T-Mobile's dreaded AutoPay discount change is 'fully confirmed' and set to come into effect soon
From new activation fees to (disguised) price hikes and from store closures to security breaches, T-Mobile has certainly been no stranger to unpopular plan revisions and controversy in recent months.
Unfortunately for the "Un-carrier" that seems to have disappointed many of its loyal customers even with the latest Un-carrier move, the outrage-sparking scandals are far from over as yet another controversial change is reportedly coming into force in just a couple of weeks.
This was originally reported on back in February, when it was vaguely scheduled to start applying "as early as May 2023", dividing T-Mo subscribers in two different categories: those who had nothing to worry about and thus saw the change as not that big of a deal and those who threatened to leave the operator as a direct consequence of it.
If you're part of the latter group, it looks like you'll very soon get the chance to put your money where your mouth is (and stop giving T-Mobile your money), as a pair of newly leaked internal documents "fully confirm" the upcoming removal of the AutoPay discount for some.
As you're probably well aware, the AutoPay program slashes a cool 5 bucks off your bill every month (or more if you have multiple lines of service on your account), but after May 18, the discount will go away if you use a credit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
Of course, there's an extremely simple way to avoid paying more on each bill, as the AutoPay discount will go unchanged for customers using debit cards, bank accounts, or T-Mobile Money.
Starting May 20, T-Mobile plans to inform all subscribers affected by this change of the new policy, with SMS notifications to be sent 30, 15, and 3 days before the discount is actually removed from your account, thus giving you plenty of time to update to an "eligible" payment method mentioned above.
The problem is not everyone seems particularly comfortable with "updating" their payment information in that way, especially after the latest in a long line of data breaches.
The only option to circumvent the change, as pointed out by a number of our readers back in February, is to put a debit card or bank account as your preferred payment method but then continue to use your credit card to manually cover your monthly bill ahead of time.
If you're unwilling to go through all that hassle, which is something we can totally understand, you'll just have to accept to pay T-Mobile more for the same service... or switch to a different carrier.
Then again, while AT&T's AutoPay requirements don't appear to exclude credit cards in any way, Verizon only accepts Visa cards with its literal name on them as an alternative to debit cards and bank accounts.
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