyone reading on cutting your wireless costs.
Dylan
Consumer Advocacy, fixmycellbill.com
Reply