T-Mobile’s forced plan migration wipes out customers’ free lines

T-Mobile’s latest push to force legacy customers onto new plans is officially underway and it’s turning into a costly nightmare for some customers. The carrier’s forced migration is apparently breaking long held free line promotions and secretly tacking on paid data add-ons.

The carrier has recently begun moving users off of legacy plans such as Magenta, ONE, and Simple Choice onto its newer Experience lineup and has promised existing perks, including free lines, would be honored. That assurance has now been called into question after several customers said that their first bill post-migration lacked promotional credits.

Some subscribers have found that line promotions earned through years of loyalty didn’t transfer properly or disappeared entirely after the migration, according to a new report from The Mobile Report. Some customers paying about $50 a month for plans that included multiple free lines were suddenly getting bills of more than $300 because each line was being charged at full price.

A customer said on Reddit that all of their free lines disappeared after being moved to Experience Signature, while another claimed T-Mobile support told them a previously free line was now “ineligible” under the new plan. The user was allegedly given a year’s credit as compensation but was told the promotion could not be reinstated permanently.

The reports are all the more surprising in light of the early reporting of migration that suggested otherwise. Internal information shared before the rollout indicated that free lines, insider discounts, and tax-inclusive pricing would survive the move to the new Experience plans. Those expectations were also reflected in previous reporting surrounding the migration.

The forced migration itself was already criticized by legacy customers. T-Mobile is retiring plans from the 3G and 4G days in favor of new plans, including unlimited premium data, bigger hotspot allowances, streaming perks, and a five-year price guarantee. Some customers are also seeing increases of up to $6 per phone line a month in the transition.

If these missing free-line credits turn out to be more than isolated billing mistakes, they could be the latest flashpoint in an already controversial migration. If you are impacted, it’s worth taking a look at your latest bill line by line and reaching out to T-Mobile if there are any promotional discounts that are missing.