T-Mobile bungled forced plan migration, canceling some users' free lines - Ars Technica
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T-Mobile canceled some longtime subscribers’ free-line promotions as part of a forced migration to new rate plans, spurring complaints from customers yesterday. T-Mobile admitted the problem and blamed it on technical errors that it is trying to fix.
The forced plan changes were controversial to begin with, particularly as many longtime users are being hit with price hikes of $6 per line. The unexpected loss of free lines for some of those users could raise prices by a much higher amount if the change isn’t reversed.
There is good news, though. T-Mobile told Ars today that it was a mistake and that the company is working to fix the problem. Of course, it’s not always easy for telecom customers to get the proper resolution even after a company admits to an error publicly. But given T-Mobile’s statement today, we hope the firm will fix the problem for all impacted customers with as little hassle as possible.
“Our priority is to ensure customers keep the promotions, credits and benefits of their current plan,” T-Mobile told Ars today. “We’ve identified technical issues affecting a very small number of customers and are working quickly to correct them. For some of those customers, free line promotions were not reflected correctly following migration due to a delay in applying promotional discounts. Those free lines remain free, and we’re restoring the discounts, backdating them where needed, and reprocessing accounts to ensure customers receive the benefits they were promised.”
T-Mobile acknowledged that this isn’t the only billing problem related to its mass migration of plans. “We’re also investigating reports that some people were incorrectly billed for Hulu following migration and are actively working to identify the cause. We apologize for the confusion and will make it right for our customers,” T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile recently announced it would eliminate its older plans and automatically move customers to different rate plans that are more or less equivalent in price and features. “Some customers will see no change to their monthly bill, while some will see a modest adjustment,” T-Mobile told media outlets in late June. “Every customer moved to a new plan will keep their current benefits while gaining improvements in network and service experiences.”
Free lines lost in transition
The promise that customers would “keep their current benefits” was broken, according to people who say free lines were removed from their accounts. In addition to complaints on Reddit, the Mobile Report news site wrote today that it heard directly from a few users who said their free lines were not migrated to the new plans.
Besides the elimination of free lines, another problem “that some customers are seeing is a mysterious extra hotspot data add-on on their new plans,” adding as much as $15 to monthly bills, The Mobile Report wrote. T-Mobile told Ars, “We do not add paid features without customer consent, and we’re investigating these reports and will ensure we make it right. Some customers may have previously had hotspot data add-ons which they are choosing to remove since hotspot capabilities are built into their new plans.”
T-Mobile handed out free lines at various times through promotions that let paying customers add another phone line to their accounts at no additional charge. During a March 2025 promotion, for example, customers who had kept their accounts active for at least 10 years could obtain a free line if they already had at least two paid lines.
Some users apparently accumulated a bunch of the free lines during their long tenures as T-Mobile customers. In a Reddit post yesterday, one said they previously had three paid lines and six free ones for about $50 a month.
“Just received my first bill today after being migrated to Experience Signature and bill is >$300. The bill breakdown did not include any free lines carried over,” the post said. Experience Signature is one of the plans that T-Mobile is automatically applying to the accounts of customers on retired plans.
Another person who reported losing free line promotions said it resulted in a $200 increase in the bill. One person said they contacted T-Mobile support about the loss of a free line, and the support rep was unable to restore it.
“One free line was invalidated because it was apparently ‘ineligible’ with the current plan. They gave me a year’s worth of credit for that one line and said sorry they couldn’t do...