Free Mobile: there will ultimately be no general increase in February

While the Youboox One option was to become chargeable and activated by default within the Free plans on February 1, the operator finally gave up its maneuver in the face of growling subscribers.

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Just a year ago, Free announced a rather nice enrichment for its mobile subscribers: holders of the Free plan and its light versions (“Special series”) were going to have access to some 30,000 digital books as part of the Youboox One offer. Usually billed at € 9.99 / month, said offer was made available free of charge for one year, that is to say until January 31, 2020, without concrete indication of the outcome.

Last December, Free finally announced its intentions on this subject. The operator announced that the Youboox One offer would remain in the packages, but at the preferential rate of 0.99 € / month. Naturally, Free requires, the option should remain optional, but it would be activated by default on February 1. In other words, all Free Mobile subscribers, except holders of the € 2 plan, could expect an increase of € 0.99 in February; instructs them to deactivate the option to avoid it.

When the game is not worth the candle

This practice, in the vein of the hidden increases recently denounced by the UFC-Que Choisir, did not fail to arouse the dissatisfaction of the subscribers. And after a few weeks of growling, they managed to make themselves heard. As the deadline quickly approached, the operator began this week to email affected subscribers that “Youboox One service will automatically end on January 31, 2020”. Their offer will ultimately remain “Unchanged” and Free thanks them for “ignore [son] email sent last December ”.

With this last-minute turnaround and this automatic termination, Free deprives itself of a small bonus on its income, but also saves the anger of subscribers who would have been surprised to see the addition on their bill, not to mention advertising undesirable around these practices. The operator also respects its own conditions, since the following notice can be read in the tariff brochure: “After 01/31/2020, the Youboox One Service option will be automatically removed from the Free offers.” All in all, we can say that Free did well to change their mind…

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