The theory goes that if you want to quietly announce bad news, you do it late on a Friday, so no one will notice. However, T-Mobile waited until last Friday afternoon to announce its latest “Uncarrier” move, and it appears they were not able to slip the news past angry Twitter users.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere on the carrier’s blog, via BGR:
“Beginning April 1, T-Mobile will be moving away from employer rate plan discounts and replacing them with a T-Mobile reward card of $25 each time an employee purchases a new device. It’s simple, clear and transparent – like everything we do. For a family of four who upgrade their devices once a year, that’s as much as $100 off. $200 if they upgrade twice a year.”
Legere went on to explain the thinking behind T-Mobile’s latest move, saying: “The old programs were designed to help big carriers close big corporate contracts, with employees as bargaining chips. We aren’t playing that game anymore. This change is about simplifying wireless for everyone … including employees of small and large companies alike.”
T-Mobile is attempting to position the move as something that levels the playing field by offering the same rates to everyone. However, customers that had been taking advantage of their employer’s discount agreements with the Magenta network begged to disagree. Loudly.
“Sad to say looking for plans with @ATT since @Tmobile took away employee discounts,” one person wrote on Twitter. “ATT is now cheaper w/ my employee discount, go figure.” The user said he had been saving $16 per month on his employer discount plan, so he was expecting the cost of his service to jump $192 per year.
“Sorry, I’ll be taking my dollars elsewhere when my contract is up,” tweeted another user. “Killing the corporate discount was a bad move.”
It should be noted that military and government discount plans are not impacted by the change.
