T-Mobile CEO John Legere Wants All Carriers to Eliminate Overage Fees
If you’re an AT&T or Verizon Wireless customer, you likely have a data limit on your smartphone plan. Should you go over that limit, in most cases, you’re charged a higher per-gigabyte price than you have included in your plan. T-Mobile CEO John Legere is not okay with that.
Legere and T-Mobile today launched a campaign aimed at eliminating overage fees from the wireless industry. In a press release, T-Mobile estimates that over 20 million wireless subscribers were hit with such fees in 2013, and that these fees generate an additional $1 billion in revenue for wireless carriers.
T-Mobile also acknowledges that overages are “one of the most reviled wireless industry practices.”
In its $40 Simple Starter Plan announced last week, T-Mobile introduced a low-cost smartphone plan with a small amount of data, but changed the way customers hitting the data ceiling would be treated. Instead of being charged for overages, T-Mobile will cut data off for these customers entirely, and instead direct them to buy day passes or additional data blocks should they choose to do so.
Here’s what Legere had to say on the campaign’s Change.org page.
In 2013, more than 20 million Americans were hit with punitive overage charges by U.S. wireless companies, and all Americans have known the fear of wireless bill shock. Overage penalties from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint take more than an incredible $1 billion out of consumers’ pockets every year. It’s time to show these companies that we’re not going to take these outrageous fees lying down anymore.
Traditional wireless plans start with a low monthly fee for a fixed amount of domestic minutes, texts or data. Once consumers go over those limits – even by a little – they’re hit with dramatically higher rates and extreme penalties. These plans seem purpose-built to drive customers over that invisible line into massive overage charges.
This is just plain wrong, and it must end. I’m laying down the challenge to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to follow T-Mobile’s lead and abolish these overages once and for all.
Sign this petition to #AbolishOverages and send a message to the old guard wireless companies that bill shock and overage fees are no longer acceptable and no longer welcomed in this industry.
What do you think of Legere’s challenge to T-Mobile’s competitors? Leave us a comment below.
[Source: BGR]