One T-Mobile user claiming to be an employee at an authorized retailer has revealed that representatives will no longer receive commissions for activating older plans. This claim was backed up by multiple other people claiming to be employees of the carrier as well. Apparently T-Mobile has instructed store personnel to push the new plans only and stay away from plans that include taxes and fees in the price.
Another user claiming to be a T-Mobile employee as well has also shared the same news in a separate post. The new instructions are to take effect from May 1 and will make it a lot more difficult to go to a store and sign up for a plan with included taxes and fees. Understandably representatives at these stores want to earn their commissions and will be very hesitant about activating an older plan.
Updating your plan from the T-Life app may work for now. | Image credit — T-Mobile
Naturally the revelation about older plans being no longer incentivized for store employees was met with criticism. One user even said that T-Mobile, which calls itself the “un-carrier”, is now just becoming another carrier company like AT&T or Verizon. AT&T and Verizon don’t offer plans with included taxes and fees and T-Mobile only started doing so around eight years ago.
Including the taxes and fees in the price upfront makes it a lot easier for customers and employees. In fact representatives say that T-Mobile has gone back in time with its latest moves and they now have to once again tell customers that taxes and fees are separate. To me this feels like T-Mobile is getting ready to completely phase out plans with included charges in the near future.
We’ve reached out to T-Mobile for a comment and will update the story when we have a response.
