A simple way to get out of your cell phone contract (without paying the early termination fee)
5 comments so farLocked into a contract with a carrier you’re unhappy with, with a phone that’s out-dated and falling apart with 11 months left to go? Paying significantly more than the advertised $39.99 per month? Well, if you happen to be AT&T or Verizon Wireless I have some good news for you. Both companies recently upped their text messaging rates.
That’s good news? Yes. Because it constitutes an “adverse material change” in your contract which means you can get out without paying the hefty $175-ish early termination fee.
Of course, your other options in carriers might not be much better than what you already have. But if you’ve been looking to jump ship, now is the time to do it.
There are a few steps you’ll have to take, including remaining firm when the customer service reps try to make you feel dumb for canceling over a something so small as a ten cent increase in texting costs. (”If it’s not a big deal, why are you changing a legal contract to charge the extra money?”) For more details check out articles on the subject here (AT&T) and here (Verizon).
And if anybody has any success bailing on their carrier, please drop me a note and let me know how it went. Good luck!
LivSimpl
Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 10:23 am and is filed under Finances, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Interesting. My husband was just reading about getting out of cell phone jail and the article said tell them the primary person on the account died. They never check that stuff. That seems like an awful way to tempt fate to me. Like telling your boss your Grandma died if she didn’t. What are you going to do when she does?!
Anyway, that article is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342054/ if you’re interested in reading it.
Margi - I’ve heard of people doing this too, although I’m not particularly fond of the method. And, in fact, I’ve heard stories about requiring a death certificate to be faxed in.
Of course, you could always try to get someone to take over the account - put it in somebody else’s name.
It’s a shame that we have to figure out ways to get out of contracts with companies. Any good company would want to compete on service an products and not lock you into a stupid contract.
If its legal, I’m all for it.
Gidiyup - I couldn’t agree with you more. Thanks for the comment!
I agree with everyone. What I would like to know is how can we be locked into a contract when the company that you signed with is not upholding the service and suport the contrsct promises? I recently purchased a pc phone almost 9 months ago and it has never worked properly. Verizon has strung me along with software downloads and lengthy support calls all this time and the phone still does not work right. They now tell me my phone is out of waranty so I am stuck with it now. So Now I am moving to AT&T regardless of the early termination. Verizon makes you sign these contracts because they want you to have more confidence in their company than they have themself.