Customers of budget wireless reseller Mobi are rushing to switch carriers after the company's sudden collapse, which now includes serious fraud allegations against its CEO. The Hawaii-based company, which rented network access from both T-Mobile and Verizon to offer discount plans, has left subscribers without service and facing uncertainty about their phone numbers.
A lawsuit filed in late November accused Mobi CEO Justen Burdette of withholding roughly $1 million in employee wages, firing key executives without proper authority, and reportedly fleeing to Brazil while locking staff out of critical company systems. According to PhoneArena, a poll shows 83 percent of affected customers plan to immediately port their numbers to new carriers rather than wait for the situation to improve.
The company appeared stable just months ago. Mobi had operated in Hawaii since 2005 and expanded nationwide in 2023 through a partnership with T-Mobile, even launching a cloud-based service on AWS. But customers started reporting intermittent service in recent weeks, followed by complete shutdowns. Support emails now bounce back as undeliverable, and phone calls to customer service go unanswered.
The allegations paint a picture of internal corruption rather than simple business failure. The lawsuit claims Burdette abandoned a multimillion-dollar purchase agreement and prevented remaining executives from accessing the systems needed to keep the company running or help customers transfer their numbers out.
For Mobi's roughly 55,000 subscribers, the immediate concern is saving their phone numbers before they're lost permanently. Some customers report difficulties getting the account information needed to port out, though a few have successfully moved to other budget carriers like RedPocket. The process requires a 10-digit account number and the last six digits of the SIM card as a PIN.
This meltdown could have broader ripple effects beyond Mobi's customer base. When budget carriers fail spectacularly, it pushes people back toward the major networks despite higher prices. That's good news for T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon—fewer competitors means less pressure to offer aggressive deals or keep prices down.
The timing is particularly notable given recent industry consolidation, including EchoStar giving up on building Boost Mobile into a fourth major carrier. If incidents like Mobi's become common, the budget carrier market could shrink considerably, leaving consumers with fewer low-cost options and potentially higher bills across the board.
Source: PhoneArena
