Water is wet, grass is green, and T-Mobile is adding two new fees to its prepaid channel

Water is wet, grass is green, and T-Mobile is adding two new fees to its prepaid channel،

Remember when TMobile used to constantly make fun of the competition that defrauded its subscribers with various taxes and fees that did not always seem justified and were rarely communicated openly and clearly? Unfortunately, the “Un-carrier” has copied every bad move from Verizon and AT&T over the past two years, sometimes going so far as to make questionable changes to its plans and pricing without taking inspiration from its competitors.

The latest “updates” of this type leaked by the ever-resourceful folks at The Mobile Report are a one-two punch for new and existing Magenta prepaid customers that many of you might not be willing to accept and simply move on. Of course, it's very unlikely that you'll actually be able to do anything to change T-Mo's mind once these next “updates” have been pushed to the tech support reps.

What you can obviously do is find a carrier or prepaid service that doesn't charge a flat $25 “device connection” fee, which actually isn't very difficult. This one-time $25 fee will go into effect on March 21 (that's next week!!!), replacing a much more affordable $10 prepaid SIM starter kit.

This wasn't even necessary if you were looking to activate a device that supported eSIM, but now you'll have to pay $25 regardless of what type of phone you want to “connect” to a prepaid phone. TMobile plan. And yes, this goes for current customers looking to upgrade their old handsets, as well as brand new subscribers.

The second new fee Magenta plans to add to its prepaid service in the near future is a $5 “in-store payment assistance fee” that may not seem like a big deal at first. But this isn't a one-time thing, mind you, and you'll have to deal with it every time you make an “assisted checkout” at a physical store.

It's pretty obvious how to avoid having $5 added to your bill every month, but something tells us that some users won't be switching to a digital payment method or AutoPay after this change on April 25, either. For what it's worth, T-Mobile claims in its internal documentation that the vast majority of prepaid customers have already abandoned in-store payments, which still doesn't mean it's kosher that the minority of people who aren't gone digital are punished. .