National Advertising Review Board Recommends T-Mobile Discontinue Certain Comparative Savings Claims for its Mobile Telephone Service

A panel of BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appellate advertising body of BBB National Programs, has recommended that T-Mobile US, Inc. discontinue the express savings claims.

New York, NY, Aug. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A panel of BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appellate advertising body of BBB National Programs, has recommended that T-Mobile US, Inc. discontinue the express savings claims:

The NARB panel also recommended that T-Mobile modify its advertising to avoid certain unsupported implied claims.

The underlying National Advertising Division (NAD) case (#7415) was initiated by Verizon Communications Inc. In that challenge, NAD recommended T-Mobile discontinue savings claims that appeared in a “Save on Every Plan” brochure, two commercials, “Top Three plays of the Day” and “Holidays are Coming in Hot: Families: Save 20%,” a T-Mobile USA press release, and on T-Mobile’s Savings Calculator website.

During the challenge, T-Mobile informed NAD that it had modified the savings claims to explicitly reference streaming services in the claims themselves and modified its disclosures for the savings claim.

The NARB panel’s review centered on whether T-Mobile’s addition of the phrase “plus streaming services,” or “plus streaming,” to its reference to monthly plan costs for Verizon or AT&T (or “the other big guys”), clearly communicates to reasonable consumers that T-Mobile’s price comparisons are based on adding to the cost of the competitor’s monthly price plan the cost of optional streaming services to match the streaming services offered for free by T-Mobile with its comparable plans.

In agreement with NAD, the NARB panel concluded that the “plus streaming” phraseology is confusing, unclear, and inadequate to accurately communicate the nature of the price comparison. Further, the panel agreed with NAD that many reasonable consumers will conclude that the promoted savings is based on the cost of the wireless plans without any adjustments for additional benefits.

Based on these findings, the NARB panel recommended that T-Mobile discontinue its express modified savings claims.

The panel further recommended that T-Mobile modify its advertising to avoid implying the following:

• Every mobile plan offered by T-Mobile costs less than comparable plans offered by T-Mobile’s competitors, including Verizon.

• All consumers on all of T-Mobile’s plans will save money or save 20% when compared to consumers on competitors’ plans.