T-Mobile US CEO John Legere today said that data overage fees are greedy and predatory and that the company plans to stop charging them.

Legere today also launched a Change.org petition calling on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint to eliminate overage charges—despite the fact that T-Mobile plans to continue charging entry-level customers for extra data.

Just last week, T-Mobile announced a Simple Starter plan for $40 a month, which includes unlimited talk and text and up to 500MB of 4G data with "no data overage charges."

Hitting the 500MB cap without buying more bits results in data services being turned off. After a user hits the cap, "the service is suspended, with the peace of mind that no overage fees will apply," T-Mobile said. To get additional data, customers have to pay for "on-demand data passes." The company doesn't call that an "overage" fee since it doesn't get billed automatically.

"It is not automatic, and it’s not a surprise," a T-Mobile spokesperson told Ars. "There are still scenarios where customers may add on additional services—e.g. pay-per-use plans and international toll calling or roaming (in non-Simple Global countries)."

The extra data passes cost $5 for one day with up to 500MB of high-speed data or $10 for one week with up to 1GB. The charges go up for international data. One day with 100MB internationally is $15, one week with 200MB is $25, and two weeks with 500MB is $50. (T-Mobile offers free international data roaming for Simple Choice plans, but with speeds of only 128Kbps. The free international roaming isn't available on the new Simple Starter plans.)

Verizon Wireless's overage charge for 1GB is $10, which lasts the rest of the month after a user goes over the limit. Verizon sends out warnings to consumers before they hit their limit.

Nothing much changed for most T-Mobile customers today, who see their speeds throttled when they pass their data limits. Customers on some older plans have been paying overage charges to T-Mobile right up until this month, but in the future they will be throttled instead unless they choose to pay for additional high-speed data.

CEO: The fees we charged until today were “predatory”

T-Mobile's Simple Choice plans start at $50 a month for 1GB of data and unlimited talk and text. There are no automatic fees for using data after that first gigabyte, but the speed is dropped from 4G to 2G unless the customer chooses to pay for extra 4G data.

In last week's announcement of the lower-cost Simple Starter plan, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said, "We are freeing consumers from the predatory practices of traditional US wireless companies, and that includes these plans that start with a low price and a low data limit but then hit you with insane fees if you send one too many e-mails."

In today's announcement, Legere said that "charging overage fees is a greedy, predatory practice that needs to go."

While T-Mobile began throttling data speeds instead of charging overage fees several years ago, the carrier decided to reinstate overage fees for a 200MB plan in August 2011. “Customers will incur overages of $0.10 per MB when they exceed 200MB of data ($10 for 100MB) up to a maximum monthly payment of $40 with both Value and Classic plans for data including the 200MB add-on fee,” T-Mobile said at the time, according to AllthingsD.

T-Mobile's move today to stop charging overage fees "primarily affects our customers who are on older plans," the T-Mobile spokesperson told Ars. The company says it estimates that 20 million Americans were charged more than $1 billion in overage fees by wireless companies last year, but it refused to say how many of those people were charged the fees by T-Mobile.

In October last year, a letter from T-Mobile showed that it was moving customers off older plans and selecting new ones for them. "With this plan, you may pay more for your service, but you'll continue to enjoy access to the latest smartphones and T-Mobile's advanced nationwide 4G network with LTE, rolling out in 2013," the letter published by TmoNews said. Customers were given until February 2014 to cancel service without penalty.

Any customers who weren't automatically moved to new plans will stop seeing data overage fees next month, Legere wrote today. "Starting in May for bills arriving in June—regardless of whether you're on Simple Choice, Simple Starter, or an older plan, we're abolishing overages for good. Period," he wrote.

Voice minutes and texts are generally unlimited on T-Mobile plans, with the exception of pay-as-you-go plans.

It’s not an ad

Legere's Change.org petition calls on "AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint to follow T-Mobile’s lead and abolish these overages once and for all." It's not the first time Change.org has been used to call on technology companies to alter their policies—one such petition asked Google to change its YouTube commenting system—but generally the petitions aren't launched by a company seeking to convince customers that it's better than its rivals.

Change.org allows companies to pay for sponsored campaigns. The Legere petition isn't sponsored, but T-Mobile spoke to Change.org before launching it, a T-Mobile spokesperson said.

"They support the change we’re trying to bring to the industry and tweeted out our petition this morning," T-Mobile said. "We see the petition differently [than an ad]. We’re starting a movement to change this industry for the better. We’re not—in any way—asking people on Change.org to use our services. We’re asking them to demand better of the US wireless industry."

A Change.org spokesperson told Ars that the website "is an open platform where anyone, including an organization, elected official, or even CEO can start a petition about absolutely anything they care about. We often see companies start petitions about issues they believe are in the public interest, and we’ve found that many of our users are passionate about consumer rights issues."