Lawsuit over T-Mobile’s pricing? No surprise.

Chances looked pretty good that a class action suit would be filed after T-Mobile said the “price lock guarantee” that many customers thought they had signed up for wasn’t actually a lifetime guarantee. Indeed, four named plaintiffs filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey seeking class action status. They said T-Mobile in 2017 promised that customers who signed up for certain plans were promised those rates for life and T-Mobile broke that promise in May 2024 when it “unilaterally did away with these legacy phone plans” and switched the plaintiffs to more expensive plans without their consent. T-Mobile’s tactic of changing the terms it uses in describing price plans is not a new tactic. The advertising watchdog group National Advertising Division (NAD) recommended that T-Mobile discontinue the “Price Lock” claim or modify it to explain, as part of the main claim, what “Price Lock” really means: It’s a policy that promises customers a free month of home internet service if T-Mobile raises the monthly price and the consumer promptly notifies T-Mobile that they’re going to cancel service.