Effective June 1st, T-Mobile's text message rates will increase from $0.10 to $0.15 per message. Consumer advocacy groups like UCAN maintain that such changes constitute a materially adverse affect to a wireless customer's contract, thereby allowing the customer to terminate his/her contract without penalty as provided by standard contract law and the cell phone company's terms and conditions (except Cingular). T-Mobile has acknowledged this publicly. As reported by www.consumerist.org [1], T-Mobile spokesman Peter Dobrow told RCR Wireless News that, " Customers may terminate their contract without incurring an ETF soon after receiving their notification of the pricing change."
T-Mobile's materially adverse [2] clause in its terms and conditions says that, unless notified otherwise, customers have 14 days to cancel their contract without penalty due to a materially adverse contract change. But be careful. Cell phone companies don't enforce material adverse clauses uniformly, and a lot depends on the customer service rep you talk to. T-Mobile's clause also states that you accept the changes by using your service. While this should not apply to the 14 day window, you may end up with a nasty sales rep bent on keeping you as a customer. If you know for sure you want to get out of your contract, call T-Mobile on June 1st from a landline phone and don't use your cell phone untill your contract is cancelled. This is the T-Mobile notice:
On June 1, 2007, the charge to send a picture, video, or multimedia
message (MMS) to a US wireless number from the US or Canada, and the
charge to receive an MMS message from a US wireless number while you
are in the US or Canada, will decrease from 25¢ to 15¢ per message.*
The same day, the charge (a) to send a text or instant message (SMS) to
a US wireless number from the US or Canada, and (b) to receive an SMS
message (including a scheduled alert) from within or outside the US
while you are in the US or Canada, will increase from 10¢ to 15¢ per
message.* If you subscribe to a monthly messaging bundle, then each of
these rate changes will apply to MMS and SMS messages in excess of your
monthly allotment.** All per-message and messaging bundle charges are
subject to applicable taxes.
Be sure to check out guide to Cancelling Your Cell Phone Contract [3]