How to Escape Your Cellphone Contract for Cheap

A customer looking to get out of his cellphone calling plan early often faces hefty termination fees. These fees exist as a sort of hedge for the carriers: They slash the up-front cost of phones to get you into a long-term contract, and punish you for breaking that contract. For those looking to get out of their contract, however, it is possible to eliminate or at least reduce those fees.

If They Change Your Terms, You Can Escape

From time to time, cellular carriers make changes to their cellphone calling plans. Each time they make a "material change" to a contract, customers are allowed to break the contract within 30 days. Examples of material changes include changes to the rates themselves, the addition of maintenance or service fees, or changes in the way a discount is applied to the account.

Users who are thinking about canceling an account should be sure to read up on news about their current carrier and read their monthly phone bills carefully. Carriers are required to announce these changes to affected customers, and usually do so on the monthly statements customers receive. Once the carrier announces such a change, contact customer service and request they terminate the contract.

Trade Your Mobile Plan

If a customer wants to get out of his current contract, chances are he's not alone. Several services exist for the sole purpose of connecting like-minded customers so they can come up with solutions that work for both parties. These swaps are fairly common and do not violate the contract's terms of service, since the other party is agreeing to fulfill the terms of the contract.

Services such as Cellswapper.com and TradeMyCellular.com allow members to post the terms of their contract (number of lines, plan and phone details, and monthly cost) and essentially trade contracts with other customers looking for shorter-term contracts on that customer's network. For example, if a customer has one year left on a Verizon contract and is looking to go to AT&T for six months to see if that carrier is better, the service will pair the customer up with an AT&T customer looking for a short-term Verizon contract. The service arranges everything for both parties. The customer simply sends his phone to the other person, pays the transfer fee to the site making the trade, and goes on his merry way with a new, (hopefully) improved service.

Get Your New Carrier to Pay the Early Termination Fee

In some instances, carriers will offer to pay all or a portion of its own early termination fee if the customer agrees to sign a new contract with them. Sprint offered this to consumers about a year ago, but these deals are more likely to be found at smaller carriers, as well as at MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) such as Boost, Virgin, or Simple Mobile. Ting, an MVNO that uses the Sprint network, has reserved $100,000 to pay off the early termination fee of any customer who moves his number to Ting during the month of February. These promotions happen fairly frequently on the smaller carriers looking to build their mobile subscribers, so keep on the lookout for announcements.

Prove That Your Service Stinks

It used to be that if customers experienced poor service at their home or workplace, they could easily get out of their contracts without fees. Recently, however, carriers have reworked their contracts to make this tactic much more difficult to execute. Customers must now keep track of dropped calls and their locations and file multiple formal complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau, and other consumer-watchdog organizations before contacting a carrier.

With the rise in popularity of social networking, however, consumers have a new, loud voice to lodge complaints against a carrier. A customer with a large Twitter following has a particularly good chance of getting a carrier to take him seriously.

Just Pay the Fee and Sell Your Phone

Sometimes it just costs less in the long run to pay the early termination fee. And carriers now offer a sliding scale for ETFs: Instead of charging users an exorbitant fee no matter how much time is left on the contract, they will take into account the amount of time remaining on the contract and the type of phone, and might reduce the fee accordingly. Services such as MyRatePlan and even the carrier's own website will provide the exact amount of an early termination fee based on your contract end date.

Once the customer decides to pay the fee, he is left with the phone itself. To try to offset the cost of the fees, many people try to sell their old phones on services such as Swappa or eBay. Others take the phone along with them to a new carrier. Just be sure to find out which carriers the phone is compatible with before making a move.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/how-to-escape-your-cellphone-contract-for-cheap-15124938?src=rss

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