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Verizon Doubles Early Termination Fee and More
An anonymous reader writes "If you buy a smartphone through Verizon, be prepared for an increase in the early termination fee. Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350. What's more, is that Verizon also actively charges customers for accidental data transmissions of as little as 0.02kb. 'They configure the phones to have multiple easily hit keystrokes to launch 'Get it now' or 'Mobile Web'—usually a single key like an arrow key. [...] The instant you call the function, they charge you the data fee. We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn't matter; they've told me that ANY data--even one kilobyte--is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.'"
This one is proportional... $10 per month IIRC... So if you canceled 23 months in, you'd only owe $105.
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Tracfone has a brand, Straight Talk (I have no affiliation and that's not a referral link), with phones available at WalMart with unlimited voice and text plus 30 MB data for $45/30 days. Prepaid being only for low-usage folks is a bygone idea.
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number.
Google Voice to the rescue.
I was able to port the number from a Tracfone to an AT&T phone about a year and a half ago.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number. You decide to switch carriers and your phone number goes with it. Personally keeping my number is worth quite a bit more than $350. To each his own though.
According to TracFone's FAQ. They will allow you to transfer your number out of TracFone, but your personal information on the TracFone account must match the information on the new carrier's account. Source
What could be worse? They seem deliberately design the interface to trap users into triggering this extra usages. I have a Samsung SGH-T509 from T-mobile. Once you take a picture with this phone, it will display "Send to : My Album" with the right (yah, most people are right-handed too) button conveniently displaying "Yes". Every person that ever used my phone, including myself, would almost automatically click Yes; saving to the album sounds like the right thing to do after taking a picture. It turns out My Album is an online service, saving to there initiates a data transmission which is costly if you don't have a data plan. If you want to save locally, you need to click the left button (now labeled "Options",) scroll down to select and click"Send to", scroll down to and click "My photos". I figured this trick out after the first time I hit the Yes button, but still making mistakes from time to time. My wife never seems to remember this trick until it is too late.
You bet the marketing people figured out most people wouldn't want a data plan and need to trick you into sending data. trick or treat.
The last time I was on Verizon I went to get a new phone after having one for 3 years. They told me I wasn't eligible for a new phone, because my wife got one the year before. We had a shared family plan.
I found it in writing where it stipulated where we were both eligible for new phones every two years. They insisted that if I didn't get mine at the same time she got hers, then I missed my window. I was livid. I kept going back to the Verizon store (and waiting 30 minutes to talk to a person each time) and trying to talk to different people.
Eventually I said, I'll just pay my $150 cancellation fee, which is cheaper than paying full retail on a phone, since they wouldn't give me a new phone after two years.
They then said, I'd have to pay $350. They consider family plans two seperate lines. I'd pay $175 each. Funny how it is two lines for cancellation purposes, but one plan as far as getting new phones. The weird part is that I was convinced my cancellation fee was $150 when I signed the contract.
They explained that all prices and fees can be changed at any time during the contract, and that raised my cancellation fee over the life of the contract. I was pretty livid. I ended up waiting a few months and then jumping to AT&T. Now I have a phone that doesn't get signal in half the town, but I never want to go back to Verizon's service again.
Everytime a Verizon rep talks to me and tries to get me to switch, they insist they'd never pull a stunt where they wouldn't give me a phone, and yet in talking to two store managers, and calling the 1-800 number, that is exactly what they did to me.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What you are saying is good if it wasn't false.
No Contract Required -- New Month-To-Month Agreement Gives Verizon Wireless Customers Even More Freedom
No, you don't get a plan discount, but I don't believe that the plan pricing has to do with the ETF or the subsidy anyway.
*IF* you act on it in a certain period, usually 30-60 days. You can't just ride it for another year, and then say "Oh, that was unacceptable to me" and get out that way. If you don't immediately act, that's viewed as performance of the contract, implying its acceptability to you.
AT&T is no different when it comes to nickel-and-diming their customers to death.
- I have unlimited messaging on my family plan. It allows me to send unlimited SMS and MMS messages.
- I quite often accidentally push the dedicated "MediaNET" button on the phone. This opens a browser, and I am charged $0.01 per KB (rounded up, of course).
- You can have them block the browser, but blocking the browser blocks picture messages (both sending and receiving).
So either I put up with paying an extra buck or so every month (across five phones) or I shut off MMS entirely.
There's other games that cell carriers like to play, too:
AT&T loves charging you "upgrade" fees when you upgrade your phone (quite separate from getting charged for the phone itself). They claim it's so they can update their system - which is of course a gargantuan lie. I sat on the phone for twenty minutes coaxing the CSR into refunding it for me, last time they did it. The same goes for "activation" fees. I signed a two-year contract with an early cancellation fee; there's no reason to charge me on top of that. (I got that fee refunded as well.)
Seriously, people - call your cell service provider next time you upgrade your phone. Insist that they refund the "upgrade" fee, and if they need a reason tell them they're obviously charging you for nothing (since you could have merely obtained your phone some other way and they'd never know). A two-year contract is enough to satisfy their "well we subsidized the phone" fake concerns. AT&T will cave to your demand - if enough of us do it, maybe they'll stop charging it altogether. I can only assume Verizon and Sprint will follow suit given enough customer pressure.
I don't even want to start ranting about SMS messaging rates without a plan. $0.20 for a 160-byte text message that (quite literally) costs them nothing? That's where to look if you want to show nickel-and-diming...