what's up with T-mobile removing autopay discount for credit cards?

T-mobile is deaf to this feedback.  The only feedback that they will really care about is when customers start moving to other carriers.  Don't just consider VZ & AT&T as alternatives.  There are MANY other virtual carriers (MVNOs) to choose from.  Ting and Consumer Cellular consistently are rarely highly by Consumer Reports.

I had 7 lines with T-Mobile.  I cancelled my Apple Watch line today and will cancel the kids lines as soon as the bill credits towards their phones are gone.  Ultimately I will end up with no more than 2 mobile lines on T-Mobile plus the 5G internet at my aunt's cottage.

Way to go TM suits, you took someone who was a RAVING FAN, and caused them to ultimately drop 4 of 7 lines.

With the great track record that T mobile has on security, this is a no brainer! Literally no brains, if my bank account has any issues stemming from this move I will not just cancel my service, I will sue or join any class action lawsuit that follows this very risky proposition.

Why not just deduct the cost of the transaction from the $20.00 savings? 

keyteck wrote:

I just received a text notice of the discount terms and highly discouraged by such action and would have liked to know about the change sooner. My credit company lets me know if there are changes in reoccurring billing, this does not happen with banks. My friends and family were fed up with billing issues like extra charges and changing bills and so forth ... most of them ended up changing providers.

It is not correct to say banks don't send alerts on Debit cards.  It is correct to say it is not the default (nor is it for credit cards) but generally you can setup alerts for many things.   I get alert for any debit card use and a plethora of other things based on the settings at my bank.

Of course I’m still not going to give my Debit or Bank account number to T-Mobile but did want to point out what you wrote had that one bit of misinformation in it

gramps28 wrote:

S-Davis wrote:

$5.00 at 3% = 15 cents. And this is not a new charge, T-Mobile has been paying that CC processing fee since inception of this program. I think there is something else going on. 

If you're plan is $100 the cost to process it at 3% is $3.  The $5 autopay fee discount isn't what's processed it the plan total.

For one subscriber $3 may not be much but with thousands or millions it adds up.  I still think they should eat the cost or even reduce the discount if it is really costing them more for credit card fees than debit rather than eliminating it.

I once worked a job where I encouraged a customer doing a 2000 site rollout to use external modems but they wanted to use internal because the hardware vendor was going to charge $6/month extra on support contract for external vs internal.  Although I understood the math of the situation I strongly suggested they should be calculating in the cost of having to take down their site central servers in a reboot because that was the only way to reset an internal modem as opposed to simply resetting the external modem.

T-mobile should be calculating the cost of lost goodwill and loss of customers rather than just the difference (if any) between debit and credit card fees they pay.

ChuckG1973 wrote:

UN-CARRIER no longer, now just acting like one of the other big cellular companies.  Oh wait no your not, your worse, because AT&T and VZW honor Autopay discounts with credit cards because they understand it helps keep their customers protected.  I am looking for a new carrier that will do what they say and say what they do!!!  Goodbye Big Pink!!! 

Att is doing the same thing. I have them and tmobile, they're knocking my atuopay credit down to $5 from $10. 

The best alternative is to wait for the X-mas season.

At that time there will be many offers to entice new subscribers.

There could be buy-out incentives to payoff the old carrier.

That could be the best time to make the switch.

Don't accept this crap. I called customer service when I got the message about this theft. The representative had the nerve to lie and tell me it's because credit cards are NOT secure. So I filed a complaint with the BBB. I will NOT be giving T-Mobile any of my bank account information EVER. I will drop them if they try to make me. Then I'll find out the truth to their other lie that they don't have us in a contract.

And I didn't even know about the data breaches they had! As a paying subscriber that could have been compromised in these breaches why didn't T-Mobile notify me?

Every T-Mobile subscriber needs to do the same so they see that trying to screw their customers to save the 3% ish credit card processing fee and saving more money by raising millions of subscriber's bills is a horrific mistake that will cause a loss of money and subscribers and negatively affect their stock as well.

Fight back and demand the status quo remains or dump these crooks.

Everyone has the issue with a security breech, 

but the real issue is a multimillion dollar corporation is having Credit Card companies (another multi million dollar corporation) “eat into their revenue”

Then they give you the choice to either risk your bank information getting stolen or no more discount,

T Mobile has the right to change THEIR policies,

but they do not have the right to force anyone to do something they do not agree to, this is called a breech of contract and you can simply walk away from the contract, return all equipment and move on, 

Again, the reality is this

on millionaire doesn’t want to pay another millionaire, so they force you, the consumer, to take on their responsibilities

we are contracted to pay T-Mobile, that’s it

if t mobile has issue with the people that are in charge of how we pay them, then that is between them and the credit card companies, not us….we pay, that’s it, and if you were given the autopay discount and now all of a sudden that doesnt work for them anymore…

LAWSUIT

Here's my response to T-Mobile on this change sent snail mail to the customer relations address.  Hopefully enough people will take the time to complain and have it changed back:

Good day T-Mobile Customer Relations,

I have an issue with your new auto pay policy forcing me to switch from a credit card to a debit card or bank account to continue to receive my $10 per month discount.

I understand that you are a business, and this change is a business move to bring in additional revenue without the added credit card company charges.  From a consumer standpoint this is a bad idea.  I don't want a business having access to my bank account either through a direct withdrawal or debit transaction.  Too many businesses have security breaches.  We see the headlines where the company says basically, "Oops, we had a security breach but here's a year free credit monitoring." And we're supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy. 

If money goes missing from my bank account through either of those transaction types, the money is gone and it's up to me to deal with my bank and show that I did not authorize it.  It takes time and energy to prove someone else did something wrong before I get my money back and I'd most likely be charged with a stop payment fee from my bank. 

When I pay with a credit card, I'm safer from fraud.  I elect to pay you a certain amount every month and you charge my card.  If there's fraud or money has been incorrectly charged to my account I call the credit card company, explain what happened, possibly fill out a form, and the charge is removed.  Problem solved.  I may need to have a new card sent but the process is smooth, including activation of the replacement card. 

You have already realized the benefits of having customers use autopay by the time savings, cost savings, consistent revenue on time, increased revenue by people more willing to purchase with the card already on the account, and other ways too.  Now you appear to look greedy, and it makes me want to go back to paper billing and spend 50 cents on a stamp each month and mail you a check as I have free checking from my bank. 

Please cancel this change or revert to the credit card autopay with discount. 

Thank you for your time,