T-Mobile employees pressured to add unwanted services to customers’ plans, new report claims

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After targeting T-Mobile with a complaint to the SEC last month, labor group Change to Win (CtW) is going after T-Mo again.

CtW has filed a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, alleging that T-Mobile sales associates are pressured to add unwanted services to customers’ plans in order to meet sales targets. The group surveyed T-Mobile employees and customers, including online polls of nearly 500 current or recently-separated T-Mo employees and customers in five states, as well as interviews with 17 employees.

CtW’s report says that 83 percent of T-Mobile employees surveyed have felt pressure to add products and services that customers didn’t ask for. Some say that managers monitor sales goals hourly and push employees to add accessories and insurance. Multiple employees that spoke to CtW say that they were required to sign up 80 percent of their new accounts with the JUMP! upgrade program or with the $10 per month premium handset protection add-on.

When it comes to consumers, more than one in three of the 2,200 T-Mobile customers surveyed by CtW claim that they were given services that they didn’t want. Phone insurance was the most common unwanted add-on.

Not all customers have experienced unwanted add-ons, though, and some have said that they’re impressed with how clear T-Mobile employees have been when it comes to billing. “They’ve always been super clear when I’ve called and asked about anything,” explained Emil Caillaux, who spoke to The Washington Post and has been a T-Mo customer since 2008. “I’ve actually been very happy with how transparent they’ve been.”

This isn’t the first time that T-Mobile has been accused of adding unwanted charges onto customers’ bills. T-Mo was previously accused by the Federal Trade Commission of “cramming”, or adding unwanted charges onto subscribers’ bills, and T-Mobile eventually settled with the FTC to the tune of $90 million.

I’ve reached out to T-Mobile for a comment on this latest accusation. I’ll update this post if I get a response. Until then, you can read the CtW’s report in full at the link below.

Source: Calling Out T-Mobile

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