I ditched T-Mobile for Mint after 10 years of service - now I'm saving $120/month

Recently, a T-Mobile outage affected thousands of customers nationwide, and depending on your choice of words when conversing with a service representative, you were compensated anywhere from $10 to $80 in bill credits. Fun, right?

Had I still been a part of the magenta family, I likely would've experienced the frustration of my in-laws, who were outside a concert venue that day, waiting to regain any bit of signal to validate their tickets in the 90-degree weather.

Instead, I had already switched to Mint, a smaller but more humble conglomerate, after more than a decade as a T-Mobile customer. The decision was easy, and the lower price wasn't the only reason. Here's why you should probably change, too. 

The big carrier traps

When it comes to picking a mobile service provider, big carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T seem like the obvious choices. The extensive marketing budgets, from billboard ads to celebrity cameos in TV commercials, the BOGO phone offers, and the switch-now deals are hard to ignore. The thousands of neon-lit stores don't make things easier

But those same deals and promotions are what lock you in, whether it's a three-year contract that charges you fees if you decide to terminate things (this is in the fine print, but how many people are actually reading it?), the "bill credits" that can be viewed as free money or compensation but really only exist to retain your membership, or the inability to unlock your phone until months, if not years, after consistent usage.

Between these commitments, customers often incur hidden fees. Some examples I've seen on my past bills include:

• Device Connection Charge (DCC): A one-time fee (typically between $25 and $35) whenever you activate a new line or switch to a new device. This replaces older "activation" or "upgrade" fees. 
• Payment Support Fee: Charged when you make a purchase through the customer service line or at a retail store. It's for this reason I've only ever made (and helped make) purchases online.
• Restocking Fee: Charged when you return a device within a 14-day window, incurring a $20 to $70 restocking fee. I was once charged $20 for returning a device that wouldn't charge properly. After speaking with a customer service representative, I was refunded the money via bill credits. Sound familiar?
• Bill Reprint or Paper Statement Fees: A one-time $5 fee whenever you request an itemized bill from customer care, or a monthly $2 fee for recurring mailed paper statements. For this reason, I always set my statements to be sent electronically via email only.

The benefits weren't worth it

I stuck with T-Mobile for more than a decade because of the convenience (and the thought that switching away would be inconvenient). Through all the random fees, payment plans, and occasional network outages, I also found it easy to swing by a local store whenever I needed help setting up a device or switching to another. 

My plan also included the weekly freebies via the T-Life (formerly T-Mobile Tuesdays) app, such as $5 movie tickets and free photo prints (which came in handy for printing wedding photos for family and friends). There was also the discounted Netflix subscription, which brought the monthly price of an ever-expensive service down to $5. 

But ultimately, the perks didn't equate to the higher cost I was paying for my service, even if it was grandfathered in from years ago.