Call your carrier when you hear about service price drops
Just got a note from jkOTR reader Steve, who referred back to our post on T-Mobile’s lower unlimited data add-on service. Back in September, T-Mo dropped the price from $29.99 to $19.99 a month. That’s all well and good, but if you were expecting the carrier to automatically lower the price on your monthly bill, you’re likely expecting too much. Always, always, always call in to your carrier when you hear about price drops on your existing services. Steve finally did and he’s now saving the $10 a month. As he says: “I’m sure a price increase would be automatic.” and he’s 100% correct. Unfortunately, you could be flushing money down the drain if you don’t call to ensure the price adjustment if one is available. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to check what your carrier is offering in terms of plans and price on a fairly regular basis: these plans change all the time and you might score a change in your favor simply by watching for one and calling in.While we’re on the subject, don’t forget about the many ways you can score a discount on your cellular bill with a new contract.
Haha…I just posted about something similar with AT&T about a week ago. They dropped their MEdiaNet package by $5 but of course they didn’t send a notice. I just happen to come across it as I was looking through the site…
http://teamstealthonline.com/blog/archives/88
Yeah, when I heard about the drop in price from jkOnTheRun, I checked the T-Mobile site to see if they automatically switched me over, and was unpleasantly surprised, as I blogged here:
http://jezlyn.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/okay-t-mobile-what-are-you-trying-to-pull-here/
I made the same complaints on Jaiku, and was informed that companies cannot make automatic changes to your plan, good or bad, without notifying you. That’s all well and good, but I feel it’s shady when companies conveniently don’t tell you about changes in your plan, especially if it benefits their customers. I think that companies should be required to send documentation of *all* changes to the plan, not just price hikes, or the ever-ignored privacy policy updates.