So I went to T-Mobile tonight in an attempt to upgrade my Note 8 to a Note 9. I've had the original Jump 1.0 since 2013 and have been grandfathered this entire time.
The online portal shows that I would owe $110 down and owe 31.67 per month (price was recently discounted to $870). When I went through it, right at the last step it took away the down payment and instead just charged me tax on the total purchase price. It upped the monthly amount to $36.xx and changed my insurance/tmobile Jump fee from $12 to $15 for the new 360 insurance plan. That concerned me a bit, so we did the same process with the rep at the store. It resulted in the same thing.
I didn't think it was a big deal, they've increased the insurance price before (from $10 > $12), but then I read the details of the new 360 plan. Apparently, under its terms, the phone is a LEASE and you cannot trade it in until 50% is paid off. This is completely different than the original terms of Jump 1.0, so the Rep called in to talk to someone at T-Mobile.
Their explanation was priceless. They explained that while I was grandfathered in Jump 1.0 and could keep it as long as I wanted, as soon as I executed an upgrade I would be converted to the new 360 plan and no longer on Jump 1.0. She explained this wasn't wrong because they technically weren't forcing me out of my grandfathered plan and I could keep it as long as I wanted... as long as I didn't upgrade. I spoke to her "manager" who explained the same thing and said things are always changing and I couldn't expect to stay on Jump 1.0. He argued that the 50% thing was in fact a benefit and that it didn't matter that the phone was now a LEASE because that's basically how I was treating it before.
Needless to say, I hung up and left the store. However, prior to leaving, I was shown an internal knowledge base article for Reps stating that as of a certain date in 2014, anyone who had Jump 1.0 was grandfathered. She also showed me my account and it still showed me as a Jump 1.0 customer.
So here's my question: If I choose to upgrade and they simply change the name but my account still shows as Jump 1.0 on their internal system, I don't care. Is that the case? Or am I screwed and there's no way to keep Jump? If the latter is true, I'm just going to dump T-Mobile altogether. I've given them over $7500 in the last 5 years and may as well give AT&T my money if I'm going to be treated like crap regardless (better coverage).
I have a feeling that most Jump 1.0 customers are losing it by simply going through the "standard" process and not reading the fine print, so I figured I'd ask it here.
Best answer by magentatechie
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