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T-Mobile reverses position on paper billing fee
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T-Mobile USA is trying to get itself out of some hot water. After receiving complaints about the policy, the carrier has rescinded its decision to charge its subscribers $1.50 for a paper copy of their bill every month.
The carrier announced the move in a statement on its Web site.
"Since the announcement we've heard everything from kudos to concerns about the move to paperless--especially from our customers who today are receiving paper bills at no charge," the carrier said. "So, we've decided to not charge our customers a paper bill fee for now. Instead, we'll be taking more time to determine the fairest way possible to encourage people to go paperless."
Indeed, the issue was enough to spark legal concerns from the office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, which had issued a warning to T-Mobile over the fee. "My office will not sit back and let a company change its prices under the guise of 'going green,'" Cuomo said in a statement.
T-Mobile will continue to charge a fee of $3.49 if customers want a detailed paper bill. The other Tier 1 carriers also charge subscribers for detailed paper bills.
For more:
- see this AP article
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous | September 17, 2009 - 2:42pm
How about a $1.50 discount for using e-billing. Morons... you can't charge for something you didn't before, that's breaking the contract, but you can discount for going paperless... give ME a reason to not get the paper mailing...
Posted by Dylan | September 17, 2009 - 8:27pm
Phil, 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
Posted by Jillian | September 21, 2009 - 10:35am
A lot of companies have tried offering a discount for turning off paper bills with limited response from customers. The only thing to really motivate people to change here is to hit them where it hurts. Meanwhile, paperless billing jumped up to 33,000 from 1,000 when they announced this. Once people have paperless billing, some may go back to paper now that it is still free, but likely most people who are using the internet to pay their bills will not rush to switch again.
Posted by MikeM | September 22, 2009 - 4:11pm
It's a bit of a cheek to start charging for this. So they scared 32000 more customers into saving THEM money. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for paperless billing. In fact I use Straight Talk unlimited prepaid and don't even get a bill. But I would definitely have a problem with this kind of coercion tactics if I was a T-Mo customer. But then, it's the kind of thing we always see with contract carriers and exactly the reason I will only use prepaid services.
Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2009 - 7:37pm
I just went back to "paper-full" billing -- I've been on T-Mobile's "paperless" billing for three months, and haven't received an email message yet.
Paperless billing is fine -- but I need a *bill* of some sort - SMS, email, *something*.
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