Warning: T-Mobile adding pay per use data without your permission

Last night my daughter told me she received a text notification about data on her phone so this morning I went and checked my T-Mobile account. I discovered that she apparently used 9 MB in one day (she has a phone with WiFi and thought that was her data connection method) for a cost of greater than $18. This new data service was not requested by me and I was not notified in any manner that they would be enabling it on my daughters' accounts. If my daughter would not have said anything about this apparent spam text message we may have seen a bill with hundreds of dollars in data charges next month and then I would have had a real fight on my hands. Be aware T-Mobile may be trying to bill you huge fees for this so check your online account status soon.

It turns out that T-Mobile started rolling this out on 15 September to all plans that have smartphones, including family plans where non-smartphones are included. It turns out my daughters' phones were just turned on, but T-Mobile should never allow this to happen without notifying the primary account holder who has authority and control over these phones. I called them up and they said they would block it on these three other non-smartphone lines, but the representative falsely told me it was always part of my plan. I told him I know what is on my plan and that he was wrong.

He said he wasn't going to credit me the $18 for the data used yesterday, but I will call back again and make sure someone credits it back since I did not authorize this change and the charge is ridiculous at $1.99 per MB. With the uncertainty surrounding T-Mobile and crap they pull like this, I am seriously considering leaving them after 9 years. I may give them a couple more months to see how things shake out, but I am not a happy customer at the moment.