I’ll get back to the regularly scheduled My One Favorite Things soon enough, but right now I got a bone to pick with my cell phone company, T-Mobile.
I mostly have positive vibes toward T-Mobile as their customer service has been very helpful and their network seems to have continually improved in New York City, but I’m annoyed with the numerous ‘surcharges’ the company tacks on to my monthly bill.
T-Mobile probably isn’t alone here, but I think it’s a crime that these charges – which earn the dubious award of being My One Least Favorite Thing of the week – now add up to more than $10 a month, approximately 21% of the cost of my plan.
What’s worse, I just got a note in my most recent bill that T-Mobile was raising the rate of something they call a Regulatory Programs Fee to $1.21 a month. The company says the RPF is used to recover the costs ‘associated with funding and complying with a variety of government mandates, programs, and obligations, such as enhanced 911 programs, number portability and governmental requirements concerning the construction and operation of our network.”
Meanwhile, the other fees and taxes on my monthly bill include:
- Federal Universal Service Fund
- State Gross Receipts Tax
- State Sales Tax
- State Telecom Excise
- County Surcharge
- County Telecom Excise
- MCTD Surcharge
- Local Sales Tax
- State 911
- County 911
Are you kidding me? I mean, I understand that many if not all of these charges are due to taxes or other government-related charges, but why exactly has cell phone service – now basically a necessity for most Americans – been chosen as the revenue gravy train for state, local and federal governments.
I just have a few questions – Is it the same everywhere around the country or is it worse for me because I live in New York City? Does every wireless carrier charge this much in monthly fees or is T-Mobile being overly exuberant here? Please let me know what your carriers add on to your monthly bills.
And for anyone in the industry or familiar with its development, please tell me how and why this happened? Should I really blame the government as T-Mobile seems to want me to do??
hello ,
i know exactly how u feel my dad has a contract with t-mobile and we have 4 lines at the beggining we did not notice no big ripp off but after a few months we started noticing that our bill was largely increasing and we were not doing anything diferently we werent texting or dowloading ringtones or anything like that so i took a closer look and saw that we were being charged a total of 25 dollars or more in our bill for just taxes alone so our payment of 80.00 dollars went up to 112.04 a really big increase i think that most of these taxes arent really going to our goverment but to the pockets of t-mobile.
thanks for the comment dalia. just called t-mobile today in fact to let them that these charges were ridiculous and that i would be looking to leave the company in the near future. the thing that really pushed me over the edge is they are now going to charge $1.50 each month to send a paper bill!! Charging me for sending a bill??? Outrageous. i know i could sign up for paperless billing but i need a physical copy of my bills and know that i will forget to print them out if i dont get them through snail mail. it’s a shame because i like certain aspects of t-mobile but its time for me to move on.
I’m stationed in Oklahoma and it is $9.98 total in taxes/fees, I think it is ridiculous when my T-mobile plan is only $49.99, that’s pathetic isn’t it? Can’t wait to move out of this state, the fees here cost twice as much of what I paid in Florida.
totally sucks! hope you get transferred soon!
if you want to get out of a contract with no early termination fee then contact them within 14 days when they send you a notice of changes in the terms and conditions(like the $1.50 extra/month). That is a “materially adverse change of contract”, and you reject the new terms. you can google the quote and get more support if you find yourself in this position again. I am kicking myself for not discovering this back in August when they made the change.
interesting. wish i had known this as well!! thanks for the tip…