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FCC Probes Google and T-Mobile For Double-Whammy Fees
Julie188 writes "On Monday, the FCC asked Google, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon to explain how they tell their customers about early wireless contract termination fees. Notice that Google is the only handset retailer in the bunch. That's because if someone buys a Nexus One phone from Google with a two-year T-Mobile contract, and the user wants out of that contract, the user is expected to pay two early termination fees. One fee would be charged by Google and a second charged by T-Mobile."
For communications companies, they are awfully good at not telling you anything they don't want you to pay attention to.
Of course they are, they stick marketing professionals on the team that makes these to make sure you don't read it. From the fees being in super small print in some vaguely titled paragraph of the contract to the notices of changes to your account being on the back of the second to last page of your monthly bill it is all been carefully designed so that the vast majority of people never ever read it.
It is the same reason that when your credit card changes terms you get a separate letter which looks like just some random piece of bulk junk mail, and if you do open it and read it, one of the the first things you see is "You don't have to do anything!" and the terms go into effect.
Except carriers have used "paying off your subsidy" as the reason for the very very high early termination fees. If, when you cancel your Nexus One contract, you need to pay Google for the rest of the phone, what are you paying for at T-Mobile?
Yes, and I am sure you read every word of every EULA for every piece of software that you install as well.