Mint Mobile refused the agent in 29 of 29 visits. It was never selected.
In the 57-journey Google Fi study, the agent named Mint Mobile as an option in 44 runs and requested mintmobile.com in 29.
Named-offer check 44 runs · met inside a named-offer check of Google Fi · one research-agent configuration · no purchase made · 2026-09-21 · all 57 journeys of this decision
In the 57-journey Google Fi study, the agent named Mint Mobile as an option in 44 runs and requested mintmobile.com in 29. All 29 requests were refused. What reached the agent from other sites was that Mint’s $30-a-line price needs a 3, 6 or 12-month prepaid term and rises after the introductory period. Mint was left unresolved in 29 runs, rejected in 10, and selected in none.
- The customer’s requirements
- Three lines; all-in monthly total at most $120; no annual contract, billed month to month; a phone number that reaches a human.
- The information used
- From whistleout.com, gethuman.com and bestphoneplans.net: about $30 a line on prepaid multi-month terms, an introductory price that rises after three months, a support phone number seen only in a search snippet. Twenty-seven beliefs cite a mintmobile.com address, none from a page the agent read: eight from requests the site refused, nineteen from search extracts.
- The resulting recommendation
- Not selected in any of the 44 journeys where it was named. Unresolved in 29, rejected in 10, eligible in 1.
The full evidence, every option weighed and every source, follows below and on each journey page.
The customer
The same three-line US household as the Google Fi study: at most $120 a month all in, no annual contract, a human on the phone. Mint was never the brand under study; it entered because the agent went looking for alternatives.
What the agent researched
mintmobile.com in 29 journeys, refused with 403 in all 29. Mint facts then came from whistleout.com, gethuman.com, bestphoneplans.net and search extracts. Twenty-seven beliefs cite a mintmobile.com address that the agent never read: eight came from refused requests, nineteen from search extracts.
What it believed
That the headline price needs a prepaid 3, 6 or 12-month term, which the agent read as conflicting with the month-to-month requirement; that the price rises after an introductory period; that a phone number exists but was seen only in a snippet. In several journeys the agent recorded the price and term as internally inconsistent across sources.
The decision
Mint was left unresolved in 29 journeys and rejected in 10. In none of the 44 was it selected. The rejections cite the prepaid term structure and the post-introductory price; the unresolved cases cite the refused page and third-party figures that could not confirm the three-line total or the billing term.
The pair with Tesla
Tesla refused the agent in every journey and was selected four times out of four, because Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds carried the facts the customer needed. Mint refused the agent in every journey and was never selected, because the facts that reached the agent from elsewhere either failed the requirement or could not confirm it. The wall did not decide either outcome. What was available outside the wall did.
What this means for the brand
A refused request leaves the brand’s case to whoever else describes it. In these journeys the description was a prepaid term and an introductory price, and no page of Mint’s own could add context. Whether a readable page would have changed the result is not established here.
What could be tested
The same household, the same 44 journeys as the baseline, with Mint’s plan page readable to the agent. The measure is the number of unresolved verdicts, not the number of selections.
The journeys
- 1Customer missionUS three-line household (declared brief)
- monthly all-in price for 3 lines ≤ $120 USD including taxes and fees
- no annual contract and no device-financing obligation (month-to-month)
- ability to reach a human support agent by phone
- price does not rise after an introductory period (preference)
- 2Evidence8 searches, 4 pages: fi.google.com, phonecompass.com, visible.com
- budget: $90/month base price for 3 lines (Simply Unlimited); taxes and fees are extra an bestmvno.com
- term: No service contract; can cancel anytime. Device financing is a separate, optiona phonecompass.com
- support: Toll-free support number 1-844-825-5234, independently listed by two third-party gethuman.com
- 3BeliefCould not establish: Exact all-in monthly price for 3 lines including taxes and fees (only base price plus a general tax-rate estimate is available); Direct brand-property
- 4DecisionSelectedGoogle Fi Wireless — Simply Unlimited (3 lines)Simply Unlimited's published base price for 3 lines is $90/month (reported by multiple independent secondary sources, e.g. bestmvno.com, phonearena.com), which leaves eno…
- 1Customer missionUS three-line household (declared brief)
- monthly all-in price for 3 lines ≤ $120 USD including taxes and fees
- no annual contract and no device-financing obligation (month-to-month)
- human reachable by phone for support
- preference: price should not rise after an introductory period
- 2Evidence8 searches, 4 pages: fi.google.com, support.google.com, en.wikipedia.org
- budget base price: $90/month for 3 lines (Unlimited Standard, pre-tax base price) brand page
- term: No annual service contract; cancel anytime with no ETF; device financing is opti brand page
- 3BeliefCould not establish: exact all-in (tax+fee-inclusive) monthly total for 3 lines at the household's actual service address; whether Google Fi offers a genuine, agent-confir
- 4DecisionNot selected: a decisive fact stayed unresolvedNONENo candidate could be confirmed against all three hard requirements using sources the agent could actually read. Google Fi's Unlimited Standard tier is confirmed at $90/m…
- 1Customer missionUS three-line household (declared brief)
- monthly all-in price for 3 lines ≤ $120 USD including taxes and fees
- no annual contract and no device-financing obligation (month-to-month)
- human reachable by phone for support
- US market availability
- 2Evidence5 searches, 7 pages: fi.google.com, blog.google, support.google.com, mintmobile.com +1
- term: No annual contract; can cancel anytime (service-level). Device-financing obligat blog.google
- 3BeliefCould not establish: budget: exact all-in monthly price for 3 lines including taxes and government fees (brand pages truncated/unreadable; comparison sites report base pri
- 4DecisionNot selected: a decisive fact stayed unresolvedNONEGoogle Fi Wireless (the named offer) could not be fully qualified: its own brand pages for plans, support, and FAQ (fi.google.com/about/plans, /about/support-simple, /abo…
Limits
- Encounter data: the requirements were written for the Google Fi study, not for Mint; this is how Mint fared inside someone else’s comparison.
- One agent configuration, two days, no memory arm.
- The 403 is what mintmobile.com returned to this harness on 16 and 17 September 2026; a different client may be treated differently.
- Every journey run with Claude on the live web. Every source, belief and decision published.
Reproduce this experiment → the frozen customer mission, ready to run in your own agent.
Investigated with Accord. Accord is the decision-intelligence system behind these experiments. It reconstructs how customer agents evaluate services, identifies what remains unresolved, and tests what changes when the enterprise provides better information or a more authoritative answer. For brands and CX teams →