Calculated effort to irritate satisfied customers?

[Rick441]

I've had Xfinity Mobile since February 2018, and have been very pleased with it (except for a problem with voicemail notifications, but that's likely an iPhone issue).  I am one of those people who uses minimal cellular data (use WiFi instead), so most months I stay below the 100mb/month free data allowance and thus pay $0 plus taxes and fees -- as a user of the service you reportedly created to help support your internet business

I always expected that at some point you would raise the minimum expenditure, perhaps by getting rid of the 100mb free allowance.  And I was fine with that.  $12 minimum (plus taxes & fees) is still a heckuva deal.

So when I saw that your terms were changing in August, I expected the 100mb allowance would probably go away, and again I would have been OK with that.  But then I saw that you were allowing pre-August 2019 enrollees ("Gen1") the option of remaining on the old plan.  So for me, the 100mb allowance would remain.  Pleasant surprise!

But tonight, I get an email from Xfinity Mobile dryly stating that effective October 29, *all* customers will be moved to the new plan (thus 100mb allowance goes away).  What??  Was this some sort of a calculated attempt to *destroy* customer goodwill?  I would have been fine with the change if it had simply been announced at the outset as applying to all customers, existing and new -- instead of this unapologetic, no-attempt-at-explanation, sudden flip-flop.  The way this was done, pulling a sudden switcheroo ONLY TWO MONTHS LATER, is like a corporate, "ha ha, you fell for it!"  and has left a really bad taste in my mouth.  Maybe it will become a Harvard Business case study in how to swiftly, and totally unnecessarily, kill off customer goodwill.  Why the truly annoying tease, Xfinity Mobile?

[davdri]

I am on Gen 1 and have not read or heard this anywhere but on this thread. Can a XM emloyee on this forum confirm this?

[Rick441]

Until then, here's a screenshot of the email I got.

[IlliniFan87]

I also received the letter. A few great excerpts:

How does Xfinity Mobile calculate my charges and applicable fees and taxes?

...

We will charge you for all data and content sent or received by your Device(s) on your account using your Services (including any network overhead and/or Internet Protocol overhead associated with content sent or received) as well as resolution of Internet Protocol addresses from domain names, if you have exceeded your included amount of data in a given billing cycle. You will be charged and must pay for all data sent, received, consumed by and/or used on your account, including, without limitation, data consumed by applications (including any Xfinity Mobile and Comcast applications), widgets, multi- media messaging, tethering, uploading, downloading, streaming content, Internet access (including accessing corporate intranets, email and individual productivity applications), GPS and location services, and Voice over Internet Protocol, either with or without any action by the user.

...

Data charges will be rounded up to the next whole unit (generally per G as described in your Service offering, as such may be revised from time to time.

---

[davdri]

I went there and read all the legaleze that nobody ever reads that is the usual CYA for XM. There is nothing in there about the Gen 1, Gen2 question so it appears that has not changed. This appears to be an update of letting XM have their way with you, not that they would want to of course.

[pablomeza · Accepted solution]

It is just an agreement, they are not swithing you to the 2nd gen plan.

[Rick441]

Yeah, that makes sense.  So I will gladly retract my "unnecessary tease" criticism.

Though, it would have been helpful for the email to point out that this change in agreement will not change the customer's current service plan and options.

All that said, it does give me a little pause that the new agreement describes rounding to the next whole Gb solely in general terms (see statement at the end of IlliniFan87's post), while the old agreement spelled out an example of 1.1 Gb and 1.9 Gb both rounding to 2 Gb.  Could that mean that under the new agreement 57 MB would also now round to 1 Gb, even for Gen 1 on pay as you go?  While I doubt it, it would be helpful if an employee would weigh in.  Thanks.

[Rick441]

Just got my bill, and can confirm that as a 1st gen customer I was still given the free 100mb data allowance.  I misunderstood the email from Xfinity.