AutoPago

mwayne50 wrote:

Cannot believe, after years on autopay, they are going to disallow it from my credit card.  AS IF I would give them unfettered access to my bank account! No one pulls money from my bank account although I do PUSH money through autopay from my bank.  If they want the money directly from my bank, I will be glad to mail a paper check for them to process every month (and I hope everyone else does likewise) until I can switch providers.

Yup same here. With T-Mobiles track record of security breeches no way are they getting my bank account number. Looking at alternatives also.

If I'm not getting the discount, not doing auto-pay.  No reason to save them the costs if not sharing in the benefits.

Time to start looking for another carrier - probably an MVMO since all the main carriers are doing this cr@p.  No third party gets direct access to my bank account.  That is insane.  As the original poster mentions, especially for a business that has had multiple data breaches so far this year.

I look at this like the 5 stages of grief. Initial anger that eventually ends with acceptance and looking and seeing what your options are.

As far as the MNVO's go you lose a lot of benefits, I currently have a line using Tmobile's cell towers and big difference in speed and coverage. Luckily I use it for our home line.

T-mobile might still be the best choice even with the loss of the discount, but before I would not have looked.  So I'm a less loyal customer now.

I've dealt with identity theft before.  The risk of providing cualquier company direct access to my bank accounts is not worth the $15/mo savings.

I get 5% with my credit card for paying with my bills, which means I get $7 per month for using my card. Tmobile is removing the credit card discount or they charge an extra $10. So I get to choose to raise my bill $7 a month or $10 a month.

This is not OK, if they don’t fix it I’m going with the third option of changing over to verizion after over 20 years of being a T-Mobile customer….

Ever since they bought Sprint they have been going downhill fast. I'm jumping off this ship before it sinks.

Luckily I will only lose $10 credit but my credit card covers insurance on our phones.

I like the analogy to 5 stages of "autopay grief."  But it doesn't need to end with acceptance.  At least not yet.  I suggest subscribers use the power of social media (Twitter, Facebook ) and their better business bureaus to spread the word about the harm this particular autopay change is causing.  IMO, here are the key points:

1. Giving low income members the "choice" of paying by debit card or bank account to get a promised discount could hit them hard: Risk sharing bank account data to get your discount.  In a data breach where criminals get bank account number, bank accounts aren't as protected as fraudulent credit card charges.  Your missing bank account funds could remain unavailable for days or weeks.  
2. T-Mobile has always said they would leave older plans unchanged.  Really?  They are now just "redefining autopay discounts" to exclude certain methods of payment.  This is BS or disingenuous at best.  
3. TMobile's "experts" and operations are located in countries other than the US where laws and protections may differ.  Entrusting bank account and debit card details to them may be risky especially when their staff seem to have no understanding of the issues.  One "expert" told me Mr Dave, don't worry.  We have secure ways for customers to send us their bank account numbers.  ¡Caramba!

I think customer pushback on this change is appropriate.  There could be more customer grief to come.  

tidbits wrote:

You can still use your credit cards for auto pay…

You just won’t get the autopay discount.  

Easy to say if you are not low income.  

I think the most annoying parts for me are the loss of cash back that I was getting from making payments on my credit card. Additionally my family has intermittent income so it was nice to know that if we didn't have the funds available on the due date that we had until the due date of the CC to pay. Mostly annoyed by lack of cash back.