T Mobile UK Announces New Rip Off of its Customers

MATHA531 · **T Mobile UK Announces New Rip Off of its Customers -** 09-09-2009, 14:52

Interesting article:

T-Mobile plan huge non-EU roaming price hikes - What Mobile

Interesting about their FAQ...especially the bit about the weakness of the pound' actually the pound has risen against the USD somewhat in recent weeks......can't they just tell the truth...since our roaming charges within the eu are capped, we have to make up for it somewhere else.....besides which if you roam on T Mobile USA say, when they claim well they have to pay the other provider all they're doing is taking money from their left pocket and putting it in their right pocket (at least until the merger takes effect).....

FBlack_111 · 09-09-2009, 15:09

Their new prices are way too high. The question is whether other carriers will follow. If they do not, it may force T-Mobile to drop the high rates. But T-Mobile doesn't seem to care about competition and other carriers. As an example, on a cruise ship Verizon and ATT charge $2.49 a minute. T-Mobile is $4.99.

andy · 09-09-2009, 21:02

They aren't the first. In 2003, Orange raised roaming rates in non-EU parts of Europe from 51p to £1.10 a minute, affecting Norway and Switzerland of course, but also the new entrant countries that were about to join the EU a few months later. Welcome. And that was already a vast increase; in 1999, their rates had been 25 to 30p in France and Belgium, then up in 2003 from 60 to 70p.

A year later, just before a visit to Lithuania, which by now was in the EU, someone in Orange CS told me that Orange was the cheapest for roaming. That may have been true 2 or 3 years ago, I replied, but now it was easily the most expensive, and it's £1.10 was almost double the 59p O2 would charge me then

T-mobile's excuse this time is almost pure mendacity. Yes of course the charges they receive from the visited network are slightly more, but that's a wholesale price up by perhaps equivalent to 3 to 5 pence; the only real cause of an increase from 55p to £1 is pure greed. As pointed out above, against the dollar the pound has slipped by about 20%, not 80%

And this is not the first increase in T-mobile's roaming rates this year; they've already increased rates in the EU to marginally above the Eurotariff. This isn't illegal; the regulation is that an average rate must be achieved over the 11 or 12 month period up till whatever the next date is. But if the exchange rate swings back the other way a bit, they might even have to reduce rates to below where they started, so keep an eye on them next spring ...

Vodafone and O2 still seem to be able to offer cheap roaming in of Europe, neither of them restricted to only EU countries. T-mobile's merger has come about because of its steady loss of market share, while Vodafone picked up a lot this summer ...

adam917 · 10-09-2009, 03:21

I'm from the US and use T-Mobile post-paid. While I have a great domestic plan, roaming rates are higher and charged by the kilobyte (approx 0.01 USD/KB in Canada and 0.015 USD/KB everywhere else) with no way to get any discount packages like AT&T users are able to. There is a BlackBerry Unlimited E-mail 20 USD/month plan but it covers only e-mail and I wouldn't want to take a chance getting that and using other data on it that may either got get charged at all or get me charged a high roaming bill.

	(#1)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	T Mobile UK Announces New Rip Off of its Customers - 09-09-2009, 14:52 Interesting article: T-Mobile plan huge non-EU roaming price hikes - What Mobile Interesting about their FAQ...especially the bit about the weakness of the pound' actually the pound has risen against the USD somewhat in recent weeks......can't they just tell the truth...since our roaming charges within the eu are capped, we have to make up for it somewhere else.....besides which if you roam on T Mobile USA say, when they claim well they have to pay the other provider all they're doing is taking money from their left pocket and putting it in their right pocket (at least until the merger takes effect).....

	(#2)
FBlack_111 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Fan Posts: 171 Join Date: 27 Feb 2008 Country:	09-09-2009, 15:09 Their new prices are way too high. The question is whether other carriers will follow. If they do not, it may force T-Mobile to drop the high rates. But T-Mobile doesn't seem to care about competition and other carriers. As an example, on a cruise ship Verizon and ATT charge $2.49 a minute. T-Mobile is $4.99.

	(#3)
andy (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Prophet Posts: 2,128 Join Date: 10 Dec 2004 Country:	09-09-2009, 21:02 They aren't the first. In 2003, Orange raised roaming rates in non-EU parts of Europe from 51p to £1.10 a minute, affecting Norway and Switzerland of course, but also the new entrant countries that were about to join the EU a few months later. Welcome. And that was already a vast increase; in 1999, their rates had been 25 to 30p in France and Belgium, then up in 2003 from 60 to 70p. A year later, just before a visit to Lithuania, which by now was in the EU, someone in Orange CS told me that Orange was the cheapest for roaming. That may have been true 2 or 3 years ago, I replied, but now it was easily the most expensive, and it's £1.10 was almost double the 59p O2 would charge me then T-mobile's excuse this time is almost pure mendacity. Yes of course the charges they receive from the visited network are slightly more, but that's a wholesale price up by perhaps equivalent to 3 to 5 pence; the only real cause of an increase from 55p to £1 is pure greed. As pointed out above, against the dollar the pound has slipped by about 20%, not 80% And this is not the first increase in T-mobile's roaming rates this year; they've already increased rates in the EU to marginally above the Eurotariff. This isn't illegal; the regulation is that an average rate must be achieved over the 11 or 12 month period up till whatever the next date is. But if the exchange rate swings back the other way a bit, they might even have to reduce rates to below where they started, so keep an eye on them next spring ... Vodafone and O2 still seem to be able to offer cheap roaming in of Europe, neither of them restricted to only EU countries. T-mobile's merger has come about because of its steady loss of market share, while Vodafone picked up a lot this summer ...

	(#4)
adam917 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Fan Posts: 187 Join Date: 14 Sep 2008 Location: North America Country:	10-09-2009, 03:21 I'm from the US and use T-Mobile post-paid. While I have a great domestic plan, roaming rates are higher and charged by the kilobyte (approx 0.01 USD/KB in Canada and 0.015 USD/KB everywhere else) with no way to get any discount packages like AT&T users are able to. There is a BlackBerry Unlimited E-mail 20 USD/month plan but it covers only e-mail and I wouldn't want to take a chance getting that and using other data on it that may either got get charged at all or get me charged a high roaming bill.