SIM swap fraud continues to be a big problem that carriers have. What happens here is that criminals swap your line with their own SIM card so they have access to your two-factor authentication codes. With this, they are able to perform their fraudulent transactions.
In a way to help protect its customers, T-Mobile may be planning some changes to its SIM swap process. Unfortunately, this also means that customers won’t be able to do their own SIM swaps while they iron things out.
The T-Mo Report came across a (now deleted) post on Reddit that T-Mo will be disabling in-app and online SIM swaps “until further notice.” The publication also received documents confirming this post that T-Mo is “implementing extra security measures around SIM changes.” In order to do this, self-service SIM swaps are disabled for the meantime. Instead, customers who need to do a SIM swap will be directed to a retail store or to contact customer care.
The post shares that eSIM swaps made via iOS devices may still work since it is not considered a self-service method. But both physical SIMs and eSIM options will be affected by this.
There is no charge for swapping a SIM or eSIM via customer care or a physical retail store.
Source: The T-Mo Report