The BBB’s National Advertising Division (NAD)has recommended T-Mobile stop using “Price Lock” in its advertising for 5G Home Internet or clarify what it means.

T-Mobile has made a big deal of its “Price Lock” guarantee. The only problem is, the company has recently raised prices, including on plans it had previously guaranteed it would never raise prices on. AT&T challenged T-Mobile’s advertising and the NAD agreed.

The NAD made note of how pervasive T-Mobile’s use of “Price Lock” is in the company’s advertising.

The challenged “Price Lock” claim appeared in print, online, and television advertising, including in a television commercial featuring actors Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Jason Momoa performing a humorous musical number promoting the beneficial features of T-Mobile’s internet service.

The NAD then recommended that the magenta carrier stop using the term, or clarify what it actually means.

In each of the challenged advertisements, the description of the “Price Lock” policy appears in text below the claim and states, with some variation, “Get your last month of service on us if we ever raise your internet rate.” NAD found that a disclosure that “Price Lock” does not lock the price but gives consumers one month of free service if certain conditions are met contradicts the main message of the “Price Lock” claim.

To avoid conveying a misleading message, NAD recommended that T-Mobile discontinue the “Price Lock” claim or modify it to explain, as part of the main claim, that “Price Lock” is a policy that promises customers a free month of home internet service if T-Mobile raises the monthly price and the consumer promptly notifies T-Mobile that they are cancelling their service.

T-Mobile reached out to WPN to share the following statement:

We believe the challenged ads clearly communicated our generous Price Lock benefit, which offers customers on eligible rate plans the opportunity to get their final month’s service charges paid by us if their price changes and they let us know they’ve chosen to leave. We will continue to offer Price Lock to customers but will take the NAD’s recommendations for clarifying the offer into consideration.